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 rhonda.simpson@dallascityhall.com.

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-

ny.reid@dallascityhall.com 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 rhonda.simpson@dallascityhall.com.

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

oem@DallasCityHall.com

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.