Source: United States Navy
“We do some serious training while we’re here,” said Rear Adm. Wayne Baze, Commander, Expeditionary Strike Group 3, and the Navy/Marine Corps Element Task Force Lead for DSCA. “It’s the military getting with our emergency management teams from the police, fire systems, port authorities, emergency management operations, and medical providers to see how we can merge our talents together in times of crisis, so that we can do our jobs safely and effectively. This is hard stuff, and in order to get good at it, we have to do it over and over again.”
Each year the Fleet Week DSCA exercise is focused on a different facet of humanitarian assistance and disaster response, such as debris and emergency route clearing; transportation and logistics strategies; and supply chain resilience. This year’s focus was the management of aviation response and recovery operations in a neighborhood which could potentially become inaccessible during a major earthquake.
“This was a culmination event, the fourth exercise we’ve run this year,” said Jill Raycroft, SFFW DSCA Exercise program director. “We’ve been running DSCA exercises for about 11 years, and we usually come in via the water in the eastern part of the city. This year we wanted to look at how military air assets might assist the city in rendering aid to a part of the city that would be a little more cut off.”
The exercise brought together people and assets from a myriad of agencies such as the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Army, the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, the Port of San Francisco, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the San Francisco Police, Fire and Sheriff’s departments.
Ultimately, the culmination event, the landing of a Marine CH-53 Super Stallion in a local park was canceled for weather and safety reasons.
“Even though the helicopter didn’t land today, this has been a great learning opportunity for all of the military, state and local agencies,” said Raycroft, praising the coordination efforts behind the exercise and the full commitment and cooperation of all the players.
According to SFFW Executive Director, Lewis Loeven, exercises like these add value to all parties involved.
“In 2010, we wanted to increase the value that we were getting out of fleet week.,” said Loeven. “So we started a program where we do training and education for both the military and civilian on how we work together. We’re getting people on the same page so they can better respond to an emergency.”
The weeks of planning and coordination made for a unifying start to this year’s Fleet Week. San Francisco Fleet Week, now in its 41st year, celebrates the rich naval tradition in the Bay area, honors our nation’s service members, and facilitates annual disaster preparedness training between the Navy, Marines Corps, Coast Guard and local first responders.
It is San Francisco’s largest annual civic sponsored event. It’s a free event in the Fisherman’s Wharf district that features the Blue Angles, a full air show over the San Francisco Bay, and ship tours all weekend long drawing thousands of people into the city. This year, Fleet Week is Oct. 3 – 10, 2021. Most activities and the large air show are over the weekend of Oct. 7 – 10.