Disaster Drills, Testing, and Evaluation
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A part of any management program, testing, and
evaluation is critical.
The purpose of an organized drill is to a test the disaster
plan.
A drill will expose strengths and weaknesses in the plan
and in the capabilities of responders.
It also allows various agencies that do not commonly
work together to become familiar with one another’s
response capabilities and with their roles in the plan.
Core Capabilities
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The National Preparedness Goal identified 31 core
capabilities—these are the distinct critical elements
needed to achieve the National Preparedness Goal.
The Core Capabilities establish the expected activities to
be carried out for a particular disaster.
Core capabilities may apply to all or some phases of the
disaster (prevention, protection, response, recovery,
mitigation)
When developing a disaster plan assessment program,
drills, and evaluation methods, core capabilities should be
used as a framework.
Examples of Core Capabilities
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Planning
Public Information and

Warning
Operational Coordination
Intelligence and Information

Sharing
Screening, Search, and

Detection
Access Control and Identity

Verification
Housing

Cybersecurity
Risk and Disaster Resilience

Assessment
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Threats and Hazard
Identification
Critical Transportation

Environmental

Response/Health and Safety
Fatality Management

Services
Mass Care Services

Mass Search and Rescue

Operations
Operational

Communications
Economic Recovery

Core Capability: Critical Transportation

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Mission Area
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Description
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Response
Provide transportation (including infrastructure access and accessible
transportation services) for response priority objectives, including
the evacuation of people and animals, and the delivery of vital
response personnel, equipment, and services into the affected areas.
Core Capability Targets
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Establish physical access through appropriate transportation
corridors and deliver required resources to save lives and to meet
the needs of disaster survivors.
Ensure basic human needs are met, stabilize the incident, transition
into recovery for an affected area, and restore basic services and
community functionality.
Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation
Program (HSEEP)
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The Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program
(HSEEP) doctrine consists of fundamental principles that
frame a common approach to exercises.
Guided by elected and appointed officials
Capability-based, objective driven
Progressive planning approach
Whole community integration
Informed by risk
Common methodology
Applicable to any type of hazard or exposure.
Exercise Design and Development
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Exercise planning team members are identified
Schedule planning meetings
Identify and develop exercise objectives
Design the scenario
Create documentation
Plan exercise activities
Plan evaluation
Coordinate logistics.
Exercise Overview
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Scope:
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Mission Areas:
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Exercise type
Exercise duration
Exercise location
Exercise parameters
Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and/or Recovery
Core capabilities
Objectives
Threat or hazard
Scenario Overview
Participating organizations
Exercise Conduct
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After design and development activities are complete, the
exercise is ready to occur.
Activities essential to conducting individual exercises
include preparing for exercise play, managing exercise play,
and conducting immediate exercise wrap-up activities.
Different Disaster plan approaches
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Disaster Plan Exercises and Drills can be of many
different forms
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Examples include:
Table top exercises
Drills
Full Scale Field Exercises
Table Top Exercises
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Use paper, verbal, or computer-based scenarios designed
to improve coordination, to share information, and to
practice decision-making.
Paper drills are often done to demonstrate how
"response functions" work and communication together
as part of the Incident Command System plan.
In table tops exercises, those involved include a facilitator
and agency participants.
Table Top Exercises
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A tabletop exercise is a focused practice activity that
places the participants in a simulated situation requiring
them to function in the capacity that would be expected
of them in a real event.
Its purpose is to promote preparedness by testing
policies and plans and by training personnel.
Framework for a Table Top Scenario
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Facilitator guides the group
Members would be representatives from the various
groups/agencies expected to respond to the scenario
Provide background information about the scenario the
participants will be responding to
The facilitator will then begin to provide the group
information about what is occurring in “real time.”
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For example: Hospital XYZ reports an apparent disease
outbreak to the Department of Public Health. 75 people have
arrived at the hospital emergency room in the last 24 with
symptoms of abdominal pain and fever. All people recently
attended a banquet at a local hotel.
Discussion Session
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The group then holds discussions on how they would respond. Questions
may include:
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Who needs to be notified?
Would there be enough beds or medical personnel to handle a large disease
outbreak in the participants’ communities?
What mutual aid agreements are in place to help assist the participants
‘communities in such a situation?
