On Thursday, June 11, the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management held a tabletop exercise, Operation Surge Command, at the Philadelphia Fire Academy, which simulated a train derailment involving 300 casualties. The exercise provided critical first responders and key stakeholders an opportunity to train together, discuss, exercise and evaluate the emergency communications and resource management capabilities of City agencies involved with a Mass Casualty Incident.
Deputy Managing Director for Emergency Management MaryAnn E. Tierney said, “Operation Surge Command examined how the City of Philadelphia’s Mass Casualty Plan would work during a large-scale incident that taxes regional emergency medical response system, such as the Philadelphia Fire Department, Emergency Medical Services, Philadelphia Police Department, as well as communications, and local transit authorities.”
Exercise participants included representatives from the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management, Police and Fire Departments; Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties; six regional hospitals; the University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia University; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation; Pennsylvania State Police; Amtrak and SEPTA.
During the exercise, participants focused on communications, roles and responsibilities and resource management including:
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Establishing and maintaining emergency communications between the on-site incident management structure, emergency dispatch center, responding emergency medical services and the hospital network.
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Establishing and maintaining communications between the incident management team and responding entities to determine resource needs to support the incident’s response and operations.
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Establishing Incident Command/Unified Command. Identifying the incident command post, staging areas, and key roles and responsibilities of responders.
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Identifying the individuals responsible for and their roles in triaging, transporting and addressing patients from pre-hospital care to in-hospital treatment.
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Implementing and maintaining a resource tracking system so resources are tracked throughout the event: from needs identification, through resource request and assignment, to return to availability or demobilization.
“Operation Surge Command is just one of a series of progressive exercises being held during the year. Each exercise is designed to build upon lessons learned from previous exercises in order to test critical elements of the City’s preparedness capabilities,” said Deputy Managing Director Tierney. “These exercises will allow us to examine the City’s plans on Mass Casualty, Mass Care and Sheltering, Evacuation, and Incident Management so we can assess our strengths and determine where we will need to make improvements to the plans.”