Just imagine having the use of 230,000 square feet inside of a mall to conduct a full-scale exercise (FSE) to train your emergency responders. What types of training and exercise would you plan? What agencies would you invite to take part in this opportunity? Over the past year, the planning team responsible for developing the University Mall counterterrorism full-scale exercise had the opportunity to answer these vital questions.

Most of those within the fire service have experienced this type of project, whether it was a 1- to 2-hour tabletop exercise, or a day-long FSE. However, the majority of those participants probably did not concern themselves with how the event was made possible or what was involved in putting it together. I must admit that I found myself in that group until the day I had an idea during a meeting with a company looking to redevelop a local mall in Pensacola, Fla. The mall had suffered some damage following the landfall of Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and since then many within the county were hopeful that the facility could be revitalized.

I was the community’s fire marshal at the time, so I was included in the preliminary discussions on how this redevelopment would be accomplished. My initial concern was that plans called for three of the anchor stores to remain in operation during the razing and reconstruction of several smaller stores and the mall’s common areas. After determining that the public’s safety would not be threatened, I realized that we in the fire service had a tremendous opportunity. The idea seemed simple enough: the mall was being scheduled for some demolition, so, if it was going to be torn down, why not let our firefighters assist and gain some valuable training in the process?

The idea was discussed initially with representatives of the mall owner and soon a plan was developed to use the structure for training by the fire department, and perhaps other agencies. Because this mall had portions still in operation, it was important to coordinate all training and exercises through the mall’s general manager, who proved instrumental in arranging for all activities conducted to date. Consistent communication led to our expanded capabilities during training, including limited destructive techniques. Future opportunities for employing actions such as forced entry and breaching of walls and roofs will be realized during the actual demolition of the structure.

Shortly after that first meeting, which was held more than two years ago, the economy took a drastic downward turn and the redevelopment plans were put on hold. However, about a year ago, another meeting was scheduled to again discuss the redevelopment project because the mall’s owner decided to move forward with the project and agreed to consider allowing the use of the mall for training emergency response personnel. Thus began my education into the world of exercise planning and conduct.

Costly Measures

One of the first things I learned is that such endeavors tend to take on a life of their own. I presented the idea of joint training to several agencies, hoping that at least a couple would be interested enough to participate. Within a short time, several agencies expressed a desire to be part of the exercise. The next step was to look for available grant dollars to pay for the majority of the cost — including personnel backfill and overtime, which provided very good incentive for some of the agencies to get involved. Fortunately, the state of Florida had some previous grant funding available. Our regional approach to this exercise proved to be beneficial for funding purposes and we eventually received a grant award of about $49,000 to conduct the exercise.

Just as the project started to gain momentum and I thought I was beginning to understand the planning process, out of the blue someone mentioned the Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program, or HSEEP, which now governs the planning and execution of any drills or exercises funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This includes funds channeled through state agencies, which included our grant money.

The HSEEP approach to conducting drills and exercises started to make a simple idea look more daunting. But I soon found a subject-matter expert to guide us, Debbie Thayer, who works for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and also serves on the Regional Domestic Security Task Force for Florida’s Region I. She pointed me to the HSEEP website and arranged for a class to be taught locally for several of the planning team members that we began to enlist. It is recommended that you learn about HSEEP before you get very far into your planning process, as there are many facets to the program. But once you are familiar and comfortable with navigating through it, you should find it to be extremely useful, as the program provides a step-by-step approach on how to plan and conduct an exercise from start to finish. The HSEEP website can be found at www.hseep.dhs.gov.

During the planning process, several agencies asked to conduct training at the mall for their individual teams. Some of these included hazmat and light technical-rescue (LTR) teams, sheriff’s department SWAT teams and recruit classes, as well as the regional explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) teams. The progression of the planning process created more interest in the project, which soon gained the attention of the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Office. They awarded an initial $10,000 grant to Escambia County Fire Rescue to conduct one-day drills in August 2009, for the hazmat and LTR teams.

