U.S. Army North Completes Annual Hurricane Drill
U.S. Army North finished a two-day Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) drill on hurricane relief operations on Thursday that gave the 150 participants a sense of how they’d aid local agencies and FEMA immediately after a hurricane made landfall. An account of the event posted by the Army said participants came from the National Guard Bureau, U.S. Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, and Fleet Forces Command to the drill at Fort Belvoir, Va.
"The big thing it does is bring all the players and people involved in responding to an event like this together in one forum to allow them to discuss a variety of issues or concepts of operation," Army Lt. Col. Travis Grigg, deputy defense coordinating officer for U.S. Army North's Region VI (Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico), told reporter Andrew Sharbel of the Fort Belvoir Eagle newspaper.
Grigg said his region followed last year’s ROC with its own drill, which prepared his people well for Hurricane Ike’s damage in the Gulf Coast region in September 2008. ROC's scenario begins 120 hours before landfall of a major hurricane and continues until at least 48 hours after landfall. This year's ROC used a hypothetical storm that hit south Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, Sharbel wrote.