Does this size necessitate implementation of the Incident Command System
(ICS)? If so, who would be in charge of Incident Command?
The facilitator continues to provide information to the group as the
disaster unfolds. At each step, the group holds discussions on how the
disaster response should be implemented.
This process also includes evaluators who are monitoring the interactions
between the participants.
At the conclusion of the disaster, the facilitator debriefs the group to
identify lessons learned from the exercise, areas of improvement in an
after-action review.
FEMA Private Sector Division
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The FEMA Private Sector Division began a new series of
tabletop exercises in 2010 as a tool to help private sector
organizations advance their organization’s continuity,
preparedness and resiliency.
Tabletop exercises are designed to help an organization
test a hypothetical situation, such as a natural or manmade disaster, and evaluate the group’s ability to
cooperate and work together, as well as test their
readiness to respond.
Emergency Preparedness Drills
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A drill is a coordinated, supervised activity usually
employed to validate a specific function or capability in a
single agency or organization.
Drills are commonly used to provide training on new
equipment, validate procedures, or practice and maintain
current skills.
Drills can also be used to determine if a part of a plan can
be executed as designed, to assess whether more training
is required, or to reinforce best practices.
Field Exercises
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A field exercise takes place in real time to test the
mobilization, including the activation of the Emergency
Operations Center, of all or as many as possible of the
response components.
In full-scale exercises, the participants include the
responder, controller, evaluator, and victims.
Exercise Evaluation
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Evaluation is the cornerstone of an exercise and must be
considered throughout all phases of the exercise planning
cycle, beginning when the exercise planning team meets
to establish objectives and initiate exercise design.
Effective evaluation assesses performance against exercise
objectives, and identifies and documents strengths and
areas for improvement relative to core capabilities.
Evaluation
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Evaluation tools are developed along with the drill/exercise.
The evaluation of the disaster exercise should be tied to the core
capabilities and capability targets.
Core capabilities
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Capability target(s)
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The distinct critical elements necessary to achieve a specific mission area (e.g.,
prevention). To assess both capacity and gaps, each core capability includes
capability targets.
The performance threshold(s) for each core capability; they state the exact
amount of capability that exercise players aim to achieve. Capability targets are
typically written as quantitative or qualitative statements.
Capability targets and critical tasks are based on operational plans, policies, and
procedures to be exercised and tested during the exercise.
Critical tasks
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The distinct elements required to perform a core capability; they describe how
the capability target will be met.
Critical tasks include the activities, resources, and responsibilities required to
fulfill capability targets.
Organizational Exercise Evaluation Guides
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Exercise Evaluation Guides containing organizational
capability targets and critical tasks.
These are developed for a specific organization.
Improvement Planning
During improvement planning, the corrective actions
identified during individual exercises are tracked to
completion, ensuring that exercises yield tangible
preparedness improvements.
An effective corrective action program develops IPs that
are dynamic documents, which are continually monitored
and implemented as part of the larger system of
improving preparedness.
National Training Program
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The National Training Program (NTP) provides an
organized approach to training for emergency managers
and emergency response providers.
The NTP provides policy, guidance, and tools that address
training design, development, delivery, and evaluation, as
appropriate.
The NTP supports the development, promulgation, and
regular updating, as necessary, of national voluntary
consensus standards for training; and ensure that the
training provided under the NTP is consistent with the
standards.
FEMA Training Organizations
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Center for Domestic Preparedness
Emergency Management Institute
National training and Education Division
National Fire Academy
Center for Domestic Preparedness
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The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) develops
and delivers advanced training for emergency response
providers, emergency managers, and other government
officials from state, local, and tribal governments.
Emergency Management Institute
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The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) develops and
delivers emergency management training to enhance the
capabilities of federal, state, local, and tribal government
officials, volunteer organizations, and the public and
private sectors to minimize the impact of disasters.
National Training and Education Division
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Training and Exercise Integration/ Training Operations
(TEI/TO) offers more than 125 courses to help build
critical skills that responders need to function effectively
in mass consequence events.
Training partners include the National Domestic
Preparedness Consortium (NDPC), the Rural Domestic
Preparedness Consortium (RDPC), the Naval
Postgraduate School (NPS), and Center for Domestic
Preparedness (CDP), among others.
National Fire Academy
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Provides leadership skills and advanced technical training
for local fire and emergency services in prevention,
preparedness and response.