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THIS IS AN FULL SCALE EXERCISE, April, 2008

Teams, Techniques, Technology & Training – NIUSR Witnesses Net-Centric Operational Excellence

On April 14, 2008, NIUSR was invited to attend the ESS Expo conference at the Gila River Indian Community to see what has been achieved with Essential Emergency, the software that has been donated to NIUSR.  Simply put, we were overwhelmed.  This was one of the first times we have seen all four of the “T’s” put simultaneously to use and that clearly showed Net-Centric Operational Excellence during three different simultaneous exercises: A “Pandemic”, “Green Scorpion”, and “Sand Dollar” using a combination of real play, modeled play and simulated play, while at the same time taking full advantage of interoperability provided by NIUSR members that included ESS, SAIC, Viack, L-3 Communications, SRA and RP Flight Systems.

Before explaining some of the technology, it is appropriate to say that this exercise was not a NIUSR exercise, although the success of the exercise was made possible due to the relationships established through the Social Networking of NIUSR. The leadership for the planning and execution of this Full Scale Chemical/Terrorist attack was NIUSR  Chief of Operations, who will also be leading the NIUSR exercise Magic Lantern.  NIUSR will be using these and additional technologies in Magic Lantern in the fall of this year.

In addition to the strong participation of NIUSR members, there were a number of players who really stood out and made this first Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Full-Scale exercise (According to DHS) the success it was. The support, response and tactics of the Chandler SWAT team were invaluable.  They suppressed the terrorists, saved the hostages and did so with skill precision and expertise.  Of course, they were not alone, Chandler Fire, and several other jurisdictions were also involved.  However, Chandler SWAT were Eagles all.

Exercise 1 – Pandemic – Physical Location for Exercise - San Diego:  In February of 2008, as a result of a mutation of the bird flu virus due to an antigenic shift that has produced a novel influenza A virus subtype that has not currently circulated among people and as such there are limited treatments.  Travel has been restricted voluntarily throughout the United States for the last two months, with many industries having employees work from home when ever possible.  In mid-April, the CDC announced that the peak of the outbreak has occurred and further spread is unlikely.  As a result, people are again starting to go to public areas, and only Southern California remains under quarantine.

Interoperability for the Pandemic:  All data from Essential Emergency was accessible via the Internet to the San Diego National Regional Coordination Center.  Additionally data feeds were available to San Diego from the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (RP Flight Systems) which flew over Green Scorpion and also video teleconferencing (Viack.)

Exercise 2 - Green Scorpion – Physical Location for Exercise – Chandler Fire Training Center:  The Pandemic has caused considerable fear within the US, and El-Ursa (a heretofore unknown terrorist group), has launched a series of operations within the United States.  On April 14th, El-Ursa launched a series of IED attacks in the United States, including a vehicle borne explosive device at a chemical handling facility.  While the facility has been in the process of implementing the measures required under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard for site security, the explosion has caused secondary explosions on the site, and emergency responders and SWAT were playing in real-time, real-world play.

Interoperability for Green Scorpion:  Green Scorpion had numerous injects and simulated radio and communications traffic that was generated from SAIC’s Automated Exercise and Assessment System (Java desktop based).  Not only was AEAS feeding the simulation data and injects into Essential Emergency (Microsoft SQL), but it was receiving real-time data from Essential Emergency on the response to the event from the EOC.

Interoperability: Sand Dollar was modeled in real-time using data from Essential Emergency (Microsoft SQL) and the Fusion (Linux MySQL) system from L-3 Communications.  The participants’ in the “EOC” deployed equipment and responded to this event simultaneously with Green Scorpion. As Fusion modeled the deployment and movement of people and resources to Sand Dollar, the data was feed not only back to Essential Emergency, but also to a Google Earth display. 

The primary EOC for all events was the “Joint Regional Emergency Operations Center (JREOC)” located at the Gila River Indian Community.  The San Diego EOC the “National Regional Coordination Center (NRCC)”. The NRCC and the JREOC were in 24/7-video and data connectivity with each other through Via3 (Viack), had live feeds from the UAV (RP Flight Systems), and used Essential Emergency for data management (ESS).  Real-time simulation for all exercises was with AEAS (SAIC) and real-time modeling was injected with Fusion (L-3 Communications).

As I mentioned, there were multiple data feeds for these three exercises, and these are shown below.

Conclusion – This series of three exercises was a success due to the hard work of everyone from ESS, The City of Chandler (notably Chandler SWAT), SAIC, L-3 Communications, SRA, RP Flight Systems and the successful use of:

Teams that used teamwork to plan and carry out the event;

Use of multiple Techniques (ICS, Tactical Command) to execute the mission;

Multiple, Interoperable Technologies for management of the scenarios;

And, clearly Training that brought it all together.

NIUSR is proud to have been invited to observe this exercise, and proud to see the Social Networking of NIUSR working, and proud to know the first responders of Chandler are so outstanding.  It was Net-Centric Operational Excellence.