Testplan final4

Testing your Emergency Plans 1/ 90

Testing your Emergency Plans

Gianmario Gnecchi


The Emergency Planning Process

• An Emergency Operation Plan (EOP) can be defined as a document describing how citizens and property will be protected in a disaster or emergency.

• Emergency planning is not a one-time event. Rather, it is a continual cycle of planning, training, exercising, and revision

• There are four steps in the emergency planning process:

– Hazard analysis. – Emergency Plan Development– Testing the plan– Plan maintenance and revision.



• Hazard analysis. The outcome of this step is a written hazard analysis that quantifies the overall risk to the community from each hazard.

• EOP development, The outcome of this step is a complete plan, which is ready to be trained, exercised, and revised based on lessons learned from the exercises.

• Testing the plan through training and exercises. The outcomes of this step are lessons learned about weaknesses in the plan that can then be addressed

• Plan maintenance and revision. The outcome of this step is a revised EOP, based on current needs and resources (which may have changed since the development of the original EOP).



TESTPLANNING

REVISION

UPDATEEVALUATION


Why someone should ask to you to test your emergency plan?


There are several reasons that may require to test your existing emergency plan. Some of these are:

• Routine test and revision, as defined by laws or by local requirements or by the plan itself.

• Modification of existing situation: new buildings, new plants, new processes, new infrastructures

• Change in the plan: new chain of command, new procedures.

• Upgrade of the response capabilities: new alert systems, new responding resources


What do you need to measure?

• There are at least three aspects that you may test, individually or together:– the resources needed to fulfil the actions

required in the plan (human and technical resources)

– the structure of the plan and the procedures– the capabilities of the emergency managers and

the “chiefs” in the command and control chain

• There is a sort of logical sequence in the above mentioned aspects.


• It should be self-evident that, you cannot test the abilities of the emergency managers if you are not sure that the plan is equilibrate and credible (and well written) or if you are not confident on the real capabilities of the response resources (and their training)

TEST

EVALUATION

PLANNING

REVISION

UPDATE

1Check

SINGLERESOURCES

2Test the

STRUCTURE OF THE PLAN

3Verify the

ABILITY OF COMMANDERS


• What we are suggesting here is that you should follow this sequence, before trying to test all the system in one big field exercise.

TEST

EVALUATION

PLANNING

REVISION

UPDATE

1Check

SINGLERESOURCES

2Test the


3Verify the


• The risk is always to have the illusion to “simulate” an emergency response but without a real feedback.

• If there is not real feedback the test of the emergency plan is often inadequate


1 2

3


Exercise in a real-like setting. Not always possible (and not always necessary).

• Sometimes we may think that there is the need to test the plan, running exercises as close as possible to the real event.

• Today, for several reasons, is not always possible to organize a full-scale exercise. (and it is not always necessary).






Exercise in a real-like setting. Not always possible (and not always necessary).

• If it could be possible to give an idea in numbers of what proportion there is between the efforts for organizing those field exercises and the actual (and efficient) use of the follow-up results, it is not difficult to say that it is close to 10:1 (sometimes is 100:1).

• That means that often there are ten days (but very often more) of preparation and 1 day (and very often less) for the management of the follow-up information.

• We should be careful not to fall in this “illusion”, even if it appears to be very attractive.


Methods to test the plansand documentation available on the internet

• In the following pages are shown some of the different methods used to test one plan or only part of it.

• Particularly interesting are some documents available on the internet that give a description of the possible ways to test a plan, taken from:

• www.ukresilience.info• www.fema.gov• www.protezionecivile.it


www.ukresilience.info

• There are basically four types of exercise, although there are variations on the theme of each:

• Seminar - also known as workshops or discussion based exercises;

• Table top - also known as “floor plan” exercises;• Control post - also known as “training without troops”; and• Live - also known as practical, operational or field exercises.

• New plans or players would normally be involved in seminar or table top exercises before a control post or live exercise is planned.


SEMINARS

• Seminar exercises are generally low cost activities and inform participantsabout the organization and procedureswhich would be used to respond to an incident.

• The emphasis is on problem identification and solution finding rather than decision making.

• Those involved can be either new to the job or senior personnel. This type of event will bring staff together to inform them of current developments and thinking.


