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This is a summary of the debriefing comments written by the April 16, 2011 VCCERT drill participants. The summary was provided by Donna Dyson.


CERT/LAST DEPLOYMENT EXERCISE – APRIL 16, 2011

DEBRIEF CHECKLIST SUMMARY

This document organizes comments received on Deployment Exercise Debrief Checklists by category. The information has been condensed in this format to facilitate review. Comments are shown as written, and have not been edited for clarity, interpretation or grammatical correctness. Remarks suggesting need for improvement have been put first, positive responses follow. Beyond that, the listing is random and no order of importance is inferred. Authors are identified if known and relevant.

3.1   OPERATIONS

  • Incident Command: clear direction, single line of command
o Generally no clear directions
o A bit too many chiefs @ first but units(?) worked out ok
o Net control did a great job staying in contact with their teams. Radios and comms were slow to deploy. We should know the used(?) preset channels before the first(?) or @ call-up.
o Set-up taking too much time
o Good. Set-up was a bit rough.
o I had to walk to IC desk & call out name of “Judy” to report in – suggest red vest-hat-leader designation.
o Good to hear from each leader. Jim needs to be more descriptive and give reasons for the drill.
o The direction was clear.
o Yes
o Good
o Good
o Check
  •  Organization: too much, too little, not busy, too busy
o Too little
o Organization was pretty good.
o It was a 1st go & learning experience. Need to delegate functions to sub-commands.
o Needs to improve & be better prepared.
o Needs to be more delegation of projects.
o Felt like clarification who was “who” – just a sea of green vests (not knowing people made identifying who was in charge of what).
o Good – suggest 2 team members hear instructions so not just given to a single brain. All interpret differently.
o Set-up could have been a little more organized.
o Map names (area) should be assigned and kept for future; used all year.
o Too little
o Arrived 8:30 and still by 10:00 a.m. no assignment
o Need clipboards (for the paperwork)
o Seemed fine to me.
o Good
o Check
  •  Staff Efficiency: Wasted motion, prompt response, good communications, very little communications, external interfaces
o More phones needed for every area; IC, receiving,
o Feel staff was efficient. CERT individuals do need (not staff) more radio work.
o People will grow into their jobs. Need a few exercises to see who is good @ what.
o Was not present (was out in field), but seemed good to me (J. Campbell: posted at Sheriff’s Station)
o Instructed by our team leader that we had to go to animals first before checking the Arizona crossing which made 2 trips instead of 1 & in the mean time a child could have drowned.
o I never received a call-out.
 o Good communications.
o Some wasted motion. Good communications.
o Need to set-up remote radio site first thing – trouble with radios.
o Yes
o Check
  • Trailers: Were they prompt, how was the parking, quick unloading, smooth set-up
o Equip. & bins need to be labeled @end for ease of identifying.
o Do not park vehicles under trees (Vaqueros contract).
o Trailers arrived @ 8:20 a.m. Set-up took too much time.
o Trailer parking good
o Good
o Yes
o Yes
  •  Check-in: Was it prompt, any confusion, assignments, check-out complete
o Needs to be a visual item to see where to check in – check out was announced.
o Check-in good
o A little slow – can expedite if we have registered(?) in advance.
o Check-in prompt. A little confusing. 2 check-ins? for animal.
o Sign-in sheet was walking around, not real easy to find.
o Need a sign-in placard and location for check in.
o None – radio person can work radio if drive busy (???)
o Yes
o Check
o Prompt
o Good
  • Comm: Net smooth, reply prompt, polling efficient, all messages went through, audio message clear, D* operations worked, cell vs ham
o I feel operations went well buy individual radio work was not good.
o People were learner comms. Good start.
o D* operation did not work this time. Will investigate (J. Campbell)
o From my position seemed all was good and working.
o Radio operators at one time were together & left one driver in her vehicle alone without radio & a buddy partner.
o Having 2 radios was good but confusing. Sometimes both would be talking at the same time.
o Good communication between Command Center, scout vehicle and V.C. LAST team.
o Some issues w/D ops
o Personal radios suck!
o Good

3.2 FIELD TEAM

3.2.1 CERT

  • Driver: Route & destination clear, travel clear
o CERT people need more map or route practice. LAST people better prepared.
o Our team did a route/map recon & set checkpoints. I think it valuable to have people who know an area in the team.
o Parked in front of gate / blocking entrance to property & could have radioed to use the lower gate. Scout team did not consider trailer entrance onto property & also had to put scout vehicle on property to let trailer vehicle in.
o Scouts need to understand where a truck/trailer will fit.
o Thomas Brothers maps for all teams scouting
o Assignment to Sheriff’s Station quite clear. (J. Campbell)
o Excellent
o Clear
o Good
  • Comm: Comm clear, messages understood, reporting sufficient, comm lins OK, where not OK
o More work needed
o Intra-team comms were good. CERT teams should probably be 3+ people if possible.
o Audio fine, but D-Star digital comm largely failed (J. Campbell)
o Traffic jams w/HAM radio. CERT & LAST vehicles need to be marked w/flag or ? easy to spot.
o Good
o Clear
o Good communication

