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
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Susan Mongold
VDEM Director – Training & Exercises
Aaron Kesecker
VDEM Exercise Officer
Robb Braidwood
City of Chesapeake Emergency
Manager
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Background - RCPT
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Regional Catastrophic Preparedness
Grant Program (FEMA)
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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
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Background
Chesapeake
Virginia
Hampton Roads (Norfolk) footprint
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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
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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
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Background – Hampton Roads
Chesapeake
Hampton Roads (Norfolk) footprint
Virginia
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Background – Hampton Roads
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Background – Hampton Roads
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Diversity
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Population
Population Density
Below Poverty
Square Miles
8,897 – 438,479
31 – 1,758
7.9 – 19%
85 - 600
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Background – Hampton Roads
Chesapeake
Virginia
The Hampton Roads area is a myriad of
bridges, tunnels and waterways.
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Background – Hampton Roads
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Diversity – Implications
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What do these indicators means in terms
of….
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Creating ONE exercise for the grant
scenario?
Working as a region to respond to a
catastrophic hurricane?
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Background – Grant Phase
Chesapeake
Virginia
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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
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Not a contractor
Brought state/federal resources
Brought post grant sustainment
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Background – Pre-Exercise Activities
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Planning Meetings
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July 2013 – 1st planning meeting
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Challenges included finding out that beyond the
known diversity
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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
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Background – Pre-Exercise Activities
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Training
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Emergency Operations Planning: An Inclusive
Approach
G-393: Mitigation for Emergency Managers
G-386: Mass Fatalities Incident Response
RCPT Hurricane Framework overview
Webinars
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Regional Public Information
Inclusive Planning
Hurricane/Tropical Storm Annex to the
COVEOP
Terrorism Annex to the COVEOP
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
Why do we
exercise?
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
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Virginia
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Hurrevac modeling
from June 21-28,
2014
28 total advisories
for the exercise series
“The Series”=
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2 Tabletop Exercises
1 Multi-Day
Functional Exercise
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
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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.
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1.2 million people in
need of evacuation
and/or sheltering
Virginia
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
What is a Tabletop
Exercise meant to
do?
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
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MiddlePeninsula/Southside
Hurricane Decision
Making TTX
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March 7, 2014
135 Participants
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
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What worked:
Virginia
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Diversity of the
audience
First time for this
sub-region
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What didn’t:
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Room Set Up
Facilitation
Crowd Control
“Soap Boxes”
Screen
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Peninsula/Southside
Hurricane Decision
Making TTX
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May 21, 2014
253 Participants
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
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What worked:
Virginia
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Room Set Up!
Facilitation!
Read ahead &
Homework assignment
Resource Tracking &
Management
“Issue Cards”
“Regional Conference
Call” report out format
Joint Information
Center table
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What didn't:
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Visibility of state
table actions
Detail of maps
Handouts
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
What is a
Functional
Exercise?
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Multi-Agency
Coordination Center
Operations Functional
Exercise
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June 25-26, 2014
454 participants
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13 Local Emergency
Operations Centers
Virginia EOC
2 EMAC States
FEMA Region III
IMAT
ON TO RICHMOND AND BEYOND!
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Functional Exercise Design Challenges:
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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)
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Exercises - Design
Chesapeake
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What Worked:
Virginia
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One-on-One Visits!!!!
Amount of
engagement and
participation
Tailored scripts for
STARTEX
Hand delivered
injects (messages)
After Action Report
Process
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What Didn’t:
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Simulation Process:
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WebEOC
Information flow
(State to local)
Venue Controller
preparation
Controller/Evaluator
Communications
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Are we in the Trust Tree, in the nest?
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Awesome Stuff - RCPT
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Regional “working” relationships
Framing changes
Envisioning Catastrophe
Seeing what the other RCPG sites were up to
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VJPO
Learned real gaps in my own program and
my neighbors
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Not Awesome Stuff - RCPT
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RCPT Grant Fatigue
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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
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Diverse Communities
No “big dog” on the block
Southerners are terrible in meetings
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Awesome Stuff - Exercise
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Creative approaches (webinars)
Relationships
Food
One on one
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For smaller jurisdictions who are crazy busy, this
was huge
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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So if the EM’s were hard to get engaged
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Dept Directors (EOC) staff
Outside Stakeholders
Private Partner’s
Military
Etc…
Novel concept – train the plan then
exercise the plan!!!!
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Not Awesome Stuff – Exercise
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Planning arcs were close timing wise due to
grant constrictions
So many planning meetings, so many!!
Stakeholder Confusion on the two exercises
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Stakeholder engagement was always an issue –
not VDEM’s fault
Nobody even read the plans (were they even
plans?)
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Outcome – Local Perspective
Chesapeake
Virginia
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Closing thoughts
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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.
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Hurricane Evacuation Planning Enhancement
Chesapeake
Virginia
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