MEMO TO: Mayor and Members of the City Council
FROM: Tommy Smith, Fire Chief
SUBJECT:
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Review the Cascadia Rising Solutions 2019 Full-scale Emergency Management Exercise, After- Action Report and Recommendations
I. RECOMMENDED ACTION
recommendation
Accept the After-Action Report and support the recommendations for improvement.
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II. DEPARTMENT CONTACTS
Tommy Smith, Fire Chief 425-556-2202
Pattijean Hooper, Emergency Preparedness Manager 425-556-2219
III. DESCRIPTION/BACKGROUND
Cascadia Rising Solutions 2019 full-scale disaster response exercise
* In 2016 FEMA and WA State Emergency Management held a week-long exercise throughout the state titled Cascadia Rising 2016, with Redmond participating. There were gaps in planning and response capabilities, and the City has worked to close them. Cascadia Rising Solutions 2019 is the title of the full-scale exercise conducted to test the advancement of City response and recovery capabilities related to a catastrophic earthquake impacting the region. There will be another statewide exercise in 2022, so the 2019 exercise will identify improvements and remaining gaps, so the City continues to build its resilience and response capabilities.
Training
* For the past year, two employees from each City Department have attended an Emergency Management Division training. The Twelve Extraordinary Meetings were themed to provide depth and breadth of knowledge on how to apply principles of emergency management to the community. Participants were engaged and expanded their daily professional tasks to include emergency response operations. Sharing this information with each of their own Departments, the integration of emergency management into everyone's job begins to take place. These individuals are the foundation to a successful activation of the Emergency Coordination Center to support field operations.
Exercise
* The exercise took place from 8 a.m. through 5 p.m. on Friday October 18th ...
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