Team Moody kicks off hurricane response exercise

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Sonny Cohrs
  • 23d Wing Public Affairs
MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. --  With hurricane season just around the corner, does your family have a plan? Do they have a set place to go in the event they are separated? Do you have adequate food, water, medicine? Do you need baby formula? What about the dog? Do you have a weather radio in the event power goes out prior to evacuation notification?

Now is the time to prepare, and that is exactly why Team Moody began a hurricane response exercise May 11 to test the base's readiness and recovery. The exercise is scheduled to last through May 15.

The scenario includes the fictional Tropical Storm Edgar, which will eventually have an impact on Moody Air Force Base, Ga., later in the week. Throughout the scenario, wing leadership will have to make the determination on how best to prepare for the storm and protect its people and assets.

"It is incredibly important for a base and their civilian population to test their response capability," said Tech. Sgt. Brandi Baker, NCO in charge of emergency management for the base. "When we train and test this capability, it becomes second nature -- a type of muscle memory that allows us to function and make decisions in what would normally be an incredibly stressful event."

Testing the base's response to a natural disaster helps ensure all agencies are adequately trained and ready for a real-world event. To ensure readiness, the Wing Inspection Team (WIT) has 25 inspectors in the units to evaluate the process. Joining them are seven 23d Wing Inspector General personnel and 13 additional inspectors from Air Combat Command.

"WIT personnel are measuring the 23d Wing's capabilities to account for personnel prior to, during and following severe weather as well as implement protective measures prior to, during and after severe weather conditions," said Maj. Zachary Laird, 23d WG director of inspections.  "Additionally, we are evaluating the 23d Wing's ability to recover critical assets to include facilities, the runway, electrical power and water in order to return to normal operational status."

Because weather is unpredictable, the base essentially prepares for a "worst case" scenario and develops a plan to evacuate its people and aircraft.

"People often feel as if evacuation can wait until the last minute or that the improbable cannot affect them," Baker added. "If their area has never received record amounts of rain/run off, then they may not feel they have to evacuate. These individuals most often ... have to be air lifted from their residences because they chose to wait it out. Instead we need to focus on what our families need to evacuate, quickly and safely."

With previous hurricane exercises mostly concentrating on the evacuation of critical base assets, this exercise puts more of an emphasis on Installation Recovery Procedures.

"The most important thing to take from this exercise is to identify areas for improvement during the upcoming hurricane season," Laird added.  "Checklists should be updated with lessons learned, phone numbers scrubbed and updated, and each work center should capture areas where they performed well and areas that need improvement and then identify how to improve upon the weak areas during a real world weather or natural disaster event."