City of Dallas
Office of Emergency Management
Quarterly Newsletter
April 2015
Message From the Director—Rocky Vaz, Office of Emergency Management
Inside this issue:
CERT Rodeo Round Up
2
IEMC
2
2nd Annual
Preparedness Fair
2
Terrorism Tabletop Exercise
3
Severe Weather
3
CHEMPACK
3
Communicator NXT
4
Earthquakes in Dallas
4
The City of Dallas Office of Emergency Management
(OEM) maintains a strong national standing in the
field of Public Safety. We have partnered with
peers and networks around the country to build
and improve strategies that address future challenges.
In the first quarter of 2015, OEM has participated in
preparedness and response to the special events
surrounding the College National Football Championship, severe winter weather, and in City-wide
training exercises.
OEM has been working with area partners in studying the causes of recent earthquake activity.
Though the centers of these events have been in
the City of Dallas the effects are felt in several
areas of the Metroplex. We are providing support
and resources as needed .
We are continuing to work on the City’s Continuity of
Operations Plan (COOP), EMAP accreditation, and
educating our residents throughout the year.
Public Education remains a keystone to safety in any
emergency situation. We’re also in the planning
stages for this year’s Preparedness Fair and invite
everyone to come out to learn how to better be
prepared in the case of an emergency.
NCAA 2015 National Football Championship
The Dallas-Fort Worth area hosted the first ever
NCAA National Football Championship in January.
This event, which spanned three cities required
coordination and planning to bring all the elements together.
The City of Dallas Emergency Operations Center
activated to monitor events at the Dallas Convention Center, local hotels, and other areas with
incident potential.
This is one of the many multi-agency events OEM
monitors .
City of Dallas
Page 2
CERT Rodeo Round Up 2015—Houston, TX
The City of Dallas
Community Emergency Response
Team (CERT) program took members
to Houston in February 2015 to participate in the 9th
Annual CERT Rodeo Round Up. The event gave our volunteers the opportunity to exercise their disaster preparedness training.
Challenges in this year’s Rodeo Round Up
included HazMat recognition, fire suppression, Search & Rescue, and basic triage,
among other events.
The Dallas CERT team was one of several
teams from across the State to participate
in this event. The City of Dallas relies on
CERT volunteers to assist the community in
the event of a disaster with basic preparedness.
Our CERT Volunteers are uniquely qualified
to take care of themselves, their families
Comprehensive Training—IEMC in Emmitsburg, MD
The City of Dallas took more than 70 city
staff and partner agency officials to Emmitsburg, MD to participate in a weeklong training exercise designed by FEMA.
This training was designed with regional
hazards in mind to better equip our
Emergency Operations Center staff partners to deal with real world situations in
relative real time.
This was also an opportunity for all our partners to
get to know each other, learn skills, and strengths
and come together as a team. Over the coming
months, we will be evaluating the After Action Report and developing ways to improve our response
and recovery operations to better serve our City
and our residents.
2nd Annual Preparedness Fair
September is National Preparedness Month.
OEM will host a Preparedness Fair on Saturday, September 12 from 11am—3 pm for the
community.
This event will showcase agencies and provide
public education to help residents of Dallas
face potential emergencies. This familyfriendly event will include activities for all ages
as well as exhibits, demonstrations, music, and
food trucks.
All agencies involved in emergency prepared-
ness are invited to attend and/or provide preparedness materials for our residents.
Past participants included Dallas CERT, American
Red Cross, the National Weather Service, and
others.
Preparedness is for everyone. If your department
or agency is interested in participating in this
year’s Preparedness Fair, contact Adam Traylor
([email protected]) for information
on how you can take part.
and neighbors as needed. We’ve had
over 100 CERT classes graduate since
2007, and welcome new volunteers at
any time. Go to www.dallascert.com
for more information.
City of Dallas
Page 3
Terrorism Tabletop Exercise
This exercise was designed to discuss communications, timing, and logistical issues
around a very difficult situation, and included
our city’s policy makers—including briefings
to the Mayor.
On March 20, OEM, along with City Departments and Federal Agency Partners gathered
to conduct a tabletop exercise based on an
Active Shooter scenario.
identifying areas in which improvement and
coordination can be addressed. We are
working with our partners to make sure our
preparedness trainings result in more effective response and recovery activities.
This three-hour exercise let First Responders and other departments to discuss how
their procedures can mesh with other departmental policies to coordinate an effective
response.
This exercise opened doors to future quarterly exercises based on our regional hazard
profile and other potential threats as well as
Severe Weather Is Year Round—Are You Ready?
As we enter what our area calls
“Severe Weather Season” or
“Storm Season,” we realized winter
can rear its head late into the season.
In late February, we experienced
three rounds of ice and snow in a
short period of time. OEM coordinated with Streets and other departments to monitor safety condi-
tions and help residents and travelers safely get to their destinations
through the activation of Ice Force
One. Streets endeavored to keep
bridges and overpasses clear
through ice remediation techniques
developed through past events.
gency kits. Check your supplies of food,
water, and other emergency essentials
and replace anything that might’ve been
used or expired during the winter.
We have lists of what you need to be
prepared on our website and through
www.KnoWhat2Do.com.
Now that we’re heading into Spring
Storm season, we encourage you to
update your home and office emer-
CHEMPACK—Quick Response When Seconds Count
The City of Dallas has prestaged, secured containers
around the city called
CHEMPACKs. These units
contain antidotes for nerve
agents that might be released either by accident or
intentionally.
When it comes to nerve agents, the
amount of time it takes to receive
treatment directly relates to the ability
to recover. First responders need to
know where the CHEMPACK is located
and how to access it without needing
instruction. OEM has developed training on how to access the nearest
CHEMPACK .
Training on how to access and utilize CHEMPACK will begin in May to
not only raise awareness on this
resource, but to make first responders comfortable using them
when moments make the difference
between life and death.
City of Dallas
Page 4
COMMUNICATOR NXT—An Easy to Use Communications Tool
How would you communicate to your employees in the event of severe weather or a life
safety issue and needed to take a protective
action or be recalled to duty? A tool that is
available to City of Dallas departments is Communicator NXT. This tool features quick, threestep activation of notification scenarios with
easy message creation (advanced preparation,
on the fly, record by phone). It also uses multimodal notification (i.e., landline,
cell, two-way SMS, etc.) and features a reporting function available to track response as well.
Currently, Dallas Police SWAT and Dallas Fire
Rescue Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) use
this system for their rapid callouts and notifications. The system even adapts to their on-call
team rotation. OEM can demonstrate the flexibility of this system and get your department or
Earthquakes in Dallas
The City of Dallas has always been aware of the
unlikely potential for earthquakes. The Balcones Fault is a tensional structure that runs
through Texas more or less along I-35. In the
past several months, the fault has sent shivers
through Dallas and surrounding areas.
The City and partnering cities and agencies are
working to monitor these tremors with specialized equipment and experts to determine location and cause of these quakes. Seismographs
and monitors have been positioned around the
area with recording capabilities to track the
fault.
The US Geological Survey has a website, Did You
Feel it?, that lets citizens report quakes they
experience, which helps conduct ongoing research. To report an earthquake, go to :
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/
.
City Of Dallas
Office of Emergency Management
1500 Marilla Street, L2AN
214-670-4275
www,DallasEmergencyManagement org
agency connected quickly and easily.
Please email OEM [email protected] and put Communicator NXT in the subject line for
more information or to set up a
demonstration.