Chief Thomas Judge is pleased to share that the Concord Fire Department partnered with Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) to host a Tabletop Exercise designed to provide Town of Concord participants with an opportunity to prepare and evaluate their current response capabilities in the event of a large-scale disaster.
About 40 people, most of them Town of Concord employees, gathered in the Concord Public Safety Building for the five-hour exercise on Tuesday, March 5.
Participants spanned across agencies and departments who would respond in an actual emergency: Police, Fire, the Town Manager’s Office, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Board of Health, Concord Public Works, Concord Municipal Light Plant, and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA). Public safety partners, including the Lexington Fire Department, also participated.
The session was facilitated by MMA seniors Jack Mulligan, Dane Carraccio, and Dimitri Georgoulopoulos — who are all pursuing degrees in Emergency Management — as part of their Capstone project. Facilitators were joined by MMA Assistant Professor Victor Wang and Instructional Specialist Rachel Fleck.
The scenario depicted an extreme flooding event where three to four days of excessive rainfall and heavy winds impacting Middlesex County cause flooding and failure of the Haywards Pond Dam, similar to the events that occurred in Leominster in September.
In four 45-minute modules, participants discussed their plans and processes as if this were an actual emergency.
During the exercise, participants addressed five core capabilities of emergency response: Infrastructure Systems, Critical Transportation, Environmental Response/Health and Safety, Operational Communication, and Public Information and Warning.
Agency representatives had to consider their organization’s capabilities, how this scenario is affecting the community, what additional agencies will need to be notified, what public messaging would need to take place, and how efforts would be mobilized.
In one instance, agencies considered how they would work around downed trees and flooding that affected commercial and residential areas. Halfway through the discussion, the facilitators threw another wrench in their plans. Now, water was covering several bridges across Concord.
Participants then had to react and adjust plans to address the new developments.
Facilitators asked clarifying questions, contributed thoughts and ideas, and provided commentary to keep the conversation flowing and introduce new angles to help participants view the scenario from varying points of view.
The TTX provided an open, low-stress, no-fault environment where problem-solving solutions were emphasized, and varying viewpoints were expected and accepted. Participants were encouraged to consider different approaches and suggest improvements to be better prepared should an event like this occur in Concord.
Following the exercise, MEMA representatives Allen Phillps and Lauren Sardella discussed the emergency response to the flooding event in Leominster and provided guidance and advice to those in attendance as a means of preparation for the future.
“I’d like to thank our friends at Mass Maritime for putting this valuable exercise together for all of us in Concord,” said Chief Judge. “They did a wonderful job facilitating a room full of professionals in a real-world scenario, allowing us to consider and evaluate our response capabilities in the event this happens in our community. The events that took place in Leominster could certainly happen here, so we want to ensure we are prepared moving forward.”