News & Events

Disaster Table Top Exercise (MI)

Description:

Following the Michigan VOAD meeting last month, we were invited by Adam Castle, Gryphon Place Resource Specialist and Preparedness Coordinator, to join the Kalamazoo County Response Consortium. This is a multiagency group made up of government and non-profit representatives from around the community. It has been meeting regularly for the past year and a half, following a significant flooding situation in Kalamazoo in early 2017. Today's meeting was the group's first table top exercise and was meant to help everyone think through existing and available resources during a mock crisis (tornado). The meeting was held at the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Department, Office of Emergency Management, specifically in the space that would become an Emergency Operations Center in an actual emergency. Twenty-eight individuals representing 17 agencies took part. Many good connections were made and important information was shared about what various agencies could provide in the case of a natural disaster like a tornado. Everyone was very receptive to HOPE teams taking part in future exercises and if the need arose, deployment.

none