2001 CERPP Earthquake Exercise
Exercise Documents
For The Neighborhood Response
Part of the Exercise
DRAFT COPY
7-27-2001
Instructions...
This part of the exercise should be done by a group of neighbors acting as a
neighborhood disaster response team. It is a table top exercise, so you will be working as
a group around someone’s kitchen table rather than outside walking through your
neighborhood.
This part of the exercise is scheduled to begin at 9am. And run until 11 am.
Goals:
- Pose a series of earthquake related problems to each neighborhood so that they
can formulate a plan of action and evaluate the resources needed.
- Exchange situation status, resource requests and availability, and damage
information.
- Utilize various communications channels
Simulated Events:
Some of the events that are simulated in this exercise would normally be handled by
existing emergency service providers. Your group should always attempt to notify the
proper authorities in the event of an emergency situation. In many cases, traditional
emergency service providers will be overwhelmed and unable to respond. Your
neighborhood may be isolated by road blockages and the emergency responders will have
difficulty accessing the incident. As you consider your group’s response to any given
situation you should keep the following in mind:
1. Always attempt to notify proper authorities of the situation.
2. Provide first aid or other first response assistance if you can safely do so.
3. Assist emergency response personnel. Your group’s local knowledge
and additional manpower may be very useful.
4. Traditional emergency services may be unavailable.
How would your group respond if this is the case?
5. How can your group continue to offer assistance, after the “emergency”
is over but while the problem continues, possibly for an extended period of time.
Decision making:
We will use a single die to add some randomness to the exercise. At times you will be
instructed to roll the die to determine an outcome. There may be other times when your
group poses a question and needs an answer. Such as, “Can the fire dept get here?”
To answer a question…
- Phrase the question as a yes/no question.
- Decide if a yes is likely, even chance, or unlikely, based on the current situation.
- Roll the dice and refer to the table below for the answer.
1
2
3
4
5
6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------Yes is likely
Yes Yes Yes Yes No
No
Even chance
Yes Yes Yes No
No
No
Yes is unlikely
Yes Yes No
No
No
No
Be creative.
You should feel free to embellish upon this exercise to make it as realistic and
educational as possible. If you have folks standing around with nothing to do, make up
some problems for them to solve.
Please don’t change the number of deaths that are reported in your neighborhood. This
number is being used as a “control variable” to help evaluate the accuracy of summarized
information at all levels of the exercise.
Communications:
This set of exercise instructions does not contain any “canned” messages to be sent over
various communications media. You will need to decide what information you need to let
the outside world know as well as what requests for information and assistance you will
make of the outside world. At the end of the exercise we will be evaluating ourselves not
only on how well we could communicate with one another, but also on what we decided
to say.
Please be sure to identify all radio traffic related to this exercise with “This is an
Exercise”. We don’t want anyone thinking any of this stuff is real!
Give thought to the priority of radio traffic you are sending. Messages that have to do
with threat to life will have the highest priority. You should try and avoid sending low
priority messages while there are others sharing the channel that still need to send high
priority messages.
If at any time your group is unable to continue, please contact the exercise
coordinator, _____________, at ____________.
Neighborhood Response Scenario
The exercise started with a magnitude 7.6 earthquake that has just struck the area you live
in. It’s the wee hours of the morning and still dark outside. You were suddenly awakened
by a sharp jolt, almost strong enough to knock you out of bed. Violent shaking continued
for another 30 seconds or so.
You have already checked your own home and those of your immediate neighbors.
Things are a mess at your house, but the situation is stable. As your neighborhood begins
to pull together and respond to the earthquake you will want to quickly determine how
bad things are and what sort of problems you are likely to face.
In a real earthquake you will get this initial information from your neighbors based on
what happened to their homes and what they saw as the moved through the
neighborhood.
Damage Assessment
Damage assessment would normally take place as your neighbors checked their own
homes and as they checked their neighbors homes. For this exercise, all of the damage
reports will be simulated.
Find the Damage Assessment Form included in this package. Fill in 10 addresses from
within your neighborhood.
Find the Incident Log Form in your package. Whenever a simulated situation seems
worthy, write it down as an incident on the log form. You might also wish to make a note
on your neighborhood map.
Roll the die for each address and check the appropriate damage column. For addresses
with major damage or that have been destroyed, write them down in your incident log. If
your neighborhood has nothing more than minor damage, try again. Otherwise, this will
be a dull exercise!
