First Person: Battalion commander shares views on Alaska disaster exercise

By Lt. Col. Andrew J. DeKever, Army Field Support Battalion - AlaskaApril 28, 2014

Exercise Alaska Shield 2014
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Exercise Alaska Shield 2014
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In the early morning hours of March 27, 1964, south central Alaska was rocked by a 9.2 magnitude earthquake that shook the landscape around the Anchorage area for a full three minutes. When the dust settled, parts of Kodiak Island had been raised by 30 feet, while areas 40 miles south of Anchorage had been dropped 8 feet. Anchorage itself was in ruins, and the coast of Alaska was pummeled by tsunamis.

The death toll was 139 souls lost. It was the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded on seismograph.

What saved Alaska was a partnership between federal, state, and local governmental bodies to respond to the disaster. These efforts were so successful that, in the years since, rather than abandon Alaska, Alaska's population has grown faster than the national average, people willing to risk life in the "Last Frontier" -- to include a repeat of the Good Friday earthquake of 1964 -- because they feel secure that, should it happen again, the collective power of the federal, state, and local governmental partnership will enable their quick recovery.

The approach of the 50th anniversary of this disaster provided an excellent opportunity for all levels of government to come together again to test their ability to collectively respond to a major earthquake.

This was the foundation for Alaska Shield 2014, of which Army Field Support Battalion-Alaska and 404th Army Field Support Brigade were actively involved.

AFSBn-ALK's work with this exercise began in August 2012, when the 404th AFSB tasked its battalions to prepare for the mission of supporting potential Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DCSA) operations. This prompted us to reach out beyond U.S. Army Alaska to engage organizations such as FEMA and Joint Task Force-Alaska.

Since we had not engaged in DSCA operations before, the first step was for us to determine what our likely missions would be to support DSCA. We came up with the following:

1) Brigade Logistics Support Team assistance to USARAK should USARAK be called upon to respond to a DSCA mission;

2) "Immediate Response," in which local civil authorities would temporarily (i.e., up to 72 hours) ask for Army Materiel Command assets in Alaska (such as Left Behind Equipment) until assets are available in the lower 48 states via National Guard channels;

3) BSI (Base Support Installation), in which AMC pushes additional capabilities to Alaska to provide support for additional military forces being sent from elsewhere (such as if engineer and other military units were sent, and in response, AMC pushed additional LRC assets here to support the additional forces because our Logistics Readiness Centers wouldn't have the capability to support them);

4) Support to the National Guard;

5) Logistics Assistance Representative support to smaller units (i.e., like an engineer company) that would deploy here from outside the state; and

6) Synchronize the activities of other AMC slice elements in Alaska that don't fall under the AFSBn's command and control in their support to DSCA.

During the following 18 months, we participated in regularly scheduled Joint Task Force-Alaska In Progress Reviews, to ensure FEMA and other DSCA partners understood what AMC could do and not do in support of DSCA. We also participated in planning conferences, tabletop exercises, and other such forums.

When the exercise kicked off on March 27, our participation took various forms. To begin with, we established a liaison officer with the 593rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., which was serving as the Joint Forces Land Component Commander staff. As situations arose, the liaison officer would confer with AFSBn-ALK Support Operations and the Joint Forces Land Component Command staff to determine what AMC could do to solve problems.

Additionally, AFSBn-ALK gathered reports from other AMC elements in Alaska that did not fall under our mission command, such as Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, contracting, and the Logistics Readiness Centers at Forts Wainwright and Greely, to present one AMC common operating picture for Alaska to 404th AFSB.

Lastly, with so many organizations coming to Alaska from the Lower 48 - (such as 593rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), 167th Theater Support Command, and the 7th Sustainment Brigade (Joint Logistics Over the Shore) - our logistics assistance and field support representatives provided support to them as they established their communications infrastructure.

404th AFSB served as our link between Alaska and the materiel enterprise, looking at the situation on the ground and then collaborating with us on how strategic-level AMC assets could be used as part of exercise scenarios. These efforts took place in concert with those elements of the 593rd ESC that remained at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

At the conclusion of the exercise, a number of after-action review comments were clear. To begin with, the AFSBn learned that we could not limit ourselves to just the JFLCC, and so we quickly branched out and participated in meetings and briefings with the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson garrison commander, JTF-Alaska, 167th TSC, etc. This allowed us to see the exercise from different perspectives, giving us more opportunities to interject support.

Additionally, we learned the challenges of gathering information from AMC elements in Alaska that do not have a regular reporting requirement to us because they fall outside the mission command of AFSBn-ALK and 404th AFSB. If we are to "train as we fight," then AMC should create regular reporting requirements for these slice elements through the AFSBn so the AFSBn can serve as AMC's "face to the field."

We also experienced systemic problems with the Army Disaster Personnel Accountability and Assessment System, determining it offered no value during the exercise. We found greater value in hard copy alert rosters and cell phones when accounting for our people.

Additionally, the only way that we learned that AMC had sent someone to Alaska as part of the relief effort was when we noted people we did not recognize who had an AMC patch on their left sleeve. So, the communications flow needs to be improved.

We also experienced challenges when it came to information sharing on a joint base, given that Army network computers weren't able to access Air Force SharePoint sites, and the Air Force wasn't able to email encrypted information to us.

Lastly, because ASC had not published a personnel status report format before the exercise began, 404th AFSB and AFSBn-ALK were drafting and redrafting a PERSTAT throughout the exercise, learning through trial and error the best way to account for ASC and Life Cycle Management Command personnel, as well as contractors, family members, etc.

Overall, it was a good learning experience, leaving everyone more confident in their ability to respond should such a disaster happen again.

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