Malia Riggs
Elmore Autauga News
The Autauga County EMA hosted a Tabletop Exercise where pertinent organizations throughout the state gathered to participate in the information gathering and training exercise.
The exercise was held at the City of Prattville Public Safety Building where agencies such as the Autauga County Board of Education, 911 Emergency Communications, Prattville City Council, Autauga County Firefighters Association, Autauga County and City of Prattville public works, safety, transportation, public health, planning, police, fire and mapping departments were present.
Other agencies included National Weather Service, Alabama Department of Public Health, Central Alabama Electric Cooperative, Alabama Power, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Prattville Baptist Hospital, ambulance service providers, the Prattauga Museum and many more filled the classroom in the public safety building.
The goal of this tabletop exercise was to emphasize the collaboration of federal, state and local agencies in how an Emergency Operation Center or EOC is activated, staffed and responds if there ever was to be a major weather event here in Autauga County.
Autauga County EMA Director David Bagley created a scenario where an EF 5 Tornado has surged through Autauga County and went straight through Historic Downtown Prattville. The path of the tornado in this exercise passed through Prattville Primary School at the corner of Washington and Wetumpka Streets and continued north-northeast towards Camellia Baptist Church at the corner of 6th, then crossing Highway 31 destroying homes, Prattville Fire Station 4 and dissipated before I-65.
In this scenario, the relative agencies talked about what to do when equipment is rendered unusable, who to call and for what, what to do if that person doesn’t answer, how to navigate phones being down and so forth.
“Life safety is always number one. But when it comes to the resilient community and getting back up after a major event, such as businesses and schools, that’s really important. We need to have somebody from those entities here that are thinking that way and about resiliency among everyone else in this room. We need people thinking in the now and people thinking with the big picture in mind,” Bagley said.
Throughout the exercise, pertinent groups would break off periodically and discuss how they would play a part in the Alert Notification process, the EOC activation process, and then how they fall into the EOC ICP or Incident Command Post.
In this scenario, the first thing that happens is when the National Weather Service has forecasted and alerted to a severe thunderstorm watch with heavy rain and flooding. This means agencies are starting to talk to one another and requesting additional resources to prepare. Throughout the exercise the key ideas consisted of critical operations, the how, when and why the EOC has been activated, and what agencies are going where and who will be helping to call the shots and feed information to the boots on the ground.
Bagley confirmed that the results from this exercise will be taken into an after-action report where the Autauga County EMA will build an improvement plan for what steps they need to take going forward. Meaning, how do they better build communication, is the contact list updated, is equipment where it’s supposed to be in case of an emergency.
Bagley stated this exercise is going to be what they use to close the current gaps that are in the plan right now and use the information they have gathered during the exercise to ensure their organization is being efficient and running at a top tier. Bagley was appointed Autauga County EMA Director last October along with longtime Autauga County resident Kristen Morgan as Deputy Director, after the resignation of former Director Earnie Baggett in March of 2023.
Bagley and Morgan curated the Tabletop exercise to better prepare for the months ahead.
“If you’re in this room, we’ve identified that someone from your agency needs to be here if an event ever happens. I need to know who that is, their contact information and even the person to call after them. The sooner the better. I sweated it out last January through April timeframe last year, and I’d really prefer not to sweat it out again this year,” Bagley said.