TABLE TOPEXERCISES

• Table top exercises are a very cost effective and efficient method of testing plans, procedures and people.

• They are difficult to run with large numbers,but those players who are involved are provided with an excellent opportunity to interact with and understand the roles and responsibilities of the other agencies taking part.


CONTROL POSTEXERCISES

• in control post exercises, the team leaders (and communications teams) from each participating organization are positioned at the control posts they would use during an actual incident or live exercise.

• This tests communication arrangements and, more importantly, information flows between remotely positioned team leaders from participating organizations.

• By not involving front line staff, these exercises are cost effective and efficient in testing plans, procedures and key people.


LIVE EXERCISES

• Live exercises range from a small scale test of one component of the response through to a full scale test of the whole organization’s response to an incident.

• A live exercise would not normally be undertaken until you had confidence in those involved.



• There is a comprehensive publication of FEMA regarding how to design exercises.

• Looking at the following table of content it is possible to have a broad idea on how complex is the design and preparation of an exercise.

www.fema.gov.


FEMA IS 139 – 2003 - EXERCISE DESIGN -TABLE OF CONTENT

• Course Overview• Unit 1: Introduction to Exercise Design• Unit 2: Comprehensive Exercise Program• Unit 3: The Exercise Process• Unit 4: Exercise Design Steps• Unit 5: The Tabletop Exercise• Unit 6: The Functional Exercise• Unit 7: The Full-Scale Exercise• Unit 8: Exercise Evaluation• Unit 9: Exercise Enhancements• Unit 10: Designing a Functional Exercise• Unit 11: Course Summary• Appendix A: Job Aids• Appendix B: Acronym List• Appendix C: Exercise Tool Box

www.fema.gov.



Purpose Activity

Inform Conference Seminar

Check resources Training Joint training

Test structure of the plan

Table top Functional exerciseCommand Post

exercise

Live exerciseFull or partial for

groups of responders

Verify ability of commanders

Table Top FunctionalCommand Post

Live exercise full scale

1Check

SINGLERESOURCES

2Test the


3Verify the



Most common examples of aims of Plan Test

• One the most advanced international agency that has a very important set of documents related to emergency planning is www.iaea.org. International Atomic Energy Agency

• From the documents related to planning in the nuclear energy sector, has been excerpted some indication related to the expected results of the emergency plan testing activities


It is easy to notice that there is a set of priorities in the aspects that are put to test. For instance:

– Alerting procedures and mechanism– Communications– Cooperation between agencies and clarification of

roles– Information to the public and the media.

• It seems quite evident that most of the plan tests does not (and probably should not) involve the direct verification of the “ability” of the responders teams.


• Again, this is one of the aspects that support the need to make a “mental shift” on the typical way in which are conducted some “public” exercises.

• The “aim of the exercise” that we can frequently find stated in a lot of exercise documents is often “to test the plans and procedure” but most of the times the exercise ends up simply like a “large scale team training”.

• Of course, with a lot of flashing emergency lights… everything seems credible and attractive for the media.


Plans Test Documentation

• In the process of testing there will be the need to prepare a series of document. In the following slides we summarize the process through a list of examples of what kind of documents you should be prepared to write.

• Without these documents there will not be a “serious” plan test.


(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

Testing Requirements

Testing Requirements TEST

PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

RecomMendationsTo the Plan

RecomMendationsTo the Plan

Amendments

To the plan

Amendments

To the plan

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

Plans Test Documentation


• Existing Emergency Plan.We assume, of course, that there is already a valid existing plan.

(Please remember we are not dealing, in this presentation, with “how to write” an emergency plan)

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom

mendationsTO THE PLAN

Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• Testing Requirements. From the plan itself or by mandatory requirements there is the need to test the plan.

• In this document will be listed all “the reasons” that require the testing activity and the goals related to this activity.

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• Test Project. A project of the testing activity will be prepared.

• In this document there will be all the descriptions related to the organization of the test: methods, Agencies and Teams involved, scenarios, resources and so on.

• In the project will also be defined the evaluation procedures.

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• Activities Log. There will be a registration of all the test activities. This will be done from different positions and different “point of views”.

• It will be not only an image / audio / radio / video registration but also the collection of all the documents and forms used during the exercise.

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• Evaluation.This document will gather all the evaluations provided by different Actors and Evaluators.

