Planning and Exercise - Principles of Emergency Management - page 247

plan, update the plan list, and create a draft for a new public information
plan.
The design team determines that they will use a brief earthquake scenario to
serve as a background for the discussion because upcoming exercises will be
based on earthquake scenarios. They also determine that additional questions
will include other scenarios in order to make sure the plan information is as
flexible as possible and not disaster specific.
The design team decides that the information will not be provided to the
players before the exercise. They decide that the exercise conduct will involve
having the introduction and scenario provided to the entire room at the
same time. Once the breakout groups are ready, the list of breakout group
questions will be provided to each table. The breakout groups are asked to
document the findings, suggestions, and improvements that they identify
for presentation at the end of the exercise. The following lists are exam-
ples of some of the questions that might be considered during this type of
workshop:
Questions for the preparedness breakout group
− What can be done to prepare for the scenario that is presented?
− What if the scenario were for a large storm, hazardous material release,
or outbreak?
− What has been done in the past and what can be improved?
− What plans and training are in place?
Questions for the response breakout group
− At what point will it be determined that there is a problem, and who will
make this decision?
− Who will be notified inside and outside of your organization?
− What are the roles and responsibilities during response? Are the response
roles and responsibilities accurate?
− Is the response portion of the city plan consistent with the plans of the
other organizations including fire, police, and public health?
− What changes need to be made in the existing plan?
− What outside agencies and organizations need to involved and coordi-
nated with during response activities?
− At what point during the scenario does your department need to escalate
its operations and call in additional support from other agencies?
− Who needs to be alerted and notified, what are the regulatory and plan-
ning requirements for notification, who will make the notification, and
when does the notification need to occur?
Questions for the recovery breakout group
− At what point do recovery operations start?
− Who needs to be involved in recovery, and who should be on the recovery
team?