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Mock Disasters
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends Contingency Plans be tested using classroom (tabletop) exercises, or more extensive functional exercises. Functional exercises include simulations and war gaming with scripts written out for different members of the organization.
This Summer, the Disaster Task Force will stage a regional Mock Disaster. We encourage those responsible for disaster preparedness in each organization to use the Mock Disaster to simulate a catastrophic event, stepping through disaster procedures in each department.
If your organization doesn’t have a disaster plan, the Mock Disaster will be an excellent way to bring disaster preparedness to the forefront, allowing you to generate support for developing one.
Benefits of the Mock Disaster
- Increasing organizational awareness of Disaster Plans
- Identifying missing elements of the plans
- Walkthrough of various roles and responsibilities during an event
- A dedicated time to focus on disaster preparedness
Activities
Prior to the Mock Disaster the Task Force will notify subscribers to the DTASKFORCE Twitter feed with a two week, one week and one day advance notices.
During the Mock Disaster, the Task Force will simulate news reports at regular intervals over three days. Notifications will be sent only between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM. The simulated news reports will add reality to your planning discussions and exercises. We will use humor and sample incident reports from real events where possible to keep the simulation interesting and engaging.
After the Mock Disaster, we will step the frequency of notifications back down to routine announcements and updates. We will provide a simple instruction page that guides those not responsible for organizational preparedness through pausing their DTASKFORCE Twitter feeds.
During and after the Mock Disaster, the discussion forums are available to collect feedback and observations from participants within the region.
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