DERT INFORMER
“Disaster recovery is
more than just picking
up and rebuilding
homes…It takes a great
deal of teamwork. It
takes a community.”
FEMA
In This Issue
• Mass Casualty Incident Full-Scale Exercise
• Weekly Event Summary Emails
• Dallas ALERT
• Severe Weather Preparedness
• Training Links—Weather Links—Helpful Hints—Other Resources
• Tabletop Exercises and Tools
2018 Public-Private Partnership Symposium
Downtown Dallas, Inc. and the City of Dallas Office of Emer-gency Management partnered to put together the 2018 Pub-lic-Private Partnership Sympo-sium. This annual event brings all stakeholders togeth-er to meet, and discuss topics relevant to building owners, managers, security directors, and public sector partners. This event is designed to help
build and reinforce information sharing and relationships. This year’s symposium was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in their convention meeting space. The event was held on Friday, March 30, 2018, with a great cross-section of the private sector in attendance. This year’s program opened with remarks from Assistant City Manager Jon Fortune, Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall, Dallas Fire Rescue Chief David Coatney, and DDI’s Martin Cramer. The program included keynote speaker, David Park. Park is a senior vice president of Atmos Energy. Mr. Park spoke on the importance of good working relationships between the public and pri-vate sectors through their current experiences. Other topics included a panel discussion of law enforcement jurisdictions with Dallas Police and Dallas Sheriff’s Department top officers. Dallas Fire Rescue demonstrated Digital Sandbox to show how pre-incident plan information is used in the event of an emergency. Federal Reserve Bank personnel discussed the financial system during crisis. We also had the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA presenting tools to help businesses and build-ings prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. The Office of Emergency Management en-deavors to develop and provide programming that’s both timely and relevant to all our part-ners. It takes the whole community working together to get through a disaster. OEM wel-comes suggestions and feedback on how to make future symposiums better and more en-gaging to our partners. If you have any ques-tions or comments regarding the symposium, please contact Rhonda Simpson via email at [email protected].
Downtown Dallas, Inc. March 2018
Mass Casualty Incident Full-Scale Exercise
Dallas OEM conducted the largest Mass
Casualty Incident full-scale exercise in the
state on Sunday, March 19th at the Majestic
Theatre in Downtown Dallas. This exercise
involved about 25 partner agencies and sev-
eral hundred volunteers. This exercise was
designed to accomplish two goals, provide
the Majestic Theatre the opportunity to con-
duct an evacuation drill of its facility; and to test triage, transport, and fam-
ily reunification in a mass casualty event.
This exercise ran 8 a.m. to Noon with volunteers arriving before 6 a.m. to
have wounds assigned and applied for many and others to check in. We
ran the evacuation portion first before simulating a stage collapse.
Volunteers had wounds triaged, tagged, and were transported to one of
five area participating hospitals by Dallas Fire-Rescue. BioTel, an EMS
service that helps first responders and hospitals, coordinated patient
transport and other services. The volunteers were also put into the patient
tracking system tested in February and used to help test the family
reunification portion of the test. Hospitals participating were Baylor, Scott
and White; UT Southwestern; Texas Health Presbyterian; Veterans Ad-
ministration Medical Center, Dallas; Medical City Dallas; Methodist Dallas
Medical Center; and Children’s Medical Center.
OEM informed our private partners of this exercise well ahead of time to
both encourage participation in the exercise and to inform them of the
event that might impact their building or business. OEM always welcomes
our private partners’ participation in training and exercises.
This exercise and others like it allow first re-
sponders and partners to work together in non-
emergency settings to hone skills, identify gaps,
and make improvements. This is just one of
many exercises planned for the upcoming year.
Contact Tiffany Reid at tiffa-
[email protected] for more information
on future training and exercise opportunities.
Weekly Event
Summary Emails
The Office of Emergency Man-agement began a new feature in 2017, the Weekly Event Sum-mary Emails. The idea behind them was to alert our partners about events that might have elements to impact businesses or traffic in Downtown. OEM pulls information from Dallas Police Department and calen-dars for Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and the Of-fice of Special Events to ensure the greatest coverage possible for our stakeholders.
