Hotline of power engineering specialists:
From 12 to 13 July in the Lipetsk branch of IDGC of Centre a command-and-staff training exercise was held on the theme: “Ensuring the activities of the territorial subsystem of the Russian Emergency System for emergency response in case of natural and manmade disasters. Provision of civil defense measures with the transfer of civil defense from the peace to war footing”. Since the beginning of the year 3 exercises have been conducted in Lipetskenergo in order to increase the Lipetsk power system stability, to improve the skills of the branch’s personnel, work of the government agencies and the forces at different levels in the performance of tasks for the prevention and elimination of emergency situations of natural and manmade character. By the end of the year the branch has scheduled other two such events.
The exercise involved supervisory and operational staff of Lipetsk DEN and the substatin “University” as well as a fire brigade of General Directorate of Russia’s EMERCOM in the Lipetsk region. The operational headquarters, which included managers of Lipetskenergo, was headed by Deputy Director for Technical Issues — Chief Engineer of the Branch Alexander Kornilov. The degree of readiness of civil defense governing bodies and groups of the branch to carry out tasks as intended was assessed by Deputy Head of civil defense and emergency prevention Department of Civil Defence Office of General Directorate of EMERCOM in the Lipetsk region, Major Sergei Kuznetsov.
Participants the exercise clearly demonstrated working out the information before the beginning , according to which “hurricane wind with its speed of 25 m/s has passed through the territory of the Lipetsk region, which has caused damage to power equipment and power supply of consumers”. The cause of the power outages as planned by the last piece of data — 6th — before the beginning, concerning civil defense, was “enemy aircrafts have delivered accurate firepower to a number of targets of one of the districts of the region”.
The first phase of the command-and-staff training exercise, showing a level of organization of the governing bodies of the executive office of the branch and Lipetsk DEN for the prevention and elimination of emergency situations of natural and man-made character, included the coordination and refinement of the plan of the command-staff exercise, checking the documentation for the Civil Defense and Emergencies and knowledge of guidance documents on the organization of interaction between the General Directorate of EMERCOM and the branch, checking the state of readiness of forces and means to solve problems on purpose, setting challenges to the participants.
In the second phase to implement all planned activities in the aftermath of emergency situations of natural and man-made character the branch’s responsible leaders exercised control, management and analysis of practical actions of mobile and first responding and emergency repair crews, forces and means involved in the aftermath of emergencies.
The third phase, the main task of which was to ensure activities of civil defense in the transfer of civil defense from a peacetime to wartime status, demonstrated the work of operators of the Grid Control Centre of the branch, management bodies of the DEN to collect situation data and to work out a decision in emergency response according to piece of information #6 before the beginning.
The exercise was completed with the activity analysis. The head of the command-and-staff training exercise noted positive things and pointed out the flaws. In the course of this exercise only one mistake on the part of an operator was made, which was promptly fixed. The result of analyzing the event was the clarification of tasks aimed at further improvement of the branch’s personnel in emergency response.
“Our main joint task — to prevent emergencies, but if they do occur — to minimize their effects. For this purpose such trainings are conducted to assess the readiness of all agencies involved in disaster management, as well as to work out issues of cooperation. In accordance with the law, there are three assessment activities in these exercises — ready, limited ready and not ready. The staff of Lipetskenergo is clearly prepared for emergencies and operations under wartime conditions. The involved in the event power engineers received and completed actions of civil defense in the transfer of civil defense from a peacetime status to wartime in full. Their actions were distinguished by a clear organization and coordination”, — stressed Sergey Kuznetsov.