Conducting these earlier drills assisted us in preparing for the FSE. We utilized two empty stores to serve as the backdrop for the incidents depicted in the two drills. One of the more exciting aspects of the LTR team drill involved having to cut a hole through the roof to effect a rescue in a simulated building collapse and entrapment. Additional training was integrated into the normal schedules and budgets of other agencies to include law enforcement. Prior to the FSE conducted in April 2010, fire and law enforcement agencies from four counties conducted more than 2000 hours of training for more than 200 personnel, in just eight months. One of the most used occupancies in the mall was a movie theater, which provided some interesting and challenging scenarios.

ICS Importance

Trying to develop a large-scale scenario that involves various agencies and emergency-response disciplines can become extremely complex and complicated to manage. Like any other situation we take on, the best approach is to quickly establish the agency’s incident command system (ICS) and apply it to the overall management of the exercise. The day of the exercise you should use two ICS structures. The first should be established to manage the overall operations and support necessary to conduct the exercise. The second should be established by those inside the operational area.

The complexity of the exercise increased with each new aspect that was included. The final scenario involved a group of four terrorists overtaking a mall and using various weapons and improvised explosive devices. Within one hour they would create an event that included a mass-casualty incident that required hazmat and EOD responses, along with a hostage situation. The challenge was to simultaneously conduct these three major components by having agencies operating in separate areas of the mall. The purpose of separating these activities was to eliminate the wait time, e.g., the SWAT team waiting for the hazmat threat to be removed before they entered.

There is a video that often is used for training that shows a group of cowboys herding cats. In this case, it would be more apt to describe this exercise situation as a pack of wild dogs chasing a herd of cats as they pursue about a hundred field mice — while the cowboys are being shot at by rustlers the entire time. That said, even the most complex incident can be managed simply by sticking to the basics, by communicating well and by coordinating all response efforts.

Multi-agency incidents often require the use of a unified command structure as part of the ICS process, and we were hoping that this scenario would provide a good test to determine how effectively the participating agencies would use unified command.

Over a 14-hour period on a single day, a total of 320 first responders, actors, controllers, evaluators and support staff from 31 agencies throughout the Florida panhandle conducted this multi-faceted exercise, the main objective of which was to evaluate the participating agencies’ ability to respond to an incident designed to severely tax their available resources. The evaluation process is crucial in collecting the needed information that will be used to develop the after-action report (AAR). Once each group or team finished its part of the scenario, they conducted a hot wash. This information was gathered by the evaluators and controllers. The following day, the evaluators and controllers came together to provide the gathered input from the hot washes, as well as their own observations, to be incorporated into the AAR.

The corrective actions developed in the AAR will better prepare our responders for future major incidents. Most notably, the identification of interoperability issues, as well as some internal changes that are needed, has allowed each agency involved to gain insight and already has led to the improvement of capabilities. It is highly probable that minor issues will be discovered during preparation for the exercise or during it, most of which can be solved relatively easy. However, some of the more involved issues identified in the AAR will take time to solve and may require the identification of funding sources before the solution can be implemented.

Keep in mind that in the current era dwindling budgets, the same joint effort used to mitigate that terrorist group in the mall during the FSE may prove useful in terms of developing partnerships with some of the participating agencies in order to pool funding resources. A good example of this would be the upgrading of communications equipment to lessen or overcome the on-scene hazard of agencies not being able to communicate with each other over their radios because they are on disparate systems.

Successful Endeavor

Planning and conducting an exercise of this scale is not a common occurrence, but if the opportunity is presented, approach it with all the enthusiasm and determination that you can find within yourself, because the end result will be worth your effort. The success of the University Mall FSE was the result of efforts from several dedicated planning team members who continued to stay motivated throughout the almost year-long task. The outcome was the accomplishment of an exercise that few thought could be realized, simply because never had so many agencies in this area worked together toward a common goal as complex as this exercise.

It was only after the exercise was completed that someone pointed out that just to have so many different agencies involved in the planning process for almost a year was a major triumph in itself. The overall success of this exercise has fostered better communication, as well as a greater willingness of many agencies to discuss future joint training and exercise endeavors.

Stephen P. Rinaldi is an assistant chief and the training officer for Escambia County Fire Rescue in Pensacola, Fla.

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