June 26, 2023 |
Photo – Wyoming National Guard Logo – Courtesy Wyoming National Guard
Wyoming took part in a federal emergency response exercise last week.
The military exercise named Vigilant Guard included Carbon County Emergency Management and was designed to test state and federal responses to a simulated emergency. Local emergency management coordinator Lenny Layman said he played the role of the state’s emergency manager during the exercise.
Director of Joint Staff for the Wyoming National Guard General David Pritchette said Vigilant Guard was a stress test of the state’s ability to handle multiple major disasters at once.
General Pritchette said multiple state and federal agencies took part in Vigilant Guard. On the state level, the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, and the state’s county Offices of Emergency Management participated. The general listed some of the federal agencies involved in the exercise.
General Pritchett said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, was an important part of the operation as well.
Vigilant Guard was designed to stress test the state’s agility by simulating multiple emergencies at once. General Pritchette said the exercise began with a simulated digital attack on Wyoming’s communications network.
All the staged emergencies were simulated and designed to probe the robustness of Wyoming’s various response teams. None of the events really occurred.
General Pritchette said the simulated hackers also infiltrated the Wyoming Game and Fish website. The general said the big game hunting tag lottery was rigged, resulting in high-level elected officials receiving all the tags, causing civil unrest.
As part of the system stress test, the scenario went from bad to worse. An E4 tornado then tore through Cheyenne, killing hundreds.
As part of the exercise, General Pritchette said the storm system that produced the funnel cloud in Cheyenne caused flooding in Casper. The general said the weather emergencies were combined with simulated mass shootings to create a bad couple of days for Wyoming.
Along with the tornados and floods, a mock plan crash happened. Also, a pretend riot occurred at a FEMA food distribution center. The event pitted actors posing as disgruntled citizens against the National Guard.
General Pritchette said it may be unrealistic for such a combination of emergencies to take place all at once. However, the general said Vigilant Guard was designed to put every agency’s emergency plan to the test.
As stated, the goal of Vigilant Guard was to evaluate as many emergency plans as possible. General Pritchette said everyone involved with the exercise will take the lessons learned and improve their processes.
Not every aspect of Vigilant Guard was imaginary. As mentioned, actors were hired to stage a mock battle with National Guard troops over FEMA supplies. Also, General Pritchette said real C-130s and Blackhawk helicopters were used during the exercise. The general said less than half of the drill made use of physical assets.
General Pritchette said he wanted to clarify that the military is only called in after all local and state resources are exhausted. The general said in the event of an emergency, the Wyoming National Guard takes orders from the state’s Office of Homeland Security.
As Emergency Manager Layman says, every emergency begins and ends locally. The goal of Vigilant Guard was to test the state’s response when a local emergency escalates into a state-wide disaster.
