Coast Guard Auxiliary Unit Sponsors Joint Emergency Drill

CAPE MAY – When an emergency situation arises within our community, the resources of all the local first responding units deploy themselves to assist in the situation. However, to be ready to respond, these units must practice together to understand how each organization does its job in the mosaic of the overall response. Joint training exercises are set-up to allow the local first responders an opportunity to work together in a non-life threatening situation to develop the techniques necessary to work effectively together in the event of a real emergency.
To better respond to local emergencies on the water, units of the local Coast Guard Auxiliary, Coast Guard and the Town Bank Volunteer Fire Company came together for a joint training exercise on Aug. 10. Auxiliarist John Tredinnick organized this joint training exercise using Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Incident Management techniques from the Department of Homeland Security. The three organizations coordinated the exercise to simulate a passenger boat on fire in Delaware Bay.
That morning, all parties met at the Auxiliary Dock in Cape May for a pre-mission briefing by Tredinnick. The Auxiliary deployed three patrol facilities, two from Flotilla 83 in Wildwood and one from Flotilla 82 in Cape May. The Coast Guard provided a 45’ patrol boat from Station Cape May and the Town Bank Fire Rescue Company provided a 40’ fireboat as well as a two man jet-ski triage unit. Also, Town Bank Fire Rescue positioned a paramedic vehicle on land near the scene to simulate handling victims of the fire that may need emergency care and transport to a medical facility.
At 8:30, all units proceeded through the Cape May Cannel out to Delaware Bay. One Auxiliary patrol facility acted as the boat on fire. A simulated emergency radio call was made to the Coast Guard reporting a boat on fire. An orange smoke generator was released to simulate the smoke of a fire. At that point, three rescue dummies, known as ‘Oscars’ were placed in lifejackets and lowered into the water to simulate persons jumping off of the burning boat into the water.
Aboard the lead Auxiliary facility was the Incident Commander, William Hartley, Commander of Auxiliary Flotilla 83 out of Wildwood. Hartley, a retired Coast Guardsman, coordinated all the on-site activities of the responding units. The Town Bank Fire Rescue jet-ski triage unit pulled one Oscar from the water while the Auxiliary patrol facilities practiced their techniques of recovering people in the water by rescuing the other two Oscars in a man-overboard drill.
After the three Oscars were rescued, the Town Bank Fire Rescue fireboat came in close to the smoke generator with its four water canons pumping out 200’ jets of water, simulating the dousing of the flames of the boat on fire. After it was determined that the fire was out, Auxiliary units moved in to provide a tow of the boat that was on fire, which exercised their techniques of bringing a damaged boat safely into port after an accident or equipment failure. At each step in the process, Incident Commander Hartley was in radio contact with Coast Guard Station Cape May, simulating the typical radio traffic a real emergency response would generate.
At the conclusion of the exercise, all units were invited back to the Flotilla 82 Coast Guard Auxiliary headquarters in Cape May, known as “The Shack”, for lunch and a post-event debriefing. The Shack is an historic building, being the original Coast Guard Boathouse in Cape May that dates back nearly one hundred years. All participating units felt that the exercise went well and that additional exercises should be planned for the future.
The Coast Guard Auxiliary is the volunteer component of the Coast Guard. Initially chartered by an act of Congress in 1939, the Auxiliary provides support capabilities to the Coast Guard as well as having a primary mission of promoting safe recreational boating. Auxiliary facilities are privately owned boats that members of the Auxiliary have offered for service to the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Each boat must be equipped to standards defined by the Coast Guard and must be manned by trained Auxiliarists who must maintain a minimum number of hours afloat to stay current in their qualifications.