National Level Exercise 2011

Well, we did it! 54 members of Task Force 4 from all over the district descended upon Muscatatuck Urban Training Center Monday, May 16th thru Friday, May 20th for the National Level Exercise “Shaking Bedrock”. Overall, our activation, mobilization, convoying and demobilization went very well, with many lessons learned. Most importantly, everyone had a safe week and came back home! For those who do not know, District 4 was not even suppose to “play” in this exercise. District 1, 2 nor 3 could belly up a Fire Suppression Element to come to this exercise and that is when IDHS approached us about participating. 5 months prior to the exercise… District 4 stood up to the challenge. And we did it.

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Our Fire Suppression Element, led by Jim Lewis, was comprised of 29 firefighters /paramedics from Crawfordsville, West Lafayette, Lafayette, Wabash Township, Randolph Township, Sheffield Township, Purdue University and Tippecanoe County Emergency Ambulance Service . I don’t know how else to put it…they…did really well! Ryan Linder of the West Lafayette Fire Department sums it up by saying, it was “a great experience. Every responder from the state should see what this entails and how to deal with this type of a disaster. (I) had a great time doing this and learned a lot about what it's going to take if something like this does happen. (I) also had a great time working with people from every aspect in (the) different agencies and departments. If you have never done something like this, you should at the first opportunity. It challenges you to the physical and mental aspects.” See below for a list of our Fire Suppression & EMS Element members, by name, whom deployed to NLE ’11.

Smokey Anderson, alongside Marty Webb, led our Service & Support Unit. Darrell Sanders, Joe Whitaker & Jeannie Hedgecock-Brooks, (Clinton, Fountain & Warren County EMA Directors respectively) were also huge contributors to the efforts of the Service & Support Unit. Ed Ward from Crawfordsville Fire assisted with the Communications piece. Huge! What a crew… Tippecanoe County EMA intern Blair Toth, as well as, volunteers Melissa DeYoung, Dan Hayes, Chuck Welbourne and Brent Hinesly rounded out that team in various capacities. These folks made sure we had all the accommodations necessary to thrive and survive while deployed, as they would for any deployment. This is NO easy task, whatsoever…and we all appreciated their efforts. Because this was an exercise, which allows for a little more advanced planning, we were provided with several warm meals, in lieu of the MRE’s (meals ready to eat) which were a staple at lunch. And those weren’t even bad! We even shared our ice cream with the other districts, getting to know our friends and neighbors all the while. EVERYONE pitched in around the base camp and it was truly amazing to watch things happen and happen so quickly!

John Withers, John Yestrebsky, John Townsend & Will Carpenter of the Lafayette Police Department, and Task Force 4’s Law Enforcement Element, ensured our convoy operations ran smoothly and we arrived safely to the exercise. Those boys played with District 1’s Law Enforcement group all day with Lt. Withers heading up one of the strike teams. Tuesday gave them a taste of what a National Level Exercise was all about before they headed back home Wednesday. Again, heck of an experience and proud to have those folks on board and representing our District! They rejoined our convoy upon arrival in Lafayette Friday, ensuring our travel through town and back to home base was made safely for all involved. Thank you!

Laurie Wilson, Tippecanoe County/District 4 Grants Administrator, Traci Wright, City of Lafayette Controller’s Office and Tilara Treece, Tippecanoe County Public Health Department assisted the other district’s Incident Management Assistance Teams (IMAT) all 3 days of the exercise. These ladies have been to several training classes and are working towards certification in their respective roles. Laurie & Traci work as Finance & Administration Section Chiefs, while Tilara works as a Liaison Officer. Many others involved with NLE ’11 have trained and are training in roles with the IMAT, including Marty Webb, who serves as our Planning Section Chief. Jim Lewis doubles as our Logistics Section Chief when not working as our Fire Suppression Element Group Supervisor. Joe Whitaker & Jeannie Brooks are also training in Logistics.

And…last but not least. Jeff Houston. Jeff serves as Task Force 4’s Deputy Commander, alongside Mike Blann of Lafayette Fire. There was an unfortunate conflict in that Chief Blann was scheduled to instruct at the International Hazardous Materials Conference in Baltimore this same week. Jeff led Task Force 4 through this exercise. And did he ever lead. Jeff’s been heavily involved with getting TF4 off the ground, starting with the Emergency Medical Services Element. And the biggest success of the week, other than everyone coming home safe, getting “House” on camera with WLFI TV18 upon return Friday. We’ll blame that on exhaustion... Without Jeff’s leadership and determination, this exercise would not have been a success.

We had a small group working to pull this exercise off, and we were determined to do so, and we did! Jeff Houston, Mike Blann, Smokey Anderson, Marty Webb, Jim Lewis, Traci Wright, Laurie Wilson, Tilara Treece, Joe Whitaker, Jeannie Brooks and Darrell Sanders. This would not have happened without all these folks hours and hours of planning and exhausting work. We had fun, don’t get me wrong. We’ll forever be giving Smokey a hard time about having to bring along loads of ice cream…and don’t forget the Hershey’s syrup and that the Reddi Whip MUST be refrigerated! Lots of good times… Good people. A huge thank you to those folks, who went above and beyond, in assisting with planning, loading, unloading, packing, unpacking, making coffee, fixing this, McGyvering that…whatever it took to get the job done. We’d like to thank Wabash Township Volunteer Fire Department (Chief Mike Francis), Crawfordsville Fire Department (Chief Eric Small), Lafayette Fire Department (Chief Jim Morrow), West Lafayette Fire Department (Chief Phil Drew), Purdue University Fire Department (Chief Kevin Ply), Lafayette Police Department (Chief Don Roush), Clinton County Emergency Management Agency (Director Darrell Sanders), Fountain County Emergency Management Agency (Director Joe Whitaker) and Tippecanoe County Emergency Management (Director Smokey Anderson) for all of the equipment and apparatus sent to “play” in this exercise. Your agencies support in this capacity is appreciated. Thank you!

We would like our task force to be representative of the entire district and are hopeful that if your agency or jurisdiction is not currently involved or supportive of the task force, that you will become involved and supportive. The District Response Task Forces are being formed to support local emergency management agencies as all-hazards emergency response groups. They will be staffed with local firefighters, emergency medical services personnel, emergency managers, law enforcement personnel and other local emergency response professionals from the areas of public health, hospitals, mental health and beyond. Members of each task force will be able to mobilize at the request of any county within the district, and if needed, IDHS could deploy them to assist communities in any region of the state. Task forces will serve the counties in their district, yet collectively, they will form a statewide network of mutual emergency support. There is no better time than the present to get involved.