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EMERGENCY - EOC keeps Joint Base on its toes

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Christopher Stoltz
  • Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Public Affairs
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii --  As the old English proverb quotes: "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst."

For some, this is but a simple quote. For the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Emergency Operations Center, otherwise known as the EOC, this is their culture.

The Emergency Operations Center is the command and control point for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for response and recovery operations after any man-made or natural disaster.  The EOC also functions as the planning and control center for major events on JBPHH including: POTUS visits, base concerts, 4th of July, and other events of major significance.

The EOC Incident Management Team, or EOC-IMT, is comprised of 18 support units within Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The EOC functions as a conduit of response coordination between units including: fire, security, port operations, air operations, logistics, mass care and public affairs, just to name a few.

Besides consisting of different units, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam's EOC-IMT combines the efforts of Air Force, Navy and civilian personnel. In fact, the person in charge of the EOC-IMT is a civilian himself.

Daniel T. DuBois, JBPHH Emergency Management Officer, and an Emergency Manger since 2008, has been working in Emergency Management and response for more than 30 years as a first responder. (EMT, EMT paramedic) He says the EOC serves one of the most important roles on the base.

"The EOC is important because it provides the Joint Base Commander and other emergency operations centers around JBPHH with a common operating picture," said DuBois. "It also enables focus of effort for the response recovery efforts during natural and manmade disaster."

This common operating picture allows the Incident Management Team to communicate quickly and effectively, reducing response time to any incident that may occur. It also allows for said representatives to quickly disseminate information to their reporting officials back at their main office.

"The EOC is usually in standby status," said DuBois. "But it can be fully activated and engaged for emergency response duties within minutes."

Such a quick response time to any emergency or incident isn't by luck, it takes practice. DuBois and the rest of the Emergency Operations Center staff provide monthly lectures and training to selected personnel, all to help keep the IMT vigilant.

"The courses we provide support the incident commander and help maintain big picture focus during a complex emergency event," he said. "This is achieved during a number of practical application classroom exercises, which utilize student working groups to apply the knowledge gained during lectures."

During exercises, students in the IMT are broken into common EOC functional groupings including operations, logistics, and plans.

"They (the students) are given a practical scenario of an on-base emergency where they are forced to realistically lead, brief, coordinate, and plan," said DuBois. "Each day, classroom instruction is followed by an EOC exercise that gets progressively complex as the course progresses."

Although the exact exercises DuBois and his team administer cannot be disclosed, they can range from timely and plausible, to completely farfetched and outlandish.

However wacky or realistic a scenario may be, DuBois said the teams he trains always need to be prepared. This mentality is just another part of the Emergency Operations Center's mentality of "Instruo Pro Pessimus, Spero Optimus."