Page 1 - March ARB Beacon 11-25-15

Vol. 80, No. 47
NEWS BRIEFS
OPERATION WARM
HEART 11/27 - 12/3
The 452nd Security Forces
Squadron and the Air Force
Security Forces Association
will have their annual Christ-
mas Toy Drive (Operation
Warm Heart) at March Air
Reserve Base from Nov. 27
through Dec. 15, after which
all donations will be delivered
to the March Field Fire and
Emergency Services build-
ing. A band of volunteers will
place the toys into food bas-
kets to be given out to Team
March members who are in
need of a little help during the ciety and to prevent the spread of
Christmas holidays.
Collection boxes will be
located at the Main (Cactus)
Gate and at the Law Enforce-
ment Desk (building next to
wing headquarters). The SFS
and AFSFA teams agree that
March members are like one
big family, and families take
care of their own. Thank you
and have a very happy holi-
day season. 452nd SFS &
AFSFA
COMBINED FEDERAL
CAMPAIGN
The Combined Federal
Campaign is currently under-
way and officially ends Dec.
15. To donate, visit cfcofgreat- tor, Riverside County Emergency
ersocal.org. The online CFC
site provides you the ability
to look up both SoCal local
charities as well as universal
charities. Additionally, it al-
lows you to place your pledge
online through automatic pay
deductions making the entire
campaign paperless. If you
have any questions regarding
CFC, please go through your
unit/group level CFC reps.
Let’s all work together to show
the community how much the
452 AMW cares!
See BRIEFS page 3
March Air Reserve Base, California Wednesday, November 25, 2015
March becomes closed Point of Distribution
for medications during statewide exercise
by Linda Welz at hospitals, which could support U.S. Air Force photo/Capt. Perry Covington
452 AMW public affairs a reason as to why certain agents
were detected. “This initial report Marv Tucker, director, 452nd Emergency Management, briefs a
MARCH AIR RESERVE tells us that there is something, but Team March member Nov. 19, 2015, as the Airman processes
BASE, Calif. – Team March par- it doesn’t tell us if it is endemic to through the Point of Distribution (POD) on March Air Reserve
ticipated in a massive exercise the area, or basically that it was Base. Team March members worked in concert to establish and
Thursday, Nov. 19, by setting up a an intentional release,” Saurwatai facilitate a POD for a statewide exercise that included Riverside
closed Point of Distribution (POD) said. &RXQW\+HDOWKRI¿FLDOVDQGRWKHUFLYLOLDQHQWLWLHV7KH32'DO-
for the first time on base. Working lows team members to receive “medication” (candy during the
with the Riverside County Public After the conference call, the exercise) for themselves and their families to treat the effects of
Health Department, the March local incident response group, a simulated outbreak of Anthrax in the region.
team simulated the distribution of which includes multiple agencies,
“prophies” (profophylaxis, which is activated. This is where March the case of a state of emergency, a specified timeline, every five
is a measure designed to preserve Field gets involved. we are the airport, for FEMA com- years, Tucker said. “We’ve taken
the health of an individual or so- ing in, for the Red Cross, all these their plan and stripped that part
When Marvin Tucker, who has other agencies,” he said. “In such a out because this POD (at March)
disease) in order to combat the ef- been director of the 452nd Emer- case, our mission essential people could be for N1H1 or whatever the
fects of Anthrax. gency Management since 1997, may not be the pilots, but the aerial flavor of the week is.”
began, he reached out to establish a porters – to unload the aircraft. Our
“For nearly two years, we’ve relationship with Riverside County mission could shift accordingly, Tucker recruited 100 volunteers
been planning a statewide exer- EMD. “We are part of the county causing a possible shift in who the to process through the stations set
cise that we would be testing our since we don’t have a medical first responders might be.” up at the POD. “We are trying to
response abilities for a bio-terror- treatment facility. So we couldn’t figure out how we can do this, what
ism attack,” said Jose Arballo, Jr., do a lot of things without the rela- Since this is the first time that personnel we need, what security
senior public information spe- tionship we have with all the hospi- March has set up a closed POD on we need, etc.,” he said. “We’ve tak-
cialist, Riverside County Public tals and the Department of Health base, the county provided a draft en this huge exercise down, and we
Health. The scenario is a massive – they’re the belly button for all of plan to do a closed POD. Tucker are trying to do a baby step.”
distribution of Anthrax from some that,” Tucker said. “We have to rely worked with that plan and imple-
airplanes over the Southern Cali- on them. We learned to play well mented it during this exercise. Tucker said his top three goals
fornia coast, spreading inland into together a long time ago.” are to set up a closed POD, to be
Riverside County.” The scenario this time is An- able to administer the mass pro-
Thanks to that relationship, thrax because the county has grant phies safely, which he picks up
The drill began Monday, Nov. Tucker was able to arrange for money and they are required to ex- from the county’s distribution cen-
16, with a simulated Bio-watch Team March to participate by set- ercise an Anthrax scenario within
Actionable Result (BAR), said ting up a closed POD on base for See POD page 2
Kim Saruwatai, M.P.H., direc- the first time.
Management Department. The “We established, years ago, that
BAR is used to detect proteins on our mission falls under that um-
air filters that are set up through- brella of first responders,” Tucker
out Southern California, which said. “So, whether we’re talking the
are then sent to their lab for fur- AMOC or the 163rd or the 452nd,
ther testing. The goal is to isolate (or) our fire dept, law enforcement,
and confirm any agents that are (or) tower operators – they’re all
detected. considered first emergency re-
sponders, so we do a closed POD
“That’s enough for us to pull to- at the base as well.”
gether our conference call to ask if
we have intel (intelligence) enough In a lot of these scenarios, if it’s
to support that there is Anthrax, or an act of terrorism, the Force Pro-
another agent,” Saurwatai said. tection Condition (FPCON) level
increases. If that occurs, Tucker
The intelligence she refers to said commanders would have to
would come by way of law en- decide if we are willing to open the
forcement reports of a possible gate back up to allow additional
attack or sick people showing up members onto the installation. “In