COOP Exercise Tests Mobile Communications in support of an Emergency Evacuation

CULPEPPER, Va. (Apr. 27, 2023) -- Members of Naval District Washington’s (NDW) Emergency Readiness Group traveled to Culpepper, Va., this week for a two-day Continuity of Operations (COOP) exercise. The exercise ran from mid-day Wednesday to mid-day Thursday and tested the group’s ability to evacuate to—and maintain communications and operations from—an emergency relocation site during a hurricane or other crisis.
NDW conducts the COOP exercise annually. This year’s exercise took place during the first week of the larger Hurricane Exercise (HURREX). Jeff Sanford, region program director of emergency management, explained that a hurricane “is the most logical scenario that would lead us to COOP.”

Sanford and COOP planners made communications the focus of this year’s COOP exercise. Participants worked inside a Mobile Command Vehicle (MCV), a truck with wireless Internet, cell phones, cell-phone chargers, computer monitors, and a conference room large enough for eight people.

From the MCV, the team interacted with staff off-site over Microsoft Teams. They also held a commander’s update briefing from the MCV Thursday morning—a first for a COOP exercise.

Sanford said that this is the first COOP exercise to use the MCV as the primary means of communication. He said that the intent was to prove that the group, using the MCV, could relocate almost anywhere while keeping communications with NDW’s installations and echelons open.

“In this exercise, communication is always a critical piece. There’s no sense COOPing if you can’t communicate,” Sanford said. “The concept behind adding the Mobile Command Vehicle is that by using the vehicle, we can COOP to any location and maintain communications.”

Participants also field-tested the MCV’s compatibility with their laptops and other information technology (IT) equipment. Michael Knutson, an Information Technology technical specialist, said that this enabled the team to identify modifications that would make all of the hardware operate together better.

“Since this is the first time we’ve used the MCV in this location, it allowed the operations team to say ‘we like this,’ ‘we don’t like this,’ or ‘we need to install this,’” Knutson said. “This gives us a direction for how we can better engineer the vehicle. We now have a shopping list of things we would like to see changed.”

NDW and its installations activate a COOP in an emergency situation that seriously disrupts normal operations and forces personnel to evacuate. A Regional Operations Center (ROC) activates to assist installations during the emergency.

A hurricane is one scenario for a COOP, but not the only one. Gail Kenson, acting deputy assistant regional engineer, said that a terrorist attack, active-shooter event, or severe winter storm can all trigger a COOP, and that COOP training helps prepare the region for these situations as well.

“Any number of incidents could require standing up the ROC and could require NDW to relocate and activate a COOP somewhere else,” she said. “Exercising this, and doing so as close to real-world conditions as possible, makes us more effective in the ROC for all of these situations.”

Sean Sullivan, NDW ROC manager, said that the Battle Watch Team (BWT) also practiced devolution or the “transition time,” from the time the BWT departs the Washington Navy Yard to the time in which they re-establish themselves at the COOP Site. Commander, Naval Region North West’s (CNRNW) BWT is positioned to cover or function as NDW’s BWT, while NDW is transiting to the COOP site. Once re-established, the NDW BWT reassumes its normal role in maintaining command and control.

During the COOP exercise, the team transferred phone lines back and forth with a “white cell” team acting as the CNRNW ROC.

“If the storm is hitting the east coast pretty hard, and communication lines are down, this is the fallback for us while we are transitioning. Once we set up our COOP site, we’ll take control back,” Sullivan said. “That whole transition process needs to be worked out ahead of time, which is what we did during this exercise.”

NDW has several designated locations to COOP to in an emergency evacuation, according to Sullivan. But he noted that the MCV, with its mobile communications capability, gives the command more options.

“Having the MCV gives us the expanded capability to make our COOP site transportable, ensuring that we have alternative means of conducting remote operations,” he said.