There is usually a lot of activity around the pier in Frederiksted when cruise ships come into dock. And with the added presence of numerous emergency first responders participating in Operation Tide Breaker II, Monday was a little out of the ordinary.
That’s because for the second straight year, Royal Caribbean Cruises partnered with local government and federal agencies to conduct the annual exercise that tests the ability of local agencies to manage a large-scale incident in accordance with Department of Homeland Security’s Incident Command System and in coordination with federal partners and the private sector.
“Today we tested various capabilities,” said V.I. Territory Emergency Management Agency Director Elton Lewis in a released statement. “The exercise tested responders’ ability to communicate with each other, to manage an incident onsite, and to conduct emergency triage and pre-hospital treatment.”
Besides VITEMA, major players in the operation included the V.I. National Guard’s 23rd Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team, Federal Emergency Management Agency, V.I. Fire Service, V.I. Health Department’s Emergency Medical Services, V.I. Rescue, the FBI, the US Coast Guard and VITEMA’s 911 emergency communications, emergency operations and fusion centers. The VING unit also received support from Florida, Puerto Rico and New Jersey civil support team members.
For day one of the full-scale multi-hazard and maritime exercise, the scenario that played out was a suspicious hazardous material released onboard the ship, which then caused passengers to become seriously ill. This triggered the responses from the various participants and also tested two separate activations of the all-hazards warning sirens. Lewis said both of those activations were successful.
He also said, as was the case in past exercises of a similar nature, the biggest challenge in a large, joint effort is always communication among the differing agencies.
“We always have an issue with communication,” Lewis said. “There are some hiccups with regards to the communication issues.”
According to Lewis, the various agencies had difficulties speaking with each other by handheld radio and “that’s an issue that will have to be addressed.” He added that while the agencies had state of the art technology at their disposal, “technology sometimes comes with limitations.”
Lewis said communications was one of the capabilities mentioned in the original plan and that solutions to make communication better in the future would be investigated. “We just have to continue to work at it to insure that when in fact something realistic does happen, we have the ability to talk to each other,” he said.
Samuel Santana, an FBI agent in charge of the operation, said cooperation among the different agencies was also a challenge.
“It’s going to be, in a real live situation, chaos over here,” Santana said. “You’re going to have people running all over and injured and dead people, and it’s a little difficult to get the cooperation of all the different parties involved.”
“That’s why we’re trying to do this,” he added, “to see how everyone would respond so that in a real scenario we can do what we need to do.”
Santana said the outcome he hoped for Monday was that in a minimal amount of time, the various participants would be able to clear the area of immediate danger and isolate that danger.
On Tuesday, for day two of the exercise, emergency responders will respond to an active shooter incident at the Paul E. Joseph Stadium in Frederiksted. Major participants for this scenario include the VI Police Department, EMS and the VING unit. The base of exercise operations will be established at the Renhold Jackson Complex at Estate Whim.
