I really hate exercises.

You know the ones that include the tornado going through the town while there's a pandemic, and explosives have been planted all along Main Street. When we set people up for failure with extravagant scenarios they lose interest in your emergency planning efforts. This is something we can't afford when we're trying to retain as much social capital as possible with our partners in an environment where there are many competing interests.

We recognized after the development of our new unified response guidance for Active Threat incidents that we would need some sort of exercise to review the new plan, test communication pathways, and observe the evolution from initial officer to Unified Command.  I was reluctant but I was really pleased with the final result.

Matt Chigas from our Office developed a hybrid workshop/tabletop exercise, and game that enabled a slow paced opportunity to get everyone up to speed on this new type of response and review opportunities to improve the procedures. The initial workshop allowed all to ask questions and clarify expectations between all public safety agencies and our partner Nashua Community College. The following game enabled players to simulate the first 30 minutes of an active threat response in a unique way by separating them in different rooms based on their ability to communicate via radio or face-to-face (i.e. one room for players in the hot zone, another for players at the staging area, another for the command post, etc). Players that would not be standing next to each other in real life would need to communicate over the appropriate radio channels. This enabled us to get a better understanding of the magnitude of radio traffic during this type of incident, something recognized in many recent active shooter AARs. Great job to Matt Chigas for leading the Exercise Planning Committee, drafting all of the exercise documentation, and facilitating the event.

The after action report isn't finished yet but I can hint at three significant areas that will require additional planning and training:

1. Interagency Communications - How do two separate dispatch centers, incoming resources, a command post, a staging area, law enforcement teams inside a building, and joint LE/Fire rescue task forces inside a building pass the right messages to the right people without overloading channels and missing valuable info?

2. Terminology - What's the difference between deceased, casualties, victims? What's the difference between cold, warm, and hot zones? Even with a detailed section in our response guidance on common terminology, we identified additional terms which need to be institutionalized in our operations.

3. Rescue Task Force Formation and Deployment - While this concept has gained a lot of traction in the past few years with many jurisdictions implementing training programs and purchasing equipment for fire/EMS, there are still very few examples of it being implemented during the "real thing". Additional drills to form the RTFs, practice pre-deployment briefings, and the process on how they will request ambulance exchange will be big opportunities as we move forward. 

For photos, see the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1874859619217735&type=1&l=d1a1661eb7