Y2K emergency drill a success - Lubbock, TX

[Dave Colvin <ppddgc@julian.uwo.ca>]

Another interesting article on Year 2000 efforts in the emergency planning
field.

Dave.

>Approved-By:  "Ralph Stuart, University of Vermont" <rstuart@ESF.UVM.EDU>
>Date:         Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:00:54 -0500
>Reply-To: Hazardous materials emergency response planning
>              <LEPC@LIST.UVM.EDU>
>Sender: Hazardous materials emergency response planning
>              <LEPC@LIST.UVM.EDU>
>From: "Ralph Stuart, University of Vermont" <rstuart@esf.uvm.edu>
>Subject:      Lubbock, TX City officials call Y2K drill a success
>Comments: To: SAFETY list <SAFETY@list.uvm.edu>
>To: LEPC@LIST.UVM.EDU
>
>For people in getting ready...
>
>- Ralph
>
>from http://y2k.ci.lubbock.tx.us/recent.htm
>
>Lubbock City officials call Y2K drill a success
>
>When Lubbock City officials gathered to debrief after the September 30 Year
>2000 drill, the air in the room was charged with mixed parts of relief and
>exhilaration. The City had survived a series of simulated January 1, 2000,
>disasters, and City Manager Bob Cass deemed the drill a success.
>
>The simulated drill was based on a model used by the Federal Emergency
>Management Agency known as integrated emergency management. City officials
>attended a week-long FEMA seminar in March and received intensive training
>in administering integrated emergency management. Lubbock was one of only
>eight jurisdictions in the nation selected by FEMA to participate in this
>program.
>
>Using that same simulation model for the Y2K drill, the City put together a
>Control Group headed by Police Lt. Tom Mann. This group spent weeks
>planning the disaster drill, which included an ice storm and blizzard,
>power and natural gas outages, a riot at a grocery story sparked by cash
>register failures, a hospital fire, a murder, price gouging and a huge New
>Year's Eve party gone bad.
>
>The Control Group arranged for special closed circuit telephone and radio
>communications so that phone calls and radio traffic during the simulation
>were in real time with real people. The Control Group also used a program
>to track all communication to determine how long the calls took, what the
>response time was and how each situation was resolved.
>
>While the Control Group was in charge of simulating the drill, the City's
>emergency management team was responsible for handling the disaster. The
>emergency management team is made of division managers for City services
>who respond to the Emergency Operations Center whenever it is activated.
>>From the EOC, the management team directs the City's 1,800 employees.
>
>The City of Lubbock owns Lubbock Power and Light, one of the two electrical
>providers in Lubbock. In addition to the normal City services such as water
>and sewer service, police and fire protection, traffic control and 911
>communications, Lubbock also has the added responsibility of providing
>electricity to 65 percent of the meters in town.
>
>Inside the EOC, City officials manned phones and radios, kept a watch on
>the weather radar, maintained an incident board and continually updated the
>media. A Media Center was established on the second floor above the EOC.
>News bulletins were faxed upstairs continually throughout the evening, and
>each hour officials appeared in the Media Center to brief the press.
>
>Adding an even greater sense of reality to the simulation were periodic
>"live news breaks" by a local TV station. When the EOC is activated in a
>real emergency, three televisions in the room monitor the local TV
>broadcasts. For the simulation, one channel prepared news breaks that ran
>on the closed circuit TV in the EOC. City officials could see and hear live
>reports from the scene of several of the disaster sites.
>
>Lubbock's simulated Y2K emergency was as real as it gets before January 1,
>2000. At the end of the evening, City Manager Bob Cass called for reports
>from each of the division managers. "We'll spend the next 400 days working
>on the weaknesses we found tonight," he said.
>
>Lubbock's Y2K drill was possibly the first of its kind in the nation, and
>it has generated a huge amount of attention among the media and other
>government officials. The day of the drill, the Associated Press sent a
>short news release saying that Lubbock would simulate a Y2K disaster.
>
>Media calls began coming in immediately from as far away as Canada asking
>for information. The Wall Street Journal and ABC World News Tonight covered
>the drill, as did media from major Texas cities such as Fort Worth and San
>Antonio.
>
>The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and National Public Radio (NPR)
>requested follow-up interviews, as did media from Washington D.C., Phoenix
>and Ontario.
>
>If you would like to see pictures from the event, please go here.
> http://www.ci.lubbock.tx.us/GENINFO/NEWS98/y2kpix.htm

DAVE COLVIN - Systems & Communications Officer
Physical Plant & Capital Planning Services
Campus Emergency Planning Coordinator
University of Western Ontario, Services Building
Room 120,  London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B9 
Physical Plant WWW Page http://www.uwo.ca/ppd/
Work (519) 679-2111 ext. 8873 -  Fax (519) 661-3801
----------------------------------------
Communications/Ground Team Leader-CASARA London Air Patrol
CANWARN/Environment Canada Severe Weather Watcher
Personal WWW Page http://hamster.ivey.uwo.ca/~dcolvin/

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