Twenty-four Emergency Operation Center Incident Management (EOCIM) team members from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and Naval Station Everett participated in an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Management and Operation course at NAS Whidbey Island Feb. 8-11.

The four-day course describes the role, design and functions of EOCs and their relationships as components of a multi-agency coordination system.

The training outlined the role of the EOC during a natural or manmade disaster. Participants learned the basics of the Incident Command Systems (ICS) process to effectively manage an event or incident and apply knowledge learned by role-playing realistic scenarios.

“The training we delivered this week to the EOC was an earthquake scenario,” said Tim McKenzie, assistant shore operation training group (SOTG) chief, Navy Installations Command. “We broke the teams into operations, logistic and a planning section with a command element and we fed them with a number of problems to drive the scenario in different directions.”

The training included disaster-related examples, activities and case studies for earthquake, flooding and fire that relate to EOCs and multi-agency coordination systems.

“We focused on information management within the EOC both internally and externally,” said McKenzie. “Obtaining resources to handle whatever came up and the things you would need during a disaster.”

These teams are not first responders, such as police or fire fighters, but are essential groups who support the incident commander’s field response objectives and ensure that human needs are met during an emergency.

“This is my second time in an EOC exercise,” said Lt. Greg Touchton, Region Legal Service Office (RLSO) Northwest Det., Everett. “The exercise was very well run and the skills I see from everyone including myself developing throughout the four days will be great for us when we take it back to our various EOCs throughout the region.”

During the mock scenarios, members of the EOC were faced with a number of casualties such as people trapped in buildings, collapsed buildings, the loss of water supply, electrical and damages to taxiway and airfields.

Team members were given different roles and responsibilities within the EOC to further challenge teams, taking them out of their comfort zones.

“This class is teaching us the process of operating as a team, and how we operated the EOC,” said Cmdr. Mike Dysart, NAS Whidbey Island public works office. “To take a chaotic situation and return it to order as quickly as possible.”

The conclusion of each exercise included feedbacks from all three groups and what members could have been done differently to improve.

“One of the main objectives of the EOC is that we are all situational aware and that we have the same common operating picture,” said Lt. Cmdr. Deanna Carpenter, also assigned to public works. “We found that the scenarios challenged us in trying to do that.”

Upon successfully completing 28 hours of training in policy, standards, components and procedures, the course members were awarded a certificate of completion.

“I think they performed as one of the best teams we’ve seen so far and I’ve seen 50 or 55 of these events and this is one of the better classes,” said McKenzie.