Running Head: EMERGENCY RESPONSE DRILL 1

Emergency Response Drill

Name

Institution
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People’s safety is very vital in each and every community. As a result, many agencies have been

constructed to ensure emergency responses are modified and catered for at the right time.

Therefore, it requires serious planning and evaluation of such department. For instance, in

Jefferson Lab various exercises and drills are conducted about emergency scenarios. The drills

are modified in such a way that they create awareness to people. Moreover, they train people

about an emergency, verify the effectiveness of its equipment as well as its activities and lastly

reduce confusion among people. Also, various agencies such Fire Department and Newport

News are recently involving in exercises that link them to other agencies such as Jefferson Lab

that may serve them with equipment and to the society at large. The main aim of conducting

drills and exercises plan is to familiarize the community with the real emergency as well as how

they are supposed to react once it occurs. Currently, all agencies are working hand in hand with

each other. For instance, Fire Emergency Plan has been incorporated in building department.

Therefore, all construction companies is supposed to enroll their services before and after

construction to prepare for both future and present challenges.

Once a disaster has been rehearsed it means it can be solved without much effort. Emergency

response is of all people concern and hence a run through is essential when dealing with

emergency planning. However, emergency response drill has shown much importance on

people’s safety. First, it’s once requirement that people should take in consideration. Second, it’s

essential to test once plan. Many agencies use it to know if their part of emergency plan is

complete enough to handle people’s safety. Drilling emergency response also gives a way of

relating real emergency with the ones used in exercises. Also all drills are used down the road

when tackling the real emergency. Lastly, the approach is used to give leaks, confidence and
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perspective for what people should do in case of an emergency. All the fore mentioned

approaches show how essential emergency response drill is.

While addressing the safety of each personnel, preparing and performing mock scenarios is

essential. It reduces legal liability as well as improving the defensibility in cases which involve

criminal and civil lawsuit conduct. In addition, mock training show how vulnerable the security

is a well as affirming the security strength of an agency. Moreover, the exercises expose the

company into believing how solid an agency is as well as understanding what should be done

prior the occurrence of the real action. It thus gives time of correcting and amending some

practices for an effective security and safety. On the contrary, some managers avoid drill. The

reason behind such decision has not been given. As a result, a number of constructive approaches

towards organizing imitated training outweigh by far the expected dangers. Report shows that

failure of conducting mock scenario training cannot only be fatal to the workforce but also to the

agency’s future financial records.

Some agencies have started ignoring mock scenario training. It’s because they take it a waste of

time and resource. They fail to consider the preparedness that follows such training. Moreover,

the fact that the training helps to understand the weak parts of the agency should motivate all

companies in using it. The responsibility of conducting, promoting and organizing mock scenario

training has been left to innovative security specialist. They have all the information pertaining

security and hence all blames will be directed to them. Moreover, they should research in order

to come up with the best training ever. Since the tragedy that was experienced in New York City,

America has professionalized the aspect of mock scenario training. Several exercises have been

conducted in order to ensure all people live in harmony and peace. Security agencies have also

realized the importance of such training in respect to resident security and safety. Moreover, they
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have funded the whole activity in order to ensure security workforce gets enough training. All

people can now have peace and trust with the security agents. They observe them train and often

achieve a lot in their job.

An exercise known as TOPOFF2 was funded by the government of US with around $16 million.

The exercise involves 14 agencies, state and local officials, Red Cross and a population of

around 8500 people. The exercise followed the attack of Chicago and Seattle by a group known

as Group for the Liberation of Orange Land and Destruction of Others. It was a fiction act that

aimed at improving the skills of security agents; create awareness to people and the state at large.

First, the terrorist attacked Seattle and released a dirty bomb.

They did so in presence of giant orange specialist and the Space Needle. In addition, their some

volunteer victims who would be given contaminated water before being rushed to hospital. Some

high school guys also acted as victims. They were supposed to be contaminated and then some

workers would pretend to scrub them. A certain high school girl was asked to pretend to have no

idea of English language while another person interpreted for her. It was a way of showing how

the workforce faces challenges while trying to help some confused people.

