Naval District Washington (NDW) hosted a Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) Table Top Exercise (TTX) at the Admiral Gooding Center on the Washington Navy Yard, Sept. 7.

Military and civilian leaders from commands throughout the National Capital Region gathered alongside local and state emergency service planners to walk through DSCA scenarios such as hazardous material spills or natural disasters. Events that would require Navy Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officers (NEPLO) to coordinate the use of NDW resources to aid civilian authorities.

"I think it went very well," said James Pelkofski, NDW director of operations. "Of all the things we exercise and all of the things we plan for, those are the most likely scenarios. It's happening right now in Texas, it's happening in Puerto Rico and will likely to happen in Florida. We at the Department of Defense will be called upon to render assistance in terms of either manpower support or making our bases available to stage assets."

"We had great participation and big interest from the installations that were represented," Pelkofski continued. "They're the ones who will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting, so their participation was crucial and they came out in force."

The TTX was coordinated and lead by three NDW NEPLOs and two representing the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"I wanted to create realistic scenarios," said Captain David Dietz, NDW NEPLO commanding officer. "The critical point is that in today's environment is that there's a higher expectation for DOD services in terms of response to DSCA scenarios, that' really been the biggest change over the last 10 years. We had a great dialogue and now the important part is what we do with this information going forward."

Pelkofski says the DSCA TTX will become an annual event in order to strengthen the relationship between commands in attendance and agencies at the state and federal level.

"There's always value in getting together with our partners and talking about operations. These opportunities, although probably too rare, are also too valuable to miss. Today was an excellent use of our time," said Pelkofski.

For more news from Naval District Washington, visit www.navy.mil/.