• All information will be categorized and sent to the Test Planning Committee for the final recommendations

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• Recommendation. After the test and the evaluation, the Test Planning Committee will meet again, will examine the documents and will write the recommendations that will be given to the Authority (or the Office) that has requested the test of the Plan

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• Amendments. The Emergency Planning Committee, taking into account the recommendations of the Plan Test Committee, will prepare the amendments to the plan.

• These amendments will be approved by the Autority and will become an integration/modification of the previously existing Plan

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


• New edition of the plan. A new and updated edition of the plan will be promulgated by Authorities.

• The Emergency Planning Committee will organize the dissemination of the new documents and will (probably) organize a new emergency plan test.

• The cycle is completed and will re-start again; at this point you should be able to compare the “plan before” and the “plan after” the exercise

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(existing)

EMERGENCY PLAN



PROJECT

TEST PROJECT

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EXECUTION

TEST EVALUATION

TEST EVALUATION

Recom


Recom


Amendments

TO THE PLAN

Amendments

TO THE PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN

(updated)

EMERGENCY PLAN


Comparison of different planning test activity and possible feedbacks


Testing your Plans and ProceduresFrom Everyday work activities to Full Scale Exercises

• For those of us working in emergency services, everyday work is one of the most powerful “feedback” activity, provided that we are able to collect, evaluate and disseminate the results of our responses.

• There is not better opportunity than a thorough evaluation of what we have been able to provide in case of real incident: communication, chain of command, resource deployment, safety, planning, accountability, procedures, operations and results.


• In the following table there is a comparison of what can be considered most interesting aspects for the different test activities.

• It is a broad classification but it should help in understanding that there are several ways to reach adequate results.

• When you organize your test activity any decision should be made after an accurate evaluation of all the opportunities and after an identification of what are the most relevant results that you want to achieve with that test.


TypeAspects

Everydaywork

ConferenceSeminar orworkshop

Command Posts

Table Top Virtual Full Scale

PreparationEffort

No extra costs

Low extra cost

Moderateextra cost

Moderateextra cost

Moderate extra cost

High Cost for quality product

Medium Extra Cost

Running Cost

Noextra costs

Moderate Cost

Moderatecost

Noextra cost

Medium Cost

ModerateCost

HighCost

Effective - ness

Very effective

with follow-up

Limited to audience

Specific to audience

Veryeffective Effective Limited

to Scenario Effective

EvaluationInfluenced by persons

Difficult feedback

Adequate Feedback

Veryappropriate

VeryAppropriate Appropriate Appropriate

RevisionInfluenced by “system”

Not specific for revision

May provide inputs to revision

Very effective

Very Effective

Limited to Scenario Effective

MediaRelevance

High media relevance

May have relevance

May haverelevance

May have relevance

May haverelevance

Low media relevance

High mediarelevance

“Visibility”Influenced by “system”

Can give visibility

Can give visibility

Can give visibility

Can give visibility

Low visibility

High visibility


• Regarding the “efforts in preparation”, with everyday work we could say that there are not any extra cost because emergency events happen everyday and response is provided automatically;

• on the other side in the effort to organize virtual simulations, where there is the need of an accurate project of the systems, the cost may be very high if a product of quality is needed.

• The preparation effort in a full scale exercise are usually significant, due to the fact that moving people, resources, and setting “live and real” scenarios may be (and often is) quite expensive.


• Looking at “Media Relevance”, the everyday work (especially in the emergency services) is of course always under the eyes of the media, so the visibility of what we do is absolutely high (and this visibility is for free!).

• On the other side, it has not the same attraction – for the Media – a room filled with computers and radio where people, like in a video-game, operate receiving and sending messages and making/taking decision.

• For a full-scale exercise the media relevance is extremely high and this is the reason why most of the times this system is preferred, even if it needs extra cost in preparation and high cost when running the exercise.



Evaluation of the exercise

• The details for a good preparation of evaluation process are well written in document FEMA IS 139 and in the related “comprehensive curriculum”.

• In the following page there is an example of the first part of a report model prepared by the author and used during an exercise in the international Airport of Milan-Orio BGY.


1. PLAN 2. RESCUERS 3. MANAGERS AND COMMANDERS

4. ORGANIZATION OF THE ESERCISE

Key factors are observed in order to verify the real functionality of the plan, its adequacy and the updating.

