On Saturday August 14th, members of Division 22 conducted training exercises and operated the Coast Guard Station at Eatons Neck. It was a perfect day for a drill since preparing for impending bad weather was part of the original plan and it was the day before hurricane Claude was to arrive. Fortunately, the day was truly the calm before the storm and the weather was great.

This drill was the first test of our proposed Auxiliary Response Plan that allowed members to become more familiar with the jobs their counterparts do on a daily basis in the Coast Guard and was part of a larger Homeland Security Response that has been in the planning stages for some time now.

The day started with a briefing at 7am, which included an overview of the response plan, the layout of the activities for the day and the completion of some paperwork similar to the Operation Patriot Readiness forms to create our own database of participants’ availability, experience and resources. Peter Sobel, a qualified watch stander, of 22-04 was selected to act as the Auxiliary Officer of the Day and charged with the responsibility of making all of the decisions that needed to be made to operate the Station.

The participants then broke up into nine groups, called modules. Each module was headed by a team leader that conducted hands on training and an orientation tour of the parts of the Station their group would be responsible to operate. Phil Milani and Sal Grecco then headed down to the boat basin with their crews to get underway, while two vessels from the east end of the Division with Coxswains John Ilberg and Bill Sullivan joined the exercise with their crews.

Over fifty Auxiliarists participated in a training scenario that began with a vessel in distress reporting a fuel leak in Long Island Sound. Three Auxiliary vessels were dispatched and began conducting search patterns as aprt of their training to locate the vessel which had no electronics on board and could only give sightings of landmarks to describe its approximate location.

As Auxiliarists responded, the situation aboard the disabled vessel deteriorated when a flash fire erupted causing several injuries and forcing people into the water. The orange training smoke could now be seen for miles as each response vessel made a dash to the scene, crew members prepared their equipment for rescue and the tempo at the communications center in the Coast Guard station became intense trying to determine the types of injuries, if everyone was accounted for, the condition of the vessel, if fuel was still leaking, if fuel was in the water requiring an environmental response and then; the fire alarm sounded in the mess hall.

Peter Sobel, who was in charge of coordinating the responses, now had even more to contend with, but he handled the situation with the poise and control that one would come to expect from a seasoned veteran. As the fire response team raced to the mess deck to asses the situation, the vessels were retrieving the injured people from the water. First aid was administered during the 15-20 minute transport back to the Station where other Auxiliarists were training and preparing to provide a higher degree of medical care. While the medical crew was treating the returning injured persons, a burn victim from the mess hall fire was discovered in a room above the galley and the medical team had to split up and respond.

The Grounds Security module patrolled the 10 acre property, received and inspected deliveries at the gate, operated security equipment and discovered some intruders on the beach. The members of the Communications Module were extremely professional in the COMMS center and on the radio. The right questions were asked, interesting discussions were held to find resolutions to situations as they arose and they managed to handle everything the planners threw at them.

The group from the maintenance module was also keeping very busy as they learned how to keep the light on (an important task at a lighthouse station) by going over the systems and backup systems in place. They also learned about fuel tank maintenance, refueling vessels, sounding the tanks and safety procedures. The maintenance crew also had to respond to a call from an arriving ambulance that could not get through Lighthouse Road to transport the injured because a large tree had fallen across the road. The Stations bad weather bill was reviewed and the tasks needed to be completed when impending bad weather is reported were discussed.

The drill also included other training exercises designed to prepare Auxiliarists to run a Coast Guard Station in the event of a disaster requiring a significant Coast Guard response or the need for Coast Guard personnel to be deployed elsewhere.

After the drill a barbeque lunch was hosted by the Station with the assistance of the members in the Personnel Module. A debriefing session was then held where each team leader summarized the activities from their perspective and Mr. Davenport, the Stations Commanding Officer, encouraged participants to be brutally honest about their experiences prompting several good suggestions for improvements around the Station.

The day proved to be a great learning experience for everyone and provided a lot of new information for the Response Team planners to work with. Bill Raisch and the members of the Planning Module will prepare a template with billets to be filled in by Auxiliarists who will participate in future drills. Our plans are to split each module into three subgroups. Each month one group from each module would conduct a training session at the Station to create a continuous training cycle and insure an Auxiliary training presence at the Station at least once a month. Twice a year we hope to conduct a major drill with all members participating. More great things to come………………..

My Team Leaders who made it all happen:
Tom Grant (Operations) Rich Rishkel (Fire Response)
Michael Heiberger (Communications) Richard Collester (Grounds Security)
Harland Williams (Maintenance) Gene Kinney (Personnel)
Ellen DaSilva (Medical Response) Richard Light (Logistics)
Bill Raisch (Planning)

Bob Borneman
DCP-22