Emergency Operations Center, (City of Grand Island, Courtesy)
GRAND ISLAND — On Thursday, March 21, the Grand Island-Hall County Emergency Management Department will hold a functional exercise inside the Emergency Operations Center.
Functional exercises are designed to evaluate emergency coordination capabilities and functions, and they typically focus on exercising plans, policies, procedures and personnel involved in incident command and EOC management during an incident.
Government officials and partner agencies will practice their specific roles or functions in a simulated emergency situation. This type of exercise is conducted in a realistic, time-sensitive environment and often utilizes simulated “injects” of information that dictate additional information, occurrences or activities that affect the exercise scenario. Injects are typically provided by a group of individuals in a separate “simulation cell” and provide these injects by a scheduled timeline.
In this upcoming exercise, the Grand Island-Hall County Emergency Management Department will use the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament as the “simulation cell.” Certain events in the basketball game such as points scored, fouls, or free throws will correspond to specific disaster events such as patients, missing persons, fires and more. Thus, the events of the unpredictable basketball game, happening in real-time, will dictate the aspects that determine the scope and severity of the disaster.
Dubbed our “March Madness” exercise, this will inject an unpredictable set of situations for a large-scale incident while providing a fun, yet challenging way to respond, coordinate, and collaborate during a disaster. The exercise will begin approximately at 11 a.m. and will last the duration of the first NCAA Men’s basketball game.
For more information or to submit a request to cover Thursday’s exercise, please contact Communications Manager Spencer Schubert at spencers@grand-island.com.