Key factors are observed in order to verify the quality of response of the emergency teams, their internal management capability and their ability to relate their activity with other teams of other agencies

Key factors are observed in order to define the real adequacy of the command action performed by the different managers/ commanders.

The capability to interact and act with synergy and with common objectives is measured

Key factors are observed in order to detect what of these factors influence positively on the exercise organization, on the credibility and the usefulness for the general scope of the exercise.

- Functionality of the plan

- Communications- Safety- Strategies- Ordinary resources- Extra-ordinary

resources- Coordination- Unexpected events

(and reaction) - Management of media - Public relation- Flights Traffic

management

- Readiness- Effectiveness- Efficiency- Adequacy of response- Coordination with other

teams- Coordination with other

Agencies- Capability to sustain

long term operations

- Coordination- Command and control

capabilities- Flexibility- Knowledge of the work

environment and characteristics of all “actors” involved

- Unified command- Centralized command

structure with ramification

- scope of exerciseadherence to the

existing plan, deviations and motivations

- redundancy of safety measures for actors

- inconveniences to ordinary activity

- credibility- factors that have

facilitated the exercisefactors that have made

difficult the exercise













management

















Functionality of the planCommunicationsSafetyStrategiesOrdinary resourcesExtra-ordinary resourcesCoordinationUnexpected events (and reaction) Management of media Public relationFlights Traffic management













management

















ReadinessEffectivenessEfficiencyAdequacy of responseCoordination with other teamsCoordination with other AgenciesCapability to sustain long term operations













management

















CoordinationCommand and control capabilitiesFlexibilityKnowledge of the work environmentand characteristics of all “actors” involvedUnified command and Centralized command structure













management

















Scope of exerciseAdherence to the existing plan, deviations and motivationsRedundancy of safety measures for actorsInconveniences to ordinary activitycredibilityFactors that have facilitated the exerciseFactors that have made difficult the exercise


Drills are somethingdifferent from exercises

• An emergency drill is typically related to some specific phaseof the emergency managementparticularly those at the very firststages in terms of time.

• During drill you may usually test:– Alarms– first communications and request to the emergency services (internal

or external)– first actions to do (and not to do)– evacuation procedures

• The drill commonly ends after some tens of minutes from the beginning. Even for complicated actions rarely it will exceed one hour.


3.ORGANIZING A LARGE SCALE EXERCISE:

SOME KEY ISSUES


• Once it has been established that there is the need to test the plan with a full scale exercise, one of the obvious consequence is to define the chain of command.

• Less obvious appears the need to organize a similar chain of command for the “backstage” of the exercise test organization.

• without that “backstage” organization there will not be a complete coverage of all the needs that arise during this activity.

• A scheme of that organization is represented in the following sample graphic


EXERCISE DIRECTOR

(Directing Staff)

INCIDENT COMMANDER

(or Unified Command Post)

CHIEF OF THE SIMULATION

STAFF OBSERVERS

OPERATIONS PLANNING LOGISTICS

SAFETY MAKE-UP TEAM

STAFF FOR GENERATION OF INCIDENT SCENARIOS

OVERALLSAFETY

TEAMS SAFETY

SITE SAFETY

SIMULATED“VICTIMS”

ADMINISTRATION

CommunicationsV.I.P. AND

AUTHORITIES

Media

GENERAL PUBLIC

• On the left there is the typical incident command organization. On the right there is the “backstage” organization of the exercise.

• It is easy to understand that for large scale exercises there should be a large support staff.


EXERCISING RESOURCESIncident CommandersEmergency Agency Emergency Responders- Public Teams- Private TeamsPopulation

DIRECTING STAFFExercise director(s)Simulation staff

OBSERVERSEvaluatorsMediaV.I.P.General Public

generatethe

“problems”

elaboratethe

“solutions”


Preparation, Techniques, Roles

• One of the most important thing to keep in mind is that the exercise director cannot be the incident commander itself.

• Sometimes the designated person(s) to be the in the incident command staff in that exercise, participates in depth to the preparation of the exercise itself. This is the first thing to avoid.

• The second thing is that also the evaluators should be a separate team not involved in any way in the exercise itself.

