At 9:15, the “terrorist” — a sailor in a old grey sweatshirt carrying one of the blue-plastic carbines the Navy and Marines use in training — pulled the fire alarm just inside the air operations building at Naval Station Norfolk.
Three minutes later, he’d picked off one of the firefighters that raced to the scene at the far eastern end of the base.
Then, as the Navy Police patrol cars, sirens screaming, arrived, he ran back into the building — it controls all aircraft arriving and taking off from the base’s airfield — followed quickly by sailors.
It was a drill, as the base loudspeakers with their echoing message “Exercise, Exercise, Exercise” reassured the small city that is Naval Station Norfolk, but was one of the largest in recent memory, months in the planning, and designed as much to practice coordination with local first responders and the FBI as the high drama of Navy police taking down an active shooter.
So when Capt. David Dees, the base’s commanding officer, arrived at the station’s one-day old emergency operations center, part of the exercise was for a team of 18 hastily-dispatched sailors and civilians to set up shop and work on a response.
EOC manager Gene Lambert gave Dees a rundown: The shooter was down, and not responsive. There were 5 to 10 casualities — not really, of course — in the air ops building.
“Do we know their status?” Dees asked, “Any fatalities?”
Still trying to find out, the deputy chief of the base’s fire and rescue service replied — still keeping a ear out in case of any other alarms from the three radios spread around him.
Lambert went through his list: the base was still locked down — again, not really.
At the air operations building, police were preparing for another sweep to make sure no other shooter was there.
Family services was assembling counselors and other support staff and arranging for a space nearby so they could set up a place where victim’s families and colleagues could come.
The new EOC, with tables for 18 work stations and space enough to add more if needed, is a big improvement over the tiny, 400-square foot center at fire and rescue headquarters.
Since so many members of the EOC couldn’t fit into that space, they had to find places in nearby rooms — briefings like the ones Lambert could make every 15 minutes or half hour at the new center were a bigger deal, requiring some staff to leave their laptops and squeeze into the tiny center.
Dees said there’ll be a major debriefing and review of how Wednesday’s exercise went later this week.
“There’s always lessons to be learned,” he said.
And, he said, even though all the participants knew the drill was coming, it doesn’t take off all the edge.
“First you’re tossing the ball in your backyard. Then blocking and tackling. Only then, are you ready for big game,” he said.
Besides, he said: “When they go into that building, the adrenaline is pumping.”
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