Total up the damage columns.
For each address with Minor, Major, or Destroyed damage severity, roll the die. If you
roll a 6 the structure is on fire.
Identify the roads and streets that lead in and out of your neighborhood. Select key
locations and roll the die to determine if the roadway is blocked. 5=blocked by a tree,
6=blocked by a landslide.
Utility status
Electric: None
Telephone: 3-4 minute wait for dial tone, no incoming calls.
Water: roll die
6 = No water, mains burst, and it all ran down the street
5 = Mains are broken, but water continues to flow. There is little to no pressure at
taps and fire hydrents.
4 = Mains seem intact, water pressure is low.
1,2,3 = Water is ok for the moment. Amount of remaining supply is unknown.
For each address with Minor, Major, or Destroyed status, roll the die. If you roll a 5, there
is a faint odor of leaking gas. If your roll a 6, there is a strong odor of gas.
Several of your neighbors are suffering cuts from broken glass.
Prioritize and Plan Your Neighborhood’s Response
After a real earthquake it is unlikely that your neighborhood team would just walk down
the street, working on each situation as you came upon it. More likely you would make a
quick pass throught the neighborhood to asses the situation and to determine what the
most urgent needs are.
Prioritize your response to the problems you have identified during the simulated disaster
assessment.
You will want to give top priority to situations where many lives are threatened, or that if
left alone could place many lives in danger. For example, a fire that is likely to spread.
Next you will select situations where a single life is threatened.
Next will be folks with injuries, that are not immediately life threatening.
Then come situations where additional property damage can be prevented.
Plan your actions.
Decide what can be done with your neighborhood’s resources. Decide what outside
assistance to request.
Consider taking the following types of actions:
- 1st Aid
- Fire Suppression
- SAR
- Evacuation
- Damage Assessment
- Utility Shut Offs
- etc
Communications
The communications function will continue throughout the remainder of the exercise.
Your neighborhood will want to use your communications channels to make requests for
emergency services. You will also be assisting the town and county governments to
understand the severity of the situation in your neighborhood by sending summarized
situation reports when priorities allow, and updating them as needed. You can also learn
useful information about the surounding area by listening to what other neighborhoods
are reporting.
First you should report any situations that you’re requesting emergency services for.
Work on preparing a situation report to send when emergency traffic has been completed.
[Need a form for this report.
Emergency situations
Medical -- # in each triage catagory
Structural -- # Major, Minor, Destroyed % of survey completed
Infrastructure – Access Road blockages, other roads, water, power, phones]
Based on other reports that you can overhear on the radio, how does the damage in your
neighborhood compare to others around you?
Continue working on your neighborhood response
Work through each of your situation in the order you determined in your prioritization.
[Need form?]
Detail your actions.
Do you have the necessary resources, equipment and personnel to carry out your plans?
Make alternate action plans for situations that you requested assistance with. Emergency
crews may not be able to respond to your neighborhood.
You have received additional information from your neighbors.
Medical Situations
SAR Problems
Predetermined situation
[Put a fixed scenario here that is customized for the neighborhood. Indicate that the
situation and actions take need to be reported. These scenarios will be used as a test of the
communications and message-passing portion of the exercise.]
Estimate the number of homes in your neighborhood.
Determine the percentage of the damage assesment survey that has been completed.
Estimate the total damage to the neighborhood.
If neighborhood has 200 homes and you determined that 2 of the 10 homes you rolled
dice for then you would estimate that 40 homes were completely destroyed in you
neighborhood.
Number of homes * number determined at this damage level / 10
Extended Care
[Indicate a predetermined number of deaths that have been discovered by the
neighborhood teams. This will act as a test of the ability of the various EOCs to
summarize and total received statistics.]
Estimate the total damage in your neighborhood.
Extended care
Estimate total population from number of homes and your neighbor.
As to a number of moderate injuries that you may need to care for.
Estimate number of people that will need shelter.
As a group discuss your plans and potential response to the following:
First-aid
Shelter
Drinking water
Food
Sanitation
Reconnecting family members
Animals
Search and rescue
Fire
Utilities
Transportation for Medical and Logistics
What you anticipate your most pressing needs from outside disaster assistance teams to
be? Are there preparedness steps you can take to improve the situation?