USARPAC's Joint Task Force Homeland Defense participates in Hawaii hurricane preparedness exercise
Jun 2, 2009
By U.S. Army, Pacific, Public Affairs News Release
FORT SHAFTER - Military and civil authorities test their skills this week for emergency response to a category four hurricane during Exercise Makani Pahili \'09 . The exercise, which began on June 2, focuses on coordination among local, state and federal organizations and all branches of the armed forces in the event of a direct hit by a category three or greater hurricane. Joint Task Force-Homeland Defense, or JTF-HD, a U.S. Army Pacific (USARPAC) organization with headquarters on Fort Shafter, serves as the executive agent for military support to the exercise. New this year in the exercise is JTF-HD's employment of the Deployable Assessment Team, or DAT, part of USARPAC's Contingency Command Post. Makani Pahili participations marks the first deployment for the DAT. This new capability provides an assessment of a disaster relief/humanitarian assistance type scenario in any austere environment, especially important for USARPAC's role as the lead element for JTF-HD. The JTF-HD will also match resources from active duty component forces with specific requests from civilian authorities for aid during disasters. It will also validate hurricane plans and ensure service components were prepared to execute "Defense Support of Civilian Authorities." JTF-HD provides situational awareness between civilian and military support units with more than 300 people from the U.S. military are dedicated to the State of Hawaii exercise. The annual exercise also provides USARPAC and JTF-HD the opportunity to fine-tune coordination mechanisms that allow the military to support civilian authorities (federal, state and local government emergency managers) in times of crisis. Coordination efforts are part of the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System.
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