Fort Sill To Hold Full-Scale Exercise Wednesday [UPDATE]

From the Fort Sill Public Affairs Office:

UPDATE: Keith Pannell of Fort Sill's Public Affairs Office has stated that Buffalo Soldier Acres Family Housing will not lose power during the full-scale exercise that will occur on Aug 27. The original story is as follows:

Fort Sill – Motorists can expect backups at Fort Sill’s gates beginning at about 9 a.m. Wednesday as Fort Sill kicks off its annual disaster exercise.

Exercise organizers want the public to know Key Gate and Apache Gate will have normal operations, which means random vehicle inspections. But, all other gates will have a 100 percent vehicle checks between 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Drivers will also want to avoid the intersection of Mow-Way Road and Sheridan Road during that time. AAFES has agreed to close the Shoppette at that intersection for eight hours Aug. 27 to help facilitate the exercise.

The power from Substation 2 will be shut off as a result of the exercise explosion. That means the area south of Sheridan Road and west of Fort Sill Boulevard, including; Building 4700,  Buffalo Soldier Acres, Reynolds Army Community Hospital, the child development centers and the FORSCOM brigades all the way out to FOB Mow-Way will lose power and have to exercise their emergency plans. However, all facilities will continue normal operations while dealing with contingencies.

The exercise will require crews to divert power and restore power to those areas. Expect the power in Substation 2 to be off up to two hours.

The exercise should start after, and end before, school busses are scheduled to run. The exercise is an annual requirement by Installation Management Command to test Fort Sill’s disaster response. Every agency, from the Emergency Operations Center, to the emergency services, to logistics and transportation are evaluated and graded.