[FLARES] Displaced Person's Tabletop Exercise

[Ron Wetjen]

Sarasota County Emergency Management and Sarasota County Health & Human 
Services held a "Displaced Person's" 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