• The following scheme is aimed to visualize the relationship between these different roles:


• It is important to notice is that the DIRECTING STAFF should be considered “transparent” to the EXERCISING RESOURCES.

• The interaction between the two should be only through the sequence of injects that are prepared from time to time by the “DISTAFF” (Directing Staff).

• The objective is to create a sequence (not known in advance) of emergency situations that could be faced by the resources that are exercising: no matter if the exercising actors are authorities, incident commanders, or the population.

• The “OBSERVERS” can play their role getting information and taking notes at any of the four levels described above.




generatethe

“problems”

elaboratethe

“solutions”


Activity of Observers

• examples:– credibility of the injects prepared by the Directing

Staff, compared to risk assessment and emergency plan

– “quality” and visibility of the problem created– capability of the emergency managers (and of all

the chain of command) to elaborate a response– quality and the adequacy of the solutions to the

inject of problems




generatethe

“problems”

elaboratethe

“solutions”


How much information can or should be given in advance to the resources that are participating to exercise?

• There will be a general narrative of the scenario that will be shared and will be public.

• This does not means that the response sequence and the deployment of resources should be pre-packed, and revealed in advance to the responders and their chiefs.


Want to run exercise close to real conditions? Prepare for a really dynamic scenario• Often, when an exercise is being organized, for example, with 50

“casualties” these will remain with their “colour code” (even for some hours) until they are “rescued”.

• This is something different from real incidents, where victim conditions will degrade minute after minute.

• So, if you want to really challenge all the system it should be a good option to choose to let the condition of the “victims” condition worsen as time passes by until they are not rescued and treated.

• The great possibility with this system is to really measure the effectiveness of the response: if the rescuers are not fast enough victims will change from a “red code” to a “black code”.


Communications

• On a field exercise the communication between the different levels of command will generate the need to organize different “layers” of communication.

• This should be provided by mean of different communication channels that goes from dedicated tactical radio channel to satellite broadcast communication.



4.VIRTUAL REALITY


4.0. introduction

• There are tens of examples on how the information technology is providing the emergency responders with a series of tools that allow to “practice” most of the work to be done.

• Most of the famous software-house and recognized worldwide simulation providers are:– http://www.vectorcommand.com– http://www.emergencycommandsystem.com– http://www.admstraining.com– http://www.e-semble.com– http://www.firesimulator.com


4.1. Virtual Simulation

• In extreme synthesis, the virtual simulation activity is aimed to send “inputs” to the student/operator in order to receive “output”.

• The quality of the input depends on the quality of the product. The quality of the output depends mainly by the Student and:– the quality of procedures and plans that the student will follow

when he has to elaborate a specific response– the knowledge of the students in his/her field– the ability to perform his/her duties– the ability to do this in synergy with other members of the same

agency and members of other agencies and Authorities– finally, the ability to show and perform all this during stressful

conditions


• In principles these abilities are the very same abilities needed to face a real emergency.

• Some of the advantage in the virtual simulation is that the process can be logged precisely for further evaluation and can be repeated with the same sequences of input for other students.




Information sharing and decision support.An available, public, tool for big emergencies

• When the “problems” are “XXL problems” (extra large in size as in complexity and extension), it is easy to imagine that the content of plans are more related to mutual aid, deployment of resources, cooperation among States and so on.

• The emergency managers of each of the Agencies that want to support the stricken Nation are involved in a very complex response plan that is actually the addition of tens and tens of local, national, international, worldwide Plans and Response Mechanism.


Information sharing and decision support. An available, public, tool for big emergencies

• There are not many sources for complete training on these issues and consequently there is not a specific description on how to test effectively this “collection of plans and rules”.

• The most “official” tool is “Virtual OSOCC” (On Site Operation Coordination Center) of the United Nations that allows enrolled members to be informed with updated news regarding emergency situation around the world.


http://www.gdacs.org http://ocha.unog.ch/virtualosocc/

The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System provides near real-time alerts about natural disasters around the world and tools to facilitate response coordination, including media monitoring, map catalogues and Virtual On-Site Operations Coordination Centre.




5.LESSONS LEARNED


Dissemination of information about planning activity –A “Transition period”

• There might be a risk of (and sometimes a sense of) frustration when you actually respond to a real emergency after the redaction and approval of a Plan.

