After Action Reports provide a summary of the event, the role of our organization in the emergency response, and detailed lessons learned from that response. After Action Reports provide a detailed examination of successes and problem areas, many of them procedural, and the level of the critique should not be taken as an indication of the success or failure of the response. Even an exceptionally well managed event should result in many lessons that, when addressed, will result in a more effective response on the next disaster. After Action Reports on this site include both exercise and actual disaster events.

1. OVERVIEW: Hurricane Floyd response was initiated on 12 September 1999 based on the assumption of Readiness Condition 4 by the Virginia Emergency Operations Center. As a result of the storm's impact the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services deployed eight Emergency Medical Services Disaster Task Forces, two Coordination Teams, and three Critical Incident Stress Management Strike Teams to the City of Franklin (EMS) and to assist the State of North Carolina (CISM). At the same time resources from Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters member agencies deployed to assist in recovery actions in southeastern Virginia. The last state resources were withdrawn from North Carolina on 5 November 1999. This was the largest and most complex state level emergency medical disaster response in history, and the first time that Office of Emergency Medical Services resources have been deployed outside Virginia under the Emergency Management assistance Compact.

2. VIRTUAL EOC ROLE: The Virtual EOC was activated under the provisions of a signed Memorandum of Agreement with the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services to provide a variety of mission information to Disaster Task Forces and Critical Incident Stress Management regional teams. In addition, during the event we reached agreement with the Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster to initiate a situation reporting page to support their member organizations. The first phase Virtual Emergency Operations Center was fully operational, and an automated archiving function was tested.

3. OTHER ONGOING OPERATIONS: During the period of Hurricane Floyd response the Virtual EOC simultaneously supported the following other disaster events:

a. Hurricane Irene - a two day activation for a hurricane which did not significantly impact Virginia.

b. University of Virginia Medical Center Exercise - a one day regional drill involving multiple hospitals and a test of regional communications support.

c. Central Virginia Hospital Exercise - a one day regional drill involving multiple hospitals and a test of patient tracking methods in a mass casualty environment.

4. VIRTUAL EOC MISSION OBJECTIVES: Operate the Virtual Emergency Operations Center to:

a. Support response of the state health and medical system to a major hurricane impact in Virginia - met.

b. Support deployment of Critical Incident Stress Management Teams out of state - met.

c. Provide current situation information for members of the Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster - met.

5. LEVEL OF EFFORT: Total period of activation - 13 September to 6 November 1999. Total person hours worked on the response - 256 hours. Total personnel on duty during the event - 6 duty officers. Total Virtual EOC Situation Reports released - 26. Total Situation Reports, Emergency Briefings, and Status Changes posted for the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services - 23. Total situation reports posted for the Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster - 13.

6. LESSONS LEARNED:

a. During the majority of the response we kept the same staff assigned to the same positions. This proved to be an advantage in that it allowed prolonged practice in specific mission skills and continuity in the positions.

b. Because many of our personnel have multiple agency affiliations involving both Virtual EOC and governmental emergency response organizations we have to make very certain that we understand and clearly define which roles we are serving in at a given point in time. For example, members Green, York, Copeland, Vaughan, and Midgette all worked either in the ESF-8 Emergency Support Center or in the field in Franklin (or both) for the Office of Emergency Medical Services. If we fail to do this we risk confusing others and ourselves, especially as we may have different perspectives on the response depending on which role we are representing.

c. Production of the Situation Report and posting of other agency materials became a well understood routine. We still need to practice the interface between individual staff officers and the Situation report.

d. Time reporting is still not automatic. We need to establish a regular Brigade time report system for all activities, and track and recognize individual time contributions.

e. We now have a standard format for Warning Orders and Mission Orders and these were generally disseminated with sufficient lead time to be useful. However, like the Situation Report individual staff officers need to start preparing their sections of the order for collation and publication.

f. We introduced an on-line incident log; however, the value of this was limited by the fact that it was limited in access. We need to include in the Virtual EOC a bulletin board software that all staff officers can post log entries to on an ongoing basis during the event.

g. We have started to standardize our incident forms on simplified electronic versions of the standard Incident Command System forms. This is driven by the lead role taken by the Virginia Department of Forestry overhead team in the Franklin response, with the probable outcome that the National Wildfire Coordinating Group national standard incident command system will probably become the defacto state standard.

h. We tested production of a daily Incident Action Plan using the incident command system standard forms. More training is needed on how to do this, along with the assignment of staff to make the Incident Action Plan time responsive.

i. Feedback from the Virginia Emergency Medical Services Task Forces strongly suggested the need to provide a variety of other products, including copies of Task Force Mission Taskings, more frequent Emergency Briefings, and Task Force Reports. Stay-at-Home Commanders indicated that these would have been very helpful in keeping participating agencies informed and in developing additional resources as needed.

j. The Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster was complimentary about the level of material provided and the speed with which it was posted. We have identified one issue in terms of their situation reports - reports were limited by the key participants being in the disaster impact area, and hence not being able to access communications. Future planning may need to address the appropriateness of our organization providing an on-scene reporter.

k. Although we tested situation reporting for Critical Incident Stress Management, information on availability of this resource was most probably not widely disseminated. As these Strike Teams are formalized, we need to make certain that the entire critical incident stress community is made aware of this service.

l. During the event we had several requests for links to the Virtual Emergency Operations Center. We made a policy decision which, in retrospect, appears to have been wise. The Virtual Emergency Operations Center will only include links that provide official information of value to supported agencies in managing the response. Sites that are primarily administrative in nature or from organizations that are not participating directly in the event in our area of responsibility will not be linked. Our thought process is that restricting the links makes it easier for users to rapidly locate useful information without having to sort through a large number of general information sites.

m. We tested an automated archive function in this event, a feature that will clearly make the Documentation Unit Leader's job a lot easier. However, everyone needs to ensure that the archive is on distribution for every message, no matter how insignificant, that deals with the emergency. At the same time, we need to make certain incident messages do not mix routine administrative, other agency, or personal communications with the incident traffic.

n. Implementation of standard training on emergency management, positional skills, and the incident command system needs to happen as soon as possible. This will allow the work load to be spread out further and result in better work products.

o. Our procedures and staffing are adequate to support two major disaster events at the same time at the current level of effort. Additional trained staff will be needed to offer new or expanded services.

prepared by: Walter G. Green III, 10 November 1999

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