Planning Ahead-- Evergreen Quake Exercise Dates & Participation Confirmed for 2012!

Yes, 2012! More is to come, and you can consult Chief Lipe or Exercise Czar Rick Wallace for all the details, but for now please just add the following dates to next year’s calendar:

2012 Exercise Series

• Functional Exercise: June 5-6
• Logistics Drill: June 12-14
• Recovery TTX: August 15 & 22

Overview

Evergreen Quake is a series of three exercises that is intended to test the ability of local, state, federal and tribal governments, as well as select private sector entities located within the eight-county Puget Sound Metro Area to collaboratively respond to and recover from a large-scale to catastrophic Seattle Fault earthquake. The ultimate goal of the exercise-series is to improve the collective operational readiness of emergency/ disaster managers, and other public safety institutions that are participating in the exercise. The three exercises in the series and their tentative dates are:

• Functional Exercise (June 5-6, 2012)
• Logistics Exercise/Drill (June 12-14, 2012)
• Recovery Table Top Exercise (August 15 and August 22, 2012)

Achieving our collective exercise goals will require a well designed and effectively executed set of exercises. This will be the charge of the ‘Evergreen Quake’ Exercise Design Interagency Working Committee and its respective Subcommittees. Working together, Puget Sound Area city, county, state, federal, non governmental, and private sector officials that volunteer to serve on the various ‘Evergreen Quake’ exercise design and planning subcommittees will collaboratively build a realistic-as-possible set of exercises through the development of comprehensive scenario documents, a challenging Master Scenario Events List, and a  robust simulation and control cell.

- ORIENTATION SEATTLE FAULTlow-res1.pdf

Scenario

What else, our favorite: a BIG earthquake! But there are “Five Overarching Themes”

1. Information Sharing and Situational Awareness
2. Logistics and Resources Management
3. Medical Response Operations
4. Sheltering/Mass-Care and Housing
5. Regional Transportation Resiliency

Seminar/Workshop program

• Seminar 1: “Recovery 101” (Late Oct/early Nov 2011)
• Seminar 2: Transportation and Utilities (Late Jan 2012)
• Seminar 3: Capitalization (March 2012)
• Seminar 4: Restoration (Late Apr/early May 2012)

A Big Deal

Based on the early announcement of this, and the long (& many) lists of participants (below), this looks to be a “big deal”, so get ready!

Functional Exercise Participants (so far)

6 Counties

11 Cities (if you seriously stretch things and call Vashon a city)

15 Federal Agencies (if you call each of FEMA’s appendages an agency)
 

–FEMA ESF 2 (NCS)
–FEMA ESF 3 (FEMA and USACE)
–FEMA ESF 5 (FEMA)
–FEMA ESF 6 (FEMA and ARC)
–FEMA ESF 7 (FEMA and GSA)
–FEMA ESF 9 (FEMA)
–ESF 10 (US EPA)
–ESF 11 (USDA)
–ESF 13 (BATF)
–ESF 15 (FEMA)
–R10 DCE (ARNORTH)
–DHS –CBP
–DHS –TSA
–BATF ESF 13
–USCG District 13

Others
–American Medical Response
–Port of Tacoma
–Tacoma Water
–ARC (King/Kitsap)
–ARC (Mt. Rainier/Tacoma)
–Western State Hospital
–Tacoma/Pierce Public Health
–South King Fire
–Canadian Consulate
–British Consulate
–Central Pierce F&R
–Browns Point Dash Point Fire Dept
–Pierce County PSAP (LESA)

Logistics

“The purpose of this exercise is to validate the combined local, state, and federal capability to manage resources after a major regional disaster.”

“The exercise will simulate an emergency supply chain including a federal incident support base, a state staging area, one or more local staging areas, and multiple community points of distribution”

Participants

So far Vashon isn’t listed among those participating in the Logistics component – but I suspect we will be soon!

Local
–Thurston County with Olympia
–Pierce County (?) with Puyallup
–Snohomish County with Marysville and Brier
–Kitsap County with Bremerton and Bainbridge
State Agencies
–Emergency Management Division
–Department of General Administration
–Department of Health
–Washington State Patrol
–Department of Transportation
–Washington National Guard
Federal Agencies
–FEMA
–USACE
–HS TSA
–US Navy

Recovery Tabletop Update

Two exercises will be held:

• Phase 1 is short term (14-30 days after the quake) recovery (conducted August 15, 2012)
• Phase 2 is long term (180-360 days after the quake) recovery (conducted August 22, 2012)