Training, Teamwork Helps NSA Philadelphia Respond to Storm Damage

PHILADELPHIA (NNS) -- Naval Support Activity (NSA) Philadelphia activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC), with support from local emergency personnel, in response to powerful winds that ripped through the base Nov. 17.

More than 60 trees were blown down, stripped of their branches or uprooted, while fences were mangled, windows broken and roofs damaged during the high winds.

Even the static aircraft displays weren't spared, with one of the World War II era airplane's wings broken in half.

The incident happened at approximately 2 a.m. Nov. 17, during which time there were fewer employees on base.

"If this happened during working hours it would have been disastrous," said Stanley Adams, NSA Philadelphia security director and incident commander during the storm. "If we had our full complement of 6,000 people here it would have been devastating."

The first priorities for responding personnel was to ensure the base was secure and to mitigate any potential safety hazards from trees or other debris that could still injure someone.

"We started cleaning up the debris around 5:30 a.m.," said Dennis Donahue, EOC operations officer. "We initiated a gate closure immediately because there was so much debris on the road. There was no access to that side of the base whatsoever."

"We kind of got lucky because we were going to run a drill that day. We had police, FBI, fire, emergency management people on scene already," said Adams.

Adams, Donahue and other first responders decided at approximately 6 a.m. to set up their EOC to coordinate a safe and quick response to the damage.

"Safety wise we had to clean up the streets and set up cones so people would know where they are going. We tried to clean up the nails out of the street because there were a lot of roofing nails in the street," Adams said. "I think that if one thing sticks out in my mind about the process it was the Virtual Command Center (VCC) that the FBI provided us."

Virtual Command Center is a crisis management tool, accessed through Law Enforcement Online, which is secured and maintained through a partnership between Louisiana State University and the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

"VCC is successful because it recognizes that, although law enforcement officers represent different agencies with different AORs (Areas of Responsibility), with the onset of crisis, we become family," said Michelle Bishop, FBI VCC coordinator. "The VCC ensures that its viewers are kept abreast of one another's activities, as investigators cover leads in an effort to resolve the situation."

"In a CP (command post), the VCC commands order within the chaos. It not only streamlines and prioritizes information, which is crucial to an emergency situation, but it also associates significant pieces of information and bridges intelligence gaps," Bishop said. "More to the point, it helps prevent the occurrence of a crisis within a crisis."

In addition to the VCC, Donahue and other members of the NSAP EOC received training in EOC operations early in 2010.

"There was a better definition of our roles because of the class," said Donahue. "It was never clear before but now, even with only 50 percent of our personnel responding, everyone knew what needed to be done and what their roles were."

"They organized the class in such a fashion that when we set up our EOC we just tried to duplicate their instruction," Adams said. "We didn't have all the equipment they did but we worked with what we had and it worked out pretty well."

As the day progressed and the safety and security hazards were taken care of, Donahue was happy with how the responders handled the storm damage and that it didn't affect the base's mission.

"I was very pleased with the response and the way that we informed our workforce. We had good communications in place, we had the phone lines covered and we had people who aren't part of the EOC volunteer to help out which was really nice," said Donahue.

For more news from Naval Support Activity Mechanicsburg, visit www.navy.mil/local/nsamech/.