Oregon Guard Strengthens Incident Response Readiness

Oregon Guard Strengthens Incident Response Readiness

By John Hughel, Oregon National Guard

WARRENTON, Ore. - Oregon National Guardsmen strengthened their incident response readiness Oct. 15 during a training exercise that simulated a tsunami and focused on air mobility and structural collapse rescue operations.

The exercise at Camp Rilea Armed Forces Training Center simulated the chaos after a massive earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone triggered a tsunami that struck coastal towns and left victims trapped beneath collapsed buildings. U.S. Coast Guard and Air Force reservists, along with the Clackamas County Fire District, also participated in the exercise.

Two Oregon Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopters from B Company, 1st Battalion, 168th General Support Aviation Battalion transported first responder teams from the Portland Air National Guard Base to Camp Rilea, carrying extraction gear, medical supplies and vital communications equipment. Working side by side, Air Force special warfare service members and other crews raced to locate and rescue survivors, coordinating air evacuations with the U.S. Coast Guard Station Astoria using its MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters.

The training focused on building a comprehensive statewide urban search-and-rescue response, a key objective in recent exercises involving Clackamas County Fire and regional military first-responder teams. Local media affiliates and elected officials were invited to observe the training.

"What's most challenging is that when we take a look at our response framework in Oregon for a structural collapse, we are lacking a big piece, and that is an urban search-and-rescue program," said Oregon State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple when speaking to the media.

The state once had its own urban search-and-rescue team, organized into 10 districts, but Ruiz-Temple said it is now organized at the department level. However, Clackamas Fire District is part of the all-hazards mutual aid system, so it can respond to emergencies beyond its borders when local teams become overwhelmed by a large-scale disaster.

Helicopter response was critical to the training because areas along the Pacific Coastline can be difficult to access by road and bridge. Specialized equipment, designed to be transported on existing roadways, would need to be flown in, making military aviation crews vital to recovery efforts and to reaching trapped survivors quickly.

"How do we find victims within that first 24 hours, which is really the key critical time to find victims," Ruiz-Temple said. "The survivor rate dramatically drops after 24 hours."

As crews quickly unloaded pallets of equipment at two separate landing zones at Camp Rilea, more than 20 Clackamas County firefighters trained in Urban Search and Rescue and nearly two dozen military special operations personnel sprang into action.

Before the air crew's arrival, members of Charon Human Advocacy Intervention Services, which provides professional handlers and working dogs, searched the site for victims. A team from Oregon Health Sciences University's Trauma team also participated in the exercise, using the opportunity to interface with the joint response effort.

"Our Urban Search and Rescue Task Force is able to deploy in different areas around the region," said Lynsey Amundson, the public information officer with Clackamas Fire District, describing the tsunami training condition. "If a tsunami came in, and they need help out here (along the coastline), we could work with the Oregon National Guard and Coast Guard to get out here in these communities and help in those operations."

Earlier this year, these same groups participated in training exercises focused on air monitoring after a toxic chemical release and airborne operations along the Sandy River in response to severe flooding.

Since late February, many of these agencies have come together to strengthen disaster response. The Oregon National Guard, along with other military first responders and the Clackamas Fire District, has participated in a three-part training series designed to strengthen collaborative incident-response capabilities.

This tsunami response exercise used an established multi-agency approach, letting teams work on collapsed structures using best-practice procedures and bringing specialized skills to help recover victims. As rescue teams cut through concrete with saws, jackhammers and sledgehammers, crews removed the simulated patients from the structures for air transport to the Coast Guard Jayhawks.

Members of the Oregon National Guard's Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-Yield Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package, or CERFP, a specialized multi-agency team, also supported the exercise. They are trained to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive incidents.

"Everyone has a different procedure for how they conduct response operations," said Oregon Army National Guard 1st Lt. Emily Schroff, the operations officer in charge of the Oregon CERFP, when speaking with reporters. "When we train with them on the front end before a disaster occurs, it gives us the opportunity to find any issues that may arise or anything we need to get better at so that we're able to respond more efficiently and assist the public."