• The reason is that until (and unless) you have disseminated the content of the Plan to all the “Actors” involved, frequently it can happen that only part of the Responders of the involved Agencies have been trained into the Plan.

• These “informed” actors will probably act following the “desired” course of action provided in the Plan but other responders will act “…as usual, as they did before the plan…”.


Dissemination of information about planning activity –A “Transition period”

• The final outcome is that you and your trained Team may get frustrated because you’ll hear people that will say: “…even now that we have a Plan, the overall response have not been as expected in the plan itself…”.

• Don’t worry: this can happen and nobody should be blamed. The problems related to this “transition period” will always be present.

• The best solution is to work hard in the “compression” of this transition period. As soon as you get all the responders informed and trained on the Plan and its “expected” results you will be confident that there will be real improvements.


Redundancy of safety measures during plan tests simulated with field exercises

• There will always be the need of redundant safety measures during the live exercises. This is extremely important and it is necessary to implement what is needed to be sure that the risk of injuries will be limited (or eliminated).

• One of the way to deal with this is to provide extra safety officers for each site where the exercise is taking place.

• These officers will not interfere with the activity of the personnel which is participating to the exercise, unless there will be some signal of an imminent deviation from the expected course of action.


Motivation of Emergency Response Teams and the risk of a “show” exercise

• It seems that most of the “exercises” are run in a “demonstration mode” which aim is rather mostly the aim of “showing” (to the Public, to Authorities, to other Agencies) the “field force” of the responding system.

• Of course, it is more attractive for the media and easier to understand for the Public a “field simulation” rather than a table-top exercise or a functional exercise, where you “see” only people around some tables or around some radios, sending and receiving messages.


Motivation of Emergency Response Teams and the risk of a “show” exercise

• The risk is typically the following: to spend much more energy to organize the “V.I.P.” visit to the exercise site or a “Media-activity” rather than measuring the real effects of the test activity.

• Moreover you can be sure that when more Agencies are involved in the same field exercise, each one would try to “appear” as much as possible and everybody finds itself “forced” to do something “visible” that often is of marginal importance for the test but it is much more important for the feedback that they want to give to the V.I.P.s or to the Media.


A positive approach to the need to “show”

• A positive approach that has been seen in some of international exercises (involving several Countries) to deal with this aspect is to provide a special “demonstration day” after the exercise itself.

• Adding one “demo-day“ (or a couple of “demo-hours” if the exercise will take place in one day only), allow everybody to focus first on the correct conduction of the exercise and then gives the opportunity to “show” the best of its capabilities in a “stage-like” setting.


A positive approach to the need to “show”

• These aspects related to the need of “visibility” should not be considered “a problem”.

• It is very normal that the operating teams would like to show all their capabilities at the maximum possible level (even if this aspect in that moment of the field exercise may not be necessary).

• So, knowing in advance these needs, will help the Plan Test Planners in reaching their goals.


Visibility of scenarios in real scale exercises

• It is difficult to “simulate” on the field a real event.• Most of the times the responders need to make a

big effort in “recognizing” the situation and “reading” the assigned scenario.

• This issue is particularly significant when you deal with something that have a dynamic evolution like a vapour cloud dispersed from a chemical plant or the effects of an explosion on the immediate environment and the “victims” (simulated, of course) around there.



Playing with a limited set of resources

• Most of the times, it has been established for a specific exercise that there will be the availability of a certain number and certain type of resources,

• Iif you discover during the exercise that you would need more resources, the risk is that you may keep “playing” with “what you have” even if in the reality you would probably have asked for more resources or for different types.


Want to exercise your personal Emergency Management capabilities? Let others evaluate you.

• In principle, we should not be aware to be “tested”.• But there is a principle that should be always kept in

mind when dealing with the need to test the “chiefs”, the commanders.

• If we want to be sure that we are testing the commanders we need to be sure that all the components of the Emergency Response System have been individually tested, in advance.


Summary

• As we explained in the first chapters the sequence of tests should be (must be):– Test the resources (human and technical)– Test the plan and the procedures– Test the managers (the commanding officers)

• Sometimes, it seems to be more effective the organization of a full scale exercise without the preparation steps. As we said, this results most of the times in an “illusion”.

• The organization of a plan test with a large full-scale field exercise should be the final step of the process, (not the first one).


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