On the other side, terrorists attacked Chicago and released viruses on the space. Therefore, 160

hospitals were set to rush victims from the site of action; GLODO’s. Later, press and public

confronted the agencies. They wanted to understand how effective the exercise is. Therefore, the

officials addressed the lessons learned from the exercise rather than the mistakes which were

doing. The Seattle incidence addressed how transportation was affected; rerouting of buses

affected the movement of people. On the contrary, it showed that failure of proper preparation

can lead to serious challenge when a real act comes along. Since emergency response has been
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seen to incorporate different agencies, serious planning is required to ensure smooth and uniform

running of the exercise.

In addition, the budget of the whole exercise should be planned prior the real exercise. It

necessary since it gives an account of how activities should be carried out. Moreover, the budget

should be clear and precise. It should be attainable. In most cases, some agencies find themselves

running out of resources. The main reason is that there is poor management. In TOPOFF2

exercise, a total amount of $16 million was enough to fund all the activities. The management

took time to time to understand all the operations, evaluate the required amount per operation

and lastly subdivide it within the available amount. America has allocated lots of money in

ensuring a tight security as well as active emergency response department. Moreover, they have

evaluated all the security departments like Fire Emergency Department and Building Safety

departments. Fore effective emergency response, similar corporations have been linked together.

Various policies have also been set to ensure all agencies of construction link their work with fire

departments.

When preparing for scenario training, one requires taking in consideration a couple of things.

There should be troubleshooting, research, approvals, seeking outside help, facilitation, scripting,

checking the challenges of the proposal (Perry, 2007). However, specialists for scenario exercise

training clearly analyze the fundamentals of the proposal and hence act by seeking approvals

from the relevant authority. In addition, training scenario exercises are based on already

amended policies and procedures which form the basis of all emergency response. Moreover,

effective exercises reflect reality. As a result, it gives an account of the mistakes that should not

be repeated in reality. Thus, it’s a way of editing the whole agency of security and leaving a clear

and effective system. All security specialists are required to start by planning simple exercise
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scenarios; once they are successful, they can try incorporating a complex one. Also, any exercise

scenario should be accompanied by its goals. For instance, sound evacuation scenario main

objective is to enlighten people on proper evacuation measures in case a real scenario occurs.

The main reason of following some simple and attainable exercises is because they form a base

for a first trainee security specialist who wants to understand how sound evacuation should be

carried out (Perry, 2007). Next, is to give people a genuine day that favors all individuals for

evacuation. It’s a good strategy towards identifying an incidence and acting as per its demand.

Once the whole exercise has been conducted, the next goal is to evaluate some of its mistakes

and successes. However, the security specialist needs to seek opinions from both the participants

and the workforce (Rietjens, 2008). Moreover, while evaluating the effectiveness of scenario

training, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and U.S Department of Labor helps in

offering precise guidelines and follow ups. Therefore, they suggest that both the evaluation of

low-risk and high risk scenarios should be completed for an exercise to be said to have ended

successfully. Once an exercise has been completed, it’s not advisable to assume all has been

done. Program effectiveness helps in realizing if the main objectives have been attained.

Moreover, its gives account of whether the exercise has been effective to be used in real

emergency scenarios.

In conclusion, people’s safety cannot be compromised by any situation. However, agencies from

all over the world are trying to venture in mock exercise scenario that will help in improving the

real security. Various mock scenarios have been performed in the United States and hence

proving the effectives of many defensive agencies. One of the scenarios is the TOPOFF2

exercise that was conducted in Seattle and Chicago. When the exercise was evaluated it shows

that the specialist officer took time to organize and budget the whole activity. It also indicated
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how effective the security is. Emergency response drill is essential and requires all agencies to

perform it. With proper planning, budgeting, organizing and evaluation of mock scenarios,

people will live in peace and harmony. Therefore, it’s necessary for all security specialists to

conduct simple mock scenarios before going for complex scenarios for preparedness and

efficiency.
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References

Rietjens, S. (2008). Civil-military cooperation in response to a complex emergency just another

drill? Leiden. Brill Publisher.

Perry, T. (2007). The practical mock scene manual: a complete manual to aid the police trainer.

Seattle, Wash. Palladium Publications.