Displaced Persons Tabletop Exercise - March 11, 2008

Sarasota County Emergency Management and Sarasota County Health & Human Services held a "Displaced Persons" tabletop exercise on March 11.

The "scenario" was a Fire in North Port, with multiple sub-scenarios ...
  • Schools letting out, but buses couldn't transport students on their normal routes
  • Getting the word out to concerned parents
  • Possible future school closures
  • Isolated power outages
  • Local ER's swamped by victims with breathing difficulties
  • Evacuation of a shelter due to smoke
  • People with Special Needs concerns
  • Unsolicited volunteers and unlicensed contractors arriving to help
  • Dealing with long-term housing needs for folks whose homes were destroyed
The exercise was broken down into 3 parts. The first part dealt with immediate planning ... what needed to happen now, to get a handle on the situation. Part two dealt with the operational activities, and part 3 dealt with the aftermath.

Each group of ESF's (Emergency Support Functions - Infrastructure, Law/Fire, Public Information, etc.) would get together to discuss what needed to be done, and make a list of actions taken. After each part, the ESF groups would present their actions to everyone in the EOC, before moving on to the next part.

ESF2 (Communications) was represented by ACS - and we were deployed to reestablish communications from the Command Post!

Ron, WD4AHZ
EC, Sarasota County