San Francisco Fleet Week 2019 began as the military worked in collaboration with the city of San Francisco to hold the annual Defense Support of Civil Authority (DSCA) exercise.

The exercise was an opportunity for the city and military to practice how they would work together during a natural disaster and also gave the team an opportunity to practice its amphibious off-loading capabilities of the Navy’s large industrial equipment. The focus of this year’s exercise is to test road-clearing capabilities and provide search and rescue support. 

“Every year San Francisco is excited to partner with our local, state, federal and military partners to practice what we would do if there was a catastrophic event in San Francisco,” said Bijan Karimi, the Assistant Deputy Director of Department of Emergency Management. “Every year we pick something different to work on, and this year it’s debris and route clearing.”

The exercise brought together people and assets from a myriad of agencies, such as, the U.S. Navy, Coastguard, Marines, the Port of San Francisco, FEMA, San Francisco police and firefighters, and the San Diego Department of Emergency Management. The collaboration discussed, theorized and simulated the capabilities, needs and assets of the individual organizations and how they could all come together in the event of a natural disaster. With a special emphasis this year on how the military could off-load and dock crucial debris clearing equipment to open essential routes through the city.

“We have had multiple table top exercises this year in San Francisco,” said Cmdr. Brian Sauerhage, a DSCA planner assigned to U.S. Navy Third Fleet, located in San Diego. “Today simulates day five of a San Francisco Earthquake. So, our ships would land their landing craft and we would off-load route opening equipment like bull dozers and front loaders to integrate in with the public works department of San Francisco to help open critical routes in the city.”

The weeks of planning and coordination made for a unifying start to the 2019 San Francisco Fleet Week. San Francisco Fleet Week, now in its 39th year, celebrates the rich naval tradition in the Bay area, honors our nation's service members, and facilitates annual disaster preparedness training between the Navy, Marines Corps, Coast Guard and local first responders.

For more on San Diego Fleet Week, visit Defense Visual Information Distribution Service at https://www.dvidshub.net/feature/SFFW2019.

Images are available on the Navy Region Southwest Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NavyRegionSouthwest/.

For more information on San Francisco Fleet Week, visit www.fleetweeksf.org.

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For more news from Commander, Navy Region Southwest, visit www.navy.mil/.