Vashon’s fire department, scores of island volunteers and the National Guard will take part in a region-wide exercise next week, simulating a response to a powerful earthquake.

Called Cascadia Rising, the event will run from June 7 to 10 and is based on a disaster scientists say is coming: the rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Such a scenario, with a large-magnitude earthquake followed by a tsunami and aftershocks, is one of the most complex natural disasters the area’s public safety officials say they face. Beginning Tuesday, those involved at all levels of emergency response in this region — local, county, state and federal — will participate and evaluate their combined approach to responding to such a scenario. On Vashon, the exercise will involve more than 200 people, including some 150 volunteers from the island’s emergency and disaster preparedness organizations and 80 members of the National Guard, according to Rick Wallace, who head’s Vashon’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) team. One of the primary objectives of the exercise is communication.

“The fire department, CERT, the Medical Reserve Corps, the EOC team and the National Guard — each of those entities has a different culture and ways of talking and organizing themselves. How we weave all that together so we can help the community is really at the heart of this exercise,” he said.

While some communities are participating in just a portion of the event, Vashon will participate for the duration of the exercise.

“We are fully committed to this,” Wallace said. “There is so much at stake on Vashon that we felt we had to participate for all four days.”

Wallace designed the scenario Vashon will contend with, which he said is built on sound science and includes the loss of both ferry docks, a fire station collapse, an aftershock, a landslide that destroys 45 homes, and many casualties, including seven dead and more than 100 people injured.

Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR) Chief Hank Lipe, who will serve as the incident commander, said for this exercise the department will expand its operations branch, which will coordinate with the community emergency response groups and be in constant communication with the EOC. The operations team will make full use of technology and will digitally map events that are happening, their status and which VIFR crews are available to respond.

“It is all right in front of us in real time and available to the people in the separate EOC room, and they will be seeing it simultaneously as it develops,” Lipe said. “We are making tremendous strides in technology and testing it for the first time during this exercise.”

The National Guard will also benefit VIFR, Lipe said, as its resources will provide enough support that the fire department will be able to work initially as first responders then transition to addressing the long-term recovery needs of the island, including food, water, shelter, transportation and power.

“This exercise is giving us the ability for the first time … to practice that transition,” he said.

Working closely with those heading the emergency response in the coming days will be members of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). Jan Milligan, who heads that group, said she expects some 40 members to participate, focusing on assessing the condition of the island and reporting it to the EOC in an organized way. For that purpose, one walking route and four driving routes have been established, and CERT teams will fan out repeatedly during the exercise and check the status of 170 locations where people could be gathered — from the country club to preschools — and then report their findings, along with the condition of critical infrastructure along the way.

This is a new system, Milligan said, and volunteers have not practiced it before.

“We are going to be testing it and ironing out the wrinkles as we go,” she said.

Nearly 25 of the island’s ham radio operators will also participate and provide communication services among a variety of groups. Michael Meyer, who heads Vashon’s Auxiliary Communications Service, said volunteers will staff all the five of the island’s fire stations. The CERT field teams will conduct their rounds and bring their findings to the outlying stations, where ham radio operators will pass the information on to Station 55, the center of activity. Additionally, teams located at the main station will relay resource requests from the EOC to King County, Meyer said, noting that the teams will be able to relay the most urgent messages via voice and less urgent and longer messages via email over the radio, independent of internet service.

Vashon’s Medical Reserve Corps is taking part in the exercise as well, though in a more limited way. Corps leader Barb Owdziej said on Tuesday afternoon that some of its members will gather at Sunrise Ridge, where they will be given patient descriptions and will need to evaluate what resources would be necessary to stabilize them for up to 72 hours. She noted one of her goals is to come up with a resource list that includes medications and supplies that should be on hand if and when the island is truly isolated. She is also hoping to establish a core group that would meet regularly to continue to work on island medical preparedness.

Voice of Vashon, too, will be involved in Cascadia Rising, with its Emergency Alert Team serving in the Public Information Unit of the EOC and providing information on the air. Earthquake tips and exercise information will be broadcast on 1650AM, and many of the days’ events will be broadcast on KVSH 101.9FM.

While Cascadia Rising is a functional exercise that simulates events — as opposed to a drill with “victims” and boots-on-the-ground responses — the community will see some of the activity going on, Wallace said.

Members of the advance team of the National Guard will arrive at Sunrise Ridge on June 4 or 5, where the whole group will camp for the duration of the exercise. At Jensen Point on Sunday, June 5, there will be a testing of the National Guard’s landing craft, which will bring the remainder of the team and their vehicles on Monday, roughly at high tide. At 8 a.m. Tuesday, the earthquake will hit, and people will report to their posts — “in full regalia,” Wallace said. On Wednesday morning, a Black Hawk helicopter will land at Sunrise Ridge and will conduct a training for CERT and Medical Reserve Corps members on loading patients, including staging a “hot load” while the chopper blades are running. Also on Wednesday, there will be a food and water distribution demonstration in the IGA parking lot, and Black Hawk helicopters are expected to bring some 20 VIPs to the Vashon airport, where they will join several other VIPs at Station 55. Wallace said the individuals, coming to see Vashon in action, include members of Congress, state legislators and military officials, all visiting the island in part because of Vashon’s reputation for readiness. On Thursday, representatives from King County Executive Dow Constantine’s office and the county’s Office of Emergency Management are also expected to travel to Vashon.

When the exercise is complete, the National Guard members are slated to conduct community service projects at Point Robinson and Jensen Point. Wallace noted that the National Guard requested “good works” project on the island, and he stressed they are coming for humanitarian reasons to assist with relief logistics. The group is expected to leave, again by landing craft, on June 11.

At VIFR, looking to undertake the exercise in just a few days, Lipe said he hopes islanders embrace the effort.

“The community should be proud of all the volunteers who have been able to bring this together and show their dedication and passion for this type of work. It is truly disaster planning at the grassroots level,” he said.