EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE: Base gears up for severe weather season with natural disaster exercise

Published March 5, 2015
By Kimberly Woodruff
Staff Writer

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- On Tuesday, the base held its annual severe weather exercise to test its response time in natural disasters.

The yearly exercise falls under Air Force Instruction 10-2501 for Natural Disaster Response exercise. The disaster could have been any natural disaster, including ice storms, earthquakes or floods. In this year's scenario, Tinker was hit by a tornado.

Exercise organizers said the simulated tornado hit a fuel tank, spilling 500,000 gallons of fuel and injuring 42 people. It happened during an outdoor event held at the static display aircraft near Bldg. 260. Injuries included shrapnel wounds, cuts, bruises, broken bones, missing limbs, shock and hysteria.

Scott Lindsey, an exercise planner with the 72nd Air Base Wing Inspector General's office, made the initial calls to 911, simulating calls that would normally come following a natural disaster.

First responder units were called out to assist the injured and the Defense Logistics Agency contractor was alerted to respond to the fuel spill.

The Tinker Fire and Emergency Services, along with Midwest City and Del City fire departments, and the Samaritan EMS arrived on scene and began assessing injuries and setting up triage.

Victims were tagged with colored ribbons to indicate the severity of their injuries. Red was used for serious wounds requiring immediate attention, yellow was for less serious injuries and green indicated minor injuries. In a typical exercise, black indicates a deceased victim, though there were no simulated deaths with this exercise.
The "tornado" also hit the water tower near Interstate-40 causing it to gush water, and a transformer near Bldg. 201 was on fire, so OG&E was called out to turn off the power to the transformer.

Lt. Col. Trisha Luiken, 72nd ABW IG, said there is a great deal of foresight and coordination that goes into developing an exercise scenario of this caliber.

"As the installation Inspector General, we ensure all agencies and mission partners, both on and off base, were included in establishing goals and objectives to achieve the same results: awareness and response to a catastrophic event," she said. "Across the installation, the execution of the exercise successfully demonstrated the ability to react in a timely fashion, to swiftly compile the most accurate information and attend to protecting our most important resource, our people. We could not have effectively executed the scenario without everyone's involvement and cooperation."