Personnel from the US Navy’s Naval Station Newport (NAVSTA) have conducted a security training exercise involving a practice response to a dynamic shooter scenario.
Aimed at assessing internal security procedures, emergency medical care and simulated evacuation of casualties to area medical facilities, the drill forms part of the Solid Curtain-Citadel Shield (SC-CS) 2015 force protection exercise, which is being conducted on all navy installations across the continental US.
The exercise simulated two gunmen firing on the US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Willow (WLB 202) and NAVSTA Newport Port Operations at Pier 2.
Emergency operations centre (EOC) objectives involved the creation of an emergency family assistance centre (EFAC) at the Harbor Island conference centre, NAVSTA Newport.
Installation Training coordinator John Bozeman said: "An EFAC was not activated for this training exercise but will be given more emphasis in later training exercises."
During the exercise, casualties included two deceased contractors from the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center who were working aboard the Willow, in addition to five dead navy enlisted personnel allotted to NAVSTA Newport Port Operations.
EOC operations chief boatswains mate Jeffery Olson said: "As frustrating as this can be, we have to keep track of all incident command system forms that may be needed later for a safety or article 32 investigation."
