NAWILIWILI — Search-and-rescue operations require a layered approach, Jon Smith of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Honolulu said Wednesday afternoon.
This week, Coast Guard personnel from Honolulu flew over to work in tandem with the Kaua‘i station and the county’s first-responding agencies on training and search-and-rescue exercises.
This is the first non-COVID-related training the Coast Guard has done on Kaua‘i, Command Center Supervisor Jason Bryant said Wednesday afternoon. The goals, Bryant said, are to evaluate communication tactics, work with new technologies and coordinate with the different agencies.
The week started with a classroom discussion before moving to hands-on training, and Wednesday that included bringing personnel and officials onto a Coast Guard cutter to see the agency’s capabilities on the sea.
“What we want to understand is where do we best fit if we have to respond to adversity, somebody that needs help or in the case of a disaster,” said Mayor Derek Kawakami, who manned the cutter for a portion of the sail. “These guys all have to know where their strong points are and where they can collaborate.”
Today’s exercise is a little more hands-on.
In a role-play operation, an unmanned, adrift, overturned kayak and a rescue dummy with an orange life jacket will be dropped off early this morning, free to float off the southern coast of the island. From there, personnel will be dispatched with a story of a kayaker gone missing.
Using the information provided, the responding teams will coordinate a search, taking note of the time of day, sea swells and what they’ve been training on the last few days.
Mariners are requested to not approach or retrieve either of the objects if sighted, a press release said.
This type of exercise is required every two years and serves as an opportunity to work as a team in a non-critical mission, Smith said. A search is not only mental, but it’s also physically draining out at sea, so having these times to practice and train in non-critical engagement proves as a perfect scenario to be evaluated, he said.
“Collaboration and teamwork is absolutely critical for first responders,” Kawakami said. “It’s not just the county’s fire, police and ocean safety. We consider our Coast Guard and Civil Air Patrol are all part of our first-responder ‘ohana.”
The exercises include personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Honolulu, Coast Guard Station Kaua‘i, Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point, Kaua‘i Fire Department and its Ocean Safety Bureau, Kaua‘i Police Department, Lihu‘e Airport Fire Department, Kaua‘i Emergency Management Agency and Civil Air Patrol.
“The relationships we have and have sustained with the Coast Guard has been extremely beneficial,” KFD Assistant Chief Solomon Kanoho said. “We know what each other’s capabilities are, we know the key places of the names and faces.”
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Sabrina Bodon, editor, can be reached at 245-0441 or sbodon@thegardenisland.com.
