Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
that have they identified during the exercise. They will need to select someone
from their group to present their findings to all the participants. Remind them
that the goal of the exercise is to find methods and procedures to improve their
activities and to keep the activities at a very high level. Instead of saying “Jeff at the
Government and Emergency Management table never notified us that groups were
responding to the disaster and an EOC had been opened,” the suggestion should
be, “Notification and involvement of response groups needs to be evaluated and
improved. The power utilities would like to be invited to the EOC during storm
responses and the water and wastewater utilities would like to be invited to the
EOC during flood situations.”
Once the groups have completed summarizing their observations, you then
have a representative from each group present their findings. It is important to take
notes of the findings as well as any comments and discussion that are provided from
the other participants.
After Action Report and Implementation Plan
After the exercise, the design team will compile the findings and comments into
an AAR and include a matrix or master list of activities and improvements that
should be considered for implementation. Using the task matrix at the back of the
SITMAN, each agency is asked to consider and prioritize the after action items and
tasks, decide which tasks they are capable of taking and are willing to take, and the
date that this can be accomplished.
TIP BOX 10.5
Not all implementation items and tasks will be taken on or accomplished.
Typically, you may ask to have the most important and feasible topics
adopted by the participating groups and leave the remaining items for the
next exercise. For example, buying backup generators for all government
operations may be a nice solution for a particular problem but the feasibil-
ity and expense of doing so may be restrictive. Instead, rephrase the task
to include defining the high priority agencies and obtaining backup gen-
erators over time or establish a way to loan equipment from one agency to
another.
You and the design team will evaluate the comments to the AAR and the tasks
that each agency has decided to address. The changes and updates are made to the
AAR, which is sent out to the participants again. The design team decides that a
teleconference meeting will be held in four months to get an update on the imple-
mentation of the tasks and what possible issues there may be.
