Hurricane Evacuation Planning Enhancement â from Tabletop to
Hurricane Evacuation Planning Enhancement – from Tabletop to Functional Exercise Series Chesapeake Susan Mongold VDEM Director – Training & Exercises Virginia Aaron Kesecker VDEM Exercise Officer Robb Braidwood City of Chesapeake Emergency Manager March 30, 2015 Introductions Chesapeake Virginia Susan Mongold VDEM Director – Training & Exercises Aaron Kesecker VDEM Exercise Officer Robb Braidwood City of Chesapeake Emergency Manager 2 Background - RCPT Chesapeake Virginia Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program (FEMA) Supported coordination of regional all-hazard planning for catastrophic events (development of integrated planning communities, plans, protocols, and procedures 10 sites nationally Bay (CA) Boston Chicago Houston Los Angeles NCR New York/New Jersey Honolulu Norfolk Seattle 3 Background Chesapeake Virginia Hampton Roads (Norfolk) footprint Accomack County City of Chesapeake Currituck County Dare County City of Franklin Gloucester County City of Hampton Isle of Wight County James City County Lancaster County Mathews County Middlesex County City of Newport News City of Norfolk Northampton County Northumberland County City of Poquoson City of Portsmouth Richmond County Southampton County City of Suffolk Surry County City of Virginia Beach Westmoreland County City of Williamsburg York County 4 Background – Hampton Roads Chesapeake Hampton Roads (Norfolk) footprint Virginia 5 Background – Hampton Roads Chesapeake Virginia 6 Background – Hampton Roads Chesapeake Virginia Diversity Population Population Density Below Poverty Square Miles 8,897 – 438,479 31 – 1,758 7.9 – 19% 85 - 600 7 Background – Hampton Roads Chesapeake Virginia The Hampton Roads area is a myriad of bridges, tunnels and waterways. 8 Background – Hampton Roads Chesapeake Virginia Diversity – Implications What do these indicators means in terms of…. Creating ONE exercise for the grant scenario? Working as a region to respond to a catastrophic hurricane? 9 Background – Grant Phase Chesapeake Virginia Previous grant phases (development of plans, data analysis) conducted by a variety of vendors Remaining phases (training and exercise) conducted by Virginia Department of Emergency Management Not a contractor Brought state/federal resources Brought post grant sustainment 10 Background – Pre-Exercise Activities Chesapeake Virginia Planning Meetings July 2013 – 1st planning meeting Challenges included finding out that beyond the known diversity Different levels of engagement Different levels of knowing the grant products (plans) Different perspectives of regionalized response Different expectations on what could be delivered in this phase We had to create a new approach to make this a win-win 11 Background – Pre-Exercise Activities Chesapeake Virginia Training Emergency Operations Planning: An Inclusive Approach G-393: Mitigation for Emergency Managers G-386: Mass Fatalities Incident Response RCPT Hurricane Framework overview Webinars Regional Public Information Inclusive Planning Hurricane/Tropical Storm Annex to the COVEOP Terrorism Annex to the COVEOP 12 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia Why do we exercise? 13 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia Hurrevac modeling from June 21-28, 2014 28 total advisories for the exercise series “The Series”= 2 Tabletop Exercises 1 Multi-Day Functional Exercise 14 Exercises - Design Chesapeake A Category 3 hurricane, approaching Category 4 in strength, hits the area, making landfall at Virginia Beach, VA. Sustained winds are between 126 and 132 mph, with a storm surge of 10 feet or higher. 1.2 million people in need of evacuation and/or sheltering Virginia 15 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia 16 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia What is a Tabletop Exercise meant to do? 17 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia MiddlePeninsula/Southside Hurricane Decision Making TTX March 7, 2014 135 Participants 18 Exercises - Design Chesapeake What worked: Virginia Diversity of the audience First time for this sub-region What didn’t: Room Set Up Facilitation Crowd Control “Soap Boxes” Screen 19 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia Peninsula/Southside Hurricane Decision Making TTX May 21, 2014 253 Participants 20 Exercises - Design Chesapeake What worked: Virginia Room Set Up! Facilitation! Read ahead & Homework assignment Resource Tracking & Management “Issue Cards” “Regional Conference Call” report out format Joint Information Center table What didn't: Visibility of state table actions Detail of maps Handouts 21 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia 22 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia What is a Functional Exercise? 23 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia Multi-Agency Coordination Center Operations Functional Exercise June 25-26, 2014 454 participants 13 Local Emergency Operations Centers Virginia EOC 2 EMAC States FEMA Region III IMAT ON TO RICHMOND AND BEYOND! 24 Exercises - Design Chesapeake Virginia Functional Exercise Design Challenges: Large geographic area footprint Diversity of the region Master Scenario Events List (MSEL) development (14 individual/300+ injects) Control, Simulation and Evaluation network Writing of the After Action Report(s) 25 Exercises - Design Chesapeake What Worked: Virginia One-on-One Visits!!!! Amount of engagement and participation Tailored scripts for STARTEX Hand delivered injects (messages) After Action Report Process What Didn’t: Simulation Process: WebEOC Information flow (State to local) Venue Controller preparation Controller/Evaluator Communications 26 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia Are we in the Trust Tree, in the nest? 27 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia Awesome Stuff - RCPT Regional “working” relationships Framing changes Envisioning Catastrophe Seeing what the other RCPG sites were up to VJPO Learned real gaps in my own program and my neighbors 28 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia Not Awesome Stuff - RCPT RCPT Grant Fatigue Grant was obtained in 1902 and we had 15-20 meetings per month for the duration of the grant. Grant duration was so long, players and planning team dynamics often changed Hired contractors instead of staff Robert’s Rules never followed Regional Craziness Diverse Communities No “big dog” on the block Southerners are terrible in meetings 29 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia Awesome Stuff - Exercise Creative approaches (webinars) Relationships Food One on one For smaller jurisdictions who are crazy busy, this was huge 30 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia So if the EM’s were hard to get engaged Dept Directors (EOC) staff Outside Stakeholders Private Partner’s Military Etc… Novel concept – train the plan then exercise the plan!!!! 31 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia Not Awesome Stuff – Exercise Planning arcs were close timing wise due to grant constrictions So many planning meetings, so many!! Stakeholder Confusion on the two exercises Stakeholder engagement was always an issue – not VDEM’s fault Nobody even read the plans (were they even plans?) 32 Outcome – Local Perspective Chesapeake Virginia Closing thoughts Epic effort that was compacted into 1 year Take for granted how much this grant did for us Regionally Sometimes when you are so close to a project you don’t realize how good it is/was Changed my thinking. 33 Hurricane Evacuation Planning Enhancement Chesapeake Virginia 34
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