Other information in these emails include road closures when necessary, weather infor-mation that may impact the ar-ea, along with safety tips and useful links. Updates are sent out if events are added at the last minute—such as protests or other pop-up events.
The purpose of these emails is to ensure timely communication and dissemination of infor-mation to our partners. Please send any comments or sugges-tions you may have about these summaries to Rhonda Simpson at [email protected].
Mass Casualty Incident Exercise
No One Tool
There is no one way to get
information in an emergen-
cy. Have multiple ways to
get informed in case of dis-
aster whether at home or at
work.
Does your business have a
notification system to alert
employees of an emergen-
cy? Consider creating a text
or phone tree—update it
often and test it.
Have a weather radio with
good batteries in case a
storm hits and the power
goes out.
Weather alerts go out on the
Wireless Emergency Alert
system (WEA). If you get an
alert, take shelter and find
information about the situa-
tion.
If you’re outdoors and hear
the Outdoor Warning Sirens,
get inside a building quickly
and tune into broadcast or
online news to get more
information on your situa-
tion.
For more information on how
you can get informed in
times of emergency go to:
www.DallasEmergencyMana
gement.com.
Severe Weather Preparedness Spring in Texas often means severe weather. Tornadoes, thun-
derstorms, and hail can happen with little warning. These storms
can be dangerous. Downtown businesses, residents, and build-
ings need to take basic precautions:
•Make sure first aid kits are stocked and up-to-date, and keep fire
extinguishers charged.
•Identify safe places in the lowest point of the building—such as
basements, underground parking garages, and windowless
rooms like bathrooms.
•Have pre-planned evacuation routes either to the safe zones or
out of the building and run practice drills. Remember eleva-
tors may not work in storms and need to be addressed in
plans.
•If you can’t get to a safe location—take shelter under sturdy fur-
niture and cover your head.
•If you’re trapped in a building—use flashlights, whistles, or tap
on debris to alert emergency responders to your location. Us-
ing your voice increases the risk of dust and contaminant in-
halation.
Business Continuity Plans
—Training Links—
http://www.preparingtexas.org
http://www.fema.gov
http://www.nctog.org/ep/training
—Weather Links—
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/radio.html
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/skywarn.html
—Other Resources—
http://www.knowhat2do.com
http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit
http://www.dallasalert.org
http://www.dallascert.com
http://www.domesticpreparedness.com
Training Links—Weather Links—Helpful Hints—Other Resources
—Helpful Hints—
Emergency supplies to keep handy:
•Flashlights with extra batteries
•First Aid kit
•Food/water for employees and customers
to use during a period of unexpected
confinement at your business
•Plastic to cover expensive equipment and
furnishings
•Hard hats, gloves and boots
•NOAA weather radio with batteries
•Communication plans.
Subscribe to Downtown Dal-
las, Inc.’s newsletters and e-
blasts to stay up to date on
the latest Downtown news,
events, and openings!
Tabletop Exercises and Training Tools
Office of Emergency Management
1500 Marilla, Room L2AN
Dallas, TX 75201 Tel: 214.670.4275 Fax: 214.670.4677
Every facility and organization should have an emergency plan to cover the hazards common to our area—like
tornadoes or evacuations. Does your organization know what to do or how to teach your team how to respond?
The City of Dallas has provided tabletop exercises to help you walk your team through what you should do.
Key Elements of the Tabletop:
• Review the local hazards. This exercise presents a severe weather/tornado scenario for your organization.
• Know your resources and capabilities. The exercise asks guided questions to generate discussion on what you would do, who would do what, and when it would be done.
• Identify strengths and opportunities for improvement. This exercise allows you to practice your plans so you can update and revise them as gaps and changes are identified.
• Training and exercise are important parts of preparedness and planning. OEM and DERT offer resources on the www.dallasemergencymanagement.com website.
Communicate the Information Make sure every person in your facility or organization knows what the plan is for dealing with a tornado. Make
sure to involve not only key personnel, but also designate backups to those people and involve them at every
level. Communication is key to preparedness and recovery.
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