Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management 2017 Annual Report 720 80th St. SW Bldg A, Everett, WA 98203 — Phone: 425-388-5060 — Fax: 425-423-9152 Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management 2017 Annual Report A MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR Hello, and thanks for taking a moment to review DEM’s annual report for 2017. As you will see, we accomplished quite a bit this year. I emphasize “we” because emergency management extends far beyond DEM’s facility and staff. It requires effort from county departments, the Health District, the Sheriff’s Office, our jurisdic- tional partners, private and non-profit organizations, faith– and community-based organizations, neighborhoods, and individu- als….it is all of us! The need for all of us to be prepared is the premise for our new “Individually Prepared, Together Resilient” campaign. Not only are we asking folks to stay informed, make a plan, and have a kit; we want them to get in- volved!!! We have ways to do that such as joining our Auxiliary Communications Service (our HAM radio volunteers), participating in Map Your Neighborhood and/or Community Emergency Response Team training, or being part of our Snohomish Emergency Response Volunteers (SERV). We are doing our part here, working diligently this year to ensure we addressed all of the issues identified during the 2016 Cascadia Rising exercise. In addition, with jurisdictions throughout the county, we assessed our collective abilities to do some very specific things, including the ability for every jurisdiction to set up an emergency operations centers, to communicate with backup capabilities like HAM radios, and to share information. The results of that assessment will focus our work with the jurisdictions, particularly as we prepare for a countywide exercise in 2019. Yet, even as we prepare for that exercise, we are actively participating in the real-world response to our opioid epidemic. In November, Executive Somers directed the partial activation of Snohomish County’s emergency coordination center and comprehensive emergency management plan. At that time we began to coordinate the great work being done by some of the many part- ners engaged in this response. We successfully used our processes and procedures to collabora- tively establish goals and objectives, and will continue this work in 2018. Thanks again for taking the time to review this report. We make our community more resilient. Jason Biermann, Director Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management 2017 Annual Report 2 TRAINING AND EXERCISE Core Capabilities - The Department of Homeland Security prescribes 32 core capabilities within emergency management mission areas of prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery. This year DEM determined that five of these core capabilities that are most relevant to our county-wide disaster response preparedness goals. Planning, Operational Coordination, Logistics and Supply Chain Manage- ment, Operational Communications, and Situational Assessment are the core capabilities that have driven DEM’s 2017 training and exercise activities. The goal of this deliberate training and exercise emphasis is increased capac- ity in these core areas among the county cities and tribes in preparation for the South Whidbey Island Fault earthquake scenario functional exercise and overall disaster readiness. Emergency Operations Center Standard Operating Guides (EOC SOG) EXERCISEEXERCISE - The Exercise Program launched an innovative project to develop an EOC SOG template for use by all of our interlocal agreement partners as a plat- form to develop their respective EOC documents. Emergency management DEM’s Winter Weather Workshop meetings with city and tribal representatives from 19 jurisdictions took place this year to amend the templates into specific plans for the individual juris- Brent Bower from NWS NOAA speaks about criteria for warning categories and dictions. This planning process is intended to quickly raise county-wide the Winter Ready Ambassador Program. EOC readiness based on a standard plan easily modified to address specific This year there were over 160 regional EOC operations profiles. partners in attendance at the Summit. SWIF-19 - Preliminary planning launched this year for the October 2019 South Whidbey Island Fault (SWIF’19) earthquake exercise. The exercise will concentrate on the ability of jurisdictional Emergency Operations Cen- ters (EOC) and the County Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) to collec- tively coordinate disaster response operations, communications, situational awareness development, and logistics requests. Planning workshops are scheduled to help cities and tribes develop their respective EOC Standard Operating Guides. Classroom training on general EOC operations will con- tinue through 2018 to prepare the County jurisdictions to participate in SWIF’19. EOC and Incident Command System Interface - Snohomish County and city’s staff attended the State’s EOC and Incident Command System Inter- face course. This training is relevant to improving operations coordination, communications, and resourcing through better coordination between ECC/ EOC staffs and field personnel working from an Incident Command Post. Students learned that EOC’s and Incident Command Posts have similar but different roles and responsibilities in order to avoid misunderstandings and duplication of effort during a fast-breaking response to a hard-hitting disas- ter. TRAINING TRAINING National Incident Management System (NIMS) - Four ICS-100 (Introduction to the Incident Command System) and IS-700 (National Inci- dent Management System) courses were delivered this year to tribal, county, Participants of the Personal Protective Measures For Biological Events hosted city, and school district students. These courses are considered foundational at DEM gaining hands on experience to training for all EOC staff and field responders. Trending toward greater effi- properly wear protective gear in accord- ciency, the training program provided 100 and 700 curricula train-the-trainer ance to OSHA requirements. opportunities to the Sheriff’s Office and the Arlington and Mukilteo School District instructors to increase course delivery capacity. Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management 2017 Annual Report 3 TRAINING AND EXERCISE CONTINUED Community Points of Distribution (CPOD) – The Training Program began work on CPOD, a long-term planning project designed to deliver T & E STATS emergency commodities such as food and water to designated city and tribal locations within Snohomish County. Post-earthquake, roads and bridges may be too damaged for use by heavy trucks to replenish grocery store shelves. The FEMA-based CPOD plan is to first airlift and motor Trainings Delivered………….21 freight life-sustaining goods to CPODs for distribution to the public. DEM is currently coordinating with the Army National Guard to designate Exercises Delivered…………..19 county helicopter landing zones and using GIS modeling to identify CPOD locations based on projected minimal earthquake damage, surviva- Total Attendants……..……...624 ble transportation infrastructure, and population density. This planning effort in cooperation with city, tribal, State, Federal, and business stake- holders will extend through 2018. Emergency Coordination Center Executive Order for Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) Staffing and Training - On October 23th, 2017 Snohomish County Executive, Dave Somers signed the Executive Order 17-10 to ensure the Snohomish County ECC is sufficiently staffed when activated and that staff receive adequate training to perform duties within the ECC. In the past, during times when the Snohomish County ECC was activated for large scale disasters such as the SR 530 slide disaster the ECC relied on outside agencies throughout the state to help staff the Center. The new Executive Order will help alleviate the need to rely on outside agencies for staffing the ECC at any level necessary to support an emer- gency/disaster in Snohomish County. County staff, identified to support the ECC, will train quarterly in teams so they gain familiarity working together. Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) Standard Operating Guidelines (SOG) - DEM finalized the SOG for the Snohomish County ECC late this year. The purpose of the ECC SOG is to provide guidance to assist Snohomish County employees, DEM Volunteers, and partner agencies in the operation of the ECC. Significant changes to the SOG include an overall change in the guidelines to reflect an Emergency Coordination Center versus an Emergency Operations Center, definition of resourcing processes, activation processes and a staffing plan. Winter Storm Exercise - The Snohomish County Emergency Coordination Center held a winter storm exercise on December 12th & 13th. The scenario was a severe regional winter storm. Some of the injects contained wide spread power outages, burst water mains, water boil notices, gas leaks, shelter needs, and evacuations needs. In all, a total of 127 individuals participated in the exercise comprised of County staff, Snohomish County Emergency Response Vol- unteers (SERV), Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) volunteers, and other support agencies. The exercise gave DEM the opportunity to test out its newly updated ECC SOG and allowed ECC staff to further refine information sharing processes. Overall, the ability to communicate as a cohesive Emergency Coordination Center went well throughout the exercise. Process enhancement and flow of information were identified