Emergency planning news

Gold Training Package Approved 2011

A gold duty training package, approved by HPSLT in January 2011, is currently under development and is expected to equip senior management with the skills and experience to work in a control room environment during a major incident.

Multi-Agency Silver Training 2011

Multi-agency Silver training to be offered to all partners. Covering interdependency of statutory legislation, legal precedence, decision making within pressurised environments, teleconferencing and partner expectations. 

Modular Tactical Flood Training Programme

To support detailed understanding of MAFP and enable tactical officers to perform in their role during a flooding event. Training will be open to all partner agencies, modules will include:

 Module 1. Legislation - Flood stress, compliance and duties of care across the partnership
 Module 2. Interpreting Severe Weather Warnings and delivery across the partnership  
 Module 3. Flood Codes (As per item 5) & MAFP Activation 
 Module 4. Inside the MAFP - Identified Risks, Roles & Responsibilities and Flood Mitigation
 Module 5. Control Rooms - partner capabilities across the region
 Module 6. Tactical Flood Advisor Toolbox training.          

Rest Centre Training 2011

The Resilience Team will be providing further training to Herefordshire Public Services volunteer staff who provide vital support in rest centres. Anyone who wishes to become involved with rest centres and receive training can contact the Resilience Team on 01432 261881 or via email on resilienceteam@herefordshire.gov.uk

Multi-Agency Flood Plan Awareness Training 2011

The new multi-agency flood plan is now in place. The plan is a collective effort from all key agencies who typically respond to a flooding incident, with the Resilience Team acting as lead for the plan development. There will be a number of training sessions expected to take place for Council employees who are likely to have an involvement with these procedures during 2011.

Exercise: JACK & JILL

Exercise: JACK & JILL was a test of planning arrangements aligned to a outbreak of measles amongst a transit gent members of the travelling community.  Based on a recent and actual incident that occurred in the Kidderminster area of West Mercia an added focus of the exercise was the need to respond to a 'hard to reach' group of people. The exercise was facilitated by the Health Protection Agency and The Resilience Team.

Exercise: WATERMARK

In March 2011, government departments, emergency responders and communities were involved in one of the biggest emergency exercises to take place in England and Wales. It tested the country's response to groundwater, surface water, reservoir, river and coastal flooding.

Led by Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government and delivered by the Environment Agency, the exercise took place from 4 -11 March 2011. Covering England and Wales, a range of people and organisations were involved, from government ministers right through to local communities. Exercise Watermark aimed to make sure everyone is able to work together quickly and effectively in case of a real flooding emergency.

Herefordshire Public Services played its part in the regional response by attending the Multi-Agency Silver and the Strategic Coordination Group held at Hindlip, Worcester.

Exercise: UNITE

On 4th November 2010 a multi-agency flood exercise, Exercise UNITE, took place at Barton Road, Hereford.  The tabletop exercise was designed as a tactical exercise (Silver) to test responder and multi-agency activation and command and control arrangements with main theme of severe weather (flooding) in Herefordshire with the following objectives:

• To test the new Flood Advisory Service (FAS)
• To test triggers and activation of, and validate:
  Herefordshire Multi-Agency Flood Plan (MAFP)
  The Multi-Agency Silver (Tactical) Activation / Response Plan
  The Herefordshire Public Services Major Incident Response Plan
  The Rest Centre Activation Plan
• To practice how we manage information / intelligence
• Interoperability test of radios

Exercise: SATURN

Telecommunications are a fundamental enabler to the effective response to any emergency.  Experience during a number of recent emergencies in the UK showed that there were potentially significant weaknesses. Following this the WAVE 2 Resilient Telecommunications became active with the introduction of satellite phones.

The exercise was facilitated by Telford and Wrekin Council with the aim  to test the HPS satellite phones by making contact with other key organisations and requesting that they contact other responders in turn.