1. Phil Emonson | Flood Resilience Lead
Types of exercise
Phil Emonson | Flood Resilience Lead

2. Table-Top

3. Example – Exercise Unite
Multi-agency table top exercise
West Mercia Police
Herefordshire County Council
West Mids Ambulance Service
Hereford & Worcester Fire Service EA
Aim
To exercise responder and multi-agency activation of Silver command and control arrangements for a major flooding incident
Simulated media cell

4. Why table-top?
Lower investment / commitment for set up (time, cost, resources)
Stimulates and promotes discussions, and therefore…
Builds trust, confidence in others = team-building
Effective for individual agencies / responders, and multi-agency
Can pause, for break-out discussions
Effective for reviewing plans, procedures, and policies
Based on a specific scenario / incident
Response staff can become familiar with roles and responsibilities
But…
Limited in scale and duration
Not able to exercise / test rostering, business continuity, welfare / H&S
No field deployment
Probably most common type of exercise

5. Command Post

6. Post-exercise debrief
Example – Network Rail
Suite of control-post exercises for asset engineers and route controllers across 7 Network Rail routes in England & Wales
Delivered via the NR Flood Warning Database
And the award for Best Name goes to …?
Wales – Exercise Dragon
Kent – Exercise Dickens
Anglia – Exercise Canute
Wessex – Exercise Harvey
London North East – Exercises Thor & Neptune
Western – Exercise Drake
Post-exercise debrief
Exercise report
Targeted Action Plan

7. JEMS – JBA’s Exercise Management System
Could use a bespoke training platform for exercise delivery
Simulates all data response staff would receive during an incident, including injects
KEY FEATURES
Flexibility - web-based, allowing multiple users to log-in from any location
Time compression - JEMS offers the facility to operate at a speed to suit the scenario being played, including in real time.
Audit trail - Message logs can be exported to allow analysis of participant responses and support evaluation
Exercise control - managers have control over time compression, injects, failing data, and monitoring progress
Exercising or to support CPD through in-house training

8. JEMS Exercises Recent Environment Agency Exercises
JEMS used to deliver;
Exercise Black Blade (2017) for 24 duty staff
Exercise Occam’s Razor (2016) for 30 duty staff
During these 3-day exercises, JEMS;
delivered 15-minute continuous hydrometric data
received and displayed NFFS forecasts ran by participants
released radar images
displayed hydrograph data
Participant Feedback:
“Really like the dashboard layout”
“Easy to use, despite being unfamiliar with the system.”
“JEMS is an effective system for an exercise”
“Easy to use with no training required”

9. Example – Wessex Storm Two EA offices (Blandford & Bridgwater)
200+ warning, forecasting and operational duty staff
JEMS provided continuous 30-hour data feed:
Hydrometric river and rainfall data
Radar
Live flood forecasting feeds direct from NFFS
Flood Guidance Statements
Injects
Live deployment of operational equipment (e.g. high capacity pumps)
Multi-agency teleconference with other Cat. 1 and 2 responders from Avon and Somerset

10. Why control-post? Immersive / real-life situation
Using the data you’d normally have access to
Based in control rooms
Awareness of how tools and systems work
Effective for individual agencies / responders, and multi-agency
Can be longer duration, drawing in more duty staff, testing:
Rostering
Welfare
H&S
Business continuity
But…
Can be more challenging to set-up
Checking availability of participants
Longer set-up: scenario development, inject design, data preparation, etc.
Logistics – booking rooms, etc.
Back to the cycle – wouldn’t start with a control-post exercise
Probably most common type of exercise

11. Live deployment / field

12. Live deployment / field-based
Field deployment
Exercise Wessex Storm – high capacity pumps deployed to the Somerset Levels
Community flood exercises
Bring community together
Engage residents – ownership of risk
Flood wardens rehearse roles and responsibilities
Improvements to local plans and arrangements
Deployment
Wet tests – seeing is believing…

13. Thank you
Any questions?