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386th ECES build MOEC from the ground up

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Thomas J. Doscher
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  The 386th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron Emergency Management Flight's mobile operations trailer had seen better days, so it was no surprise when the axle finally gave up the ghost, leaving EM with an interesting choice: Order a new axle and repair the old trailer or start over from scratch. 

Working with elements of the 386th ECES, the EM flight chose the latter and built an entirely new Mobile Emergency Operations Center, complete with power, phones, computers and air conditioning from little more than a donated trailer and a little elbow grease. 

"We needed a trailer, we couldn't get a new one, so we built it ourselves," said Staff Sgt. Wade Horstman, 386th ECES logistics NCOIC. 

Most of the parts and equipment necessary to build the new MEOC were found on base, including the trailer itself, donated by another Rock unit that had no use for it. 

"It was down at Maintenance," Sergeant Horstman said. "No one really knew what the story was with it. It was just a basic car trailer, a shell. There was nothing in it."
After one month and some work from the 386th ECES Structures Airmen and electricians, no one would recognize it, he said. 

"It has generators, network capabilities, phone, it has all of our HAZMAT response equipment," he said. "We built everything ourselves. The cabinetry was custom built here in the Structures shop." 

The MEOC is designed to help EM respond to base emergencies such as aircraft accidents to support the incident commander. 

Staff Sgt. Evan Peterson, 386th ECES Structures technician from Wakonda, S.D., worked on welding the tongue onto the front of the trailer. 

"I thought it was a little crazy, but we made it work," he said. "We made what they needed. Most of the stuff we do is small, so it's nice to do something , a project, work with different shops. It was a fun project." 

Senior Airman Andrew Siemonsma of Sioux Falls, S.D., worked on the electrical systems for the MEOC. 

"The only thing that was difficult was figuring out a way to hook the generator up to it," the electrician, deployed from the 114th Civil Engineer Squadron, said. "It's something they needed compared to what they had before. It'll improve their response time and let them go farther when they need to." 

With delicate equipment inside and temperatures soaring above 115 degrees, air conditioning wasn't a luxury, but a requirement, and Senior Airman Trevor Kircil of Wagner, S.D., was in charge of making that happen. 

"The temperature in this environment, plus the trailer not being insulated, we put a bit bigger unit in it to make sure they were comfortable while they operated," he said. "Their equipment has to be at just the right temperature. Some days you could probably wear a coat in there." 

Master Sgt. Tonja Jorenby, Emergency Management Flight chief, said the engineers built a quality piece of equipment that will serve the EM Flight well.
"If something goes down off base I know the trailer's not going to break on the way there," she said. "That was the question with the last one. If Sergeant Horstman says he can do it, he can do it." 

Sergeant Horstman said their little bit of resourcefulness not only provided the EM Flight a new mobile operations center, but saved the Air Force quite a bit of money while doing it. 

"We saved a lot of money this way," he said. "Something like this new would have cost well over $100,000, and we were able to use everything on base to build it and we did it during our rotation so we wouldn't have to push it onto the next rotation. "