Alaska Specific Hazardous Materials Tabletop Exercises

Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management

Department of Military & Veterans Affairs

DRAFTSchool Tabletop

Exercise

Welcome and Introductions

This document was prepared under a grant from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety

Administration within the U.S. Department of Transportation.

For Official Use Only

Agenda

8:30 - Registration

9:00 - Welcome and Introductions

9:15 - Exercise Scenario and Discussions

12:00 - Working Lunch

1:00 - Exercise Scenario and Discussions

2:00 - End Exercise

2:15 - TTX Hotwash

2:45 - Concluding Remarks

Scope

This exercise focuses on notification, coordination and command and control issues associated with a HazMat incident in Alaska.

Objectives

Demonstrate the ability to direct, coordinate, and control emergency activities using the Incident Command System (ICS).Demonstrate the ability to alert, mobilize, and activate personnel for emergency response and maintain operations until the situation is brought under control.Demonstrate the ability to mobilize, track, and demobilize equipment, people, and other resources in support of emergency operations.

Objectives

Develop and maintain coordinated action plans to accomplish operational objectives.Identify and implement appropriate actions to protect emergency workers and the public.Coordinate and disseminate timely and accurate information to the media.

Exercise Process

This is an open, low-stress, no-fault environment

Respond based on your knowledge of current plans and capabilities

Decisions are not precedent setting and may not reflect your organization’s final position on a given issue.

How to Play in a TTXPlayers respond to the situation presented, based on knowledge of response procedures, current plans, and insights from training.

The facilitator will present the situation. The information presented is supplemented in the players’ Situation Manual. Players will engage in a discussion of appropriate response actions and issues that arise from the scenario at hand.

Format of a TTXInteractive No fault environment – exchange ideasLearn what other departments, agencies, & jurisdictions need from youPrompts to get you talking/thinking with each otherWrite down issues to solve within your own agency

MODULE ONE

At 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, two students at [SCHOOL NAME] report to the school nurse complaining of sore throats and a fever. She has them both lie down in a quiet area. 

At 11:00 a.m. the school’s administrative office receives its daily mail. In the mail is a plain white envelope, filled about a quarter-full with a white powder.

The secretary who has opened the envelope alerts the school administration.

The administration immediately moves all staff from the office, and evacuates the students from adjacent classrooms to the gym.

The administration calls local emergency responders.

 

First responders arrive on the scene and are advised by the school administration of the powder.

Responders learn there had been a white powder in the library the week before. The school librarian said she had seen it sprinkled along a bookshelf while doing some cleaning.

She is unsure of how long it had been on the shelf.

MODULE TWO

Several students have texted and called their parents about the emergency at the school.

A couple of parents have arrived at the school to pick up their children.

A reporter is calling local response agencies and the school for information. Reporters have also begun calling the principal’s cell phone.

Responders on the scene are unable to identify the powder in the envelopes.

More parents are arriving at the school to pick up their children. They demand to take their children home.

There are about fifteen parents and family members on the campus at this point.

A television news crew has arrived on the scene and is attempting to get footage for their evening broadcast.

MODULE THREE

Responders have called the state’s Civil Support Team (CST) to assist with the identification of the powder and the response operations.

 

A student who had been taken home by her mother is complaining of the same symptoms as the students who reported to the nurse. She was in the library the previous Thursday.

The first members of the CST have arrived by helicopter.

The ANG has also deployed their mobile lab and communications unit, both of which are on the road towards the school.

DISCUSSION

HOTWASH

Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Management

Department of Military & Veterans Affairs

THANK YOU