Drills and Exercises

A key tool in ensuring that emergency procedures and emergency responder training is to conduct drills and exercises. They can be very low-key and involve a coordinated walkthrough of procedures and response requirements to full-scale simulations of potential disasters and emergencies.

TYPES OF DRILLS AND EXERCISES

Drills and exercises simulate or are based on possible real-life scenarios in order to improve emergency management, and should be based on the the hazards identified for the specific region. There are several different types of drills and exercises.  They include:

Drill: A drill is a supervised activity with a limited focus to test a procedure that is a component of the organization’s overall emergency management plan. That is, drills usually highlight and closely examine a limited portion of the overall emergency management plan. For example, an organization might conduct a drill for the use of a radio system with those responsible for communicating on it.

Tabletop Exercise: A tabletop exercise uses written and verbal scenarios to evaluate the effectiveness of an organization’s emergency management plan and procedures and to highlight issues of coordination and assignment of responsibilities. Tabletop exercises do not physically simulate specific events, do not utilize equipment, and do not deploy resources. In a tabletop exercise, a facilitator usually coordinates discussion.

Functional Exercise: A functional exercise simulates a disaster in the most realistic manner possible without moving real people or equipment to a real site. A functional exercise utilizes a carefully designed and scripted scenario, with timed messages and communications between players and simulators. The emergency operations center (EOC)—the facility or area from which disaster response is coordinated—is usually activated during a functional exercise and actual communications equipment may be used.

Full-Scale Exercise or Field Exercise: A full-scale exercise is often the culmination of previous drills and exercises. It tests the mobilization of all or as many as possible of the response components, takes place in “real time,” employs real equipment, and tests several emergency functions. “Controllers,” who maintain order and ensure that the exercise proceeds according to plan, are also usually used. Full-scale exercises are generally intended to evaluate the operations capability of emergency management systems in a community and to evaluate interagency coordination.

Here are some photos taken during recent emergency exercises.

Send comments and questions to webmaster.