3.2.2 LAST

  • Driver:
o The team leader might not want to drive. Vehicle availability may be a ____?____ for this.
o Great & had previous training on delivery of animals.
o It was nice following a lead car. CERT members should do an exercise like LAST did finding addresses in Valley Center.
o Good
o Good
o Good
  • Handler:
o LAST people were great and knew their stuff.
o I suggest before transfer of custody a visual & notes examination of animals.
o Need clipboard to fill out forms
o Good
o Good

4.0 GENERAL COMMENTS

  • Need office supplies at various locations – easel board holder for T-card rack.
  • It was a bit messy getting equipment out of trailers, which need labels (know no time). CERT people need a bit more information. LAST people have better training.
  • Overall good job with the drill! One thing everyone needs to have clear identification!
  • Felt once deployment drill started it started to feel more efficient and engaged.
  • This has been my 1st V.C. deployment exercise. The exercise produced left me wondering exactly what was expected of me. As the drill went on it became clear. The next deployment drill will be more enjoyable.
  • Need hi-lighters, clipboards, X batteries, sm. ____?____ for cars, horse treats
  • Jim Campbell – assigned to communications at Sheriff’s Station:
o My assignment was D-Star. Dave (Tennant) and I went to the Sheriff’s Station on North Lake Wohlford. Some of the “chat” messages got through, but no message forms. D-Star didn’t work well for this exercise.

o One issue may have been the close proximity of the D-Star station and the ICS main comm station at the Command Center. This was likely related to both stations being on “440” band. Suggest using 2M for D-Star in the future. Ron stated that 2M D-Star repeater was “down” during this exercise.

o We were delayed entering Sheriff’s Station because no communication to their staff concerning our arrival.
  • Judy Dobrotin – worked network:
o Contents of trailers map posted

o If it is hot, put up command posts in the shade.

o Tarps for floor of pop-ups and plastic containers for under the tables to keep items off the dirt.

o A dry board and head phones for those working the net.
  • Donna Dyson:
o Staged call-out will allow the chiefs to get organized before being overwhelmed by Indians.

o Each area of operation (check in/out, animal receiving, communications, IC, etc.) needs a stock of office    supplies: stapler, tape, notebooks, pens/pencils/erasers, clips, etc. Clipboards w/pencils were there but no one handed them out.

o Each area of operation needs to have a file bin for its generated paperwork. Plastic bins which hold hanging folders will suffice.

o Traffic should not be able to enter or leave the area without going check in/out. We need to pre-printed, alphabetized check-in/out sheets which list all LAST and CERT members eligible for participation. Guests/observers should have their own check sheet. At check out, I was not assertive enough – people were waving and blasting past. I (or whoever) needs to be tough and make people get in line and check themselves out. In the middle of checkout, someone was anxious to clean up and picked up all of the pencils from the table. I was left with one broken pencil and no eraser. Clean checkout table last.

o The T-Cards were new to everyone, but will be a great tool as we learn how best to manage this system. I can pre-print labels and attach them to cards which we can keep in an alphabetic file (Christina’s system). The rack also needs a mounting system which will fold flat for storage. This will be an easy build – I already have a design in mind and the materials on hand. An easel is too light.
o We need signage for parking, no parking, check in/out, animal receiving, communications, first aid, etc. I would love to make these.
o There was an oversight in rescue team paperwork at my address. Two “animals” were taken, but I found no pink or goldenrod copy left to document where they had gone or who had taken them.
o Many of the things that seemed to create the most confusion will also be the easiest to correct for next time.
  • Unknown author:
o Set-up area for 20-30 min. before responders called in – just to get better prepared
o Need to separate comm. Group. Too much talking.
o Need to have a better way of checking in – people signed in at least 3X.
o _______ did check out go (cannot read this)
o Once started okay – will improve
  • Unknown author:
o Ariz. Crossing safety is for humans – 1st priority.
o Animal rescue is for animals – 2nd priority.
o Suggest leaders should feel allowed to make suggestions or ask questions when received instructions from I.C.
o Team questioned where to post goldenrod copy – on pen or on residence door.
o Some members said several times, “Oh, it does not matter, this is just practice.” But order of procedures is very important!
  • Unknown author:
o I would suggest the designated set-up people (ICS) to be called out earlier (first), then the general response told to report later – would prevent the initial down time.
  • Unknown author:
o Traffic needs to be better organized. I witnessed a couple of near misses and some frustration with teams returning from rescue trips.
o These training events are good venues for distributing information. Vendor booths, CERT member booths, etc. would be nice to keep marginal players involved.
  • Unknown author:
o Need to better segregate arrivees prior to their assignments (could use police tape between orange cones)
o Specify task leader explicitly for each team of 4.
o Get head phones for radio net operators.

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