Avagene Moore: Welcome to the EIIP Virtual Forum! On behalf of Amy Sebring and myself, we are happy to see everyone here today. Avagene Moore: Before we get down to business today and our guest speaker, please allow me to make a couple of announcements for the benefit of our first- time participants. Avagene Moore: Please do not send private messages to our speaker or the moderator, as we will be busy with the presentation. If you need assistance, please send a private message to Amy Sebring. Avagene Moore: The transcript of today's session will be available by this evening -- just check back on our home page. Avagene Moore: We will begin with the presentation by our guest and then invite your questions. I will provide further instructions just before we begin the Q&A section but you may wish to jot your questions down as we go through the presentation. Avagene Moore: Please be courteous and do not talk out of turn in the session or during the Q&A. We will get to everyone's questions in turn and make the session meaningful for all of us. Avagene Moore: We are here today to hear an overview about the King County (WA) Office of Emergency Management experience in Regional Cooperation and TOPOFF 2 Exercise this past spring. Avagene Moore: It is my pleasure to introduce Eric E. Holdeman, CEM, the Director of the King County Office of Emergency Management. ... Eric Holdeman: Hello everyone from cold and clear Western Washington State! Avagene Moore: Wait a moment. Eric Holdeman: I'm pleased to be able to be part of this forum today and hope to share a few insights we've garnered from participating in the Top Officials 2 (TOPOFF 2) (T2) Exercise. Avagene Moore: Not through with your intro, Eric. Avagene Moore: Eric is responsible for emergency management and E-911 regional support to all areas of King County (which is the greater metropolitan area of the City of Seattle) and for facilitating regional coordination between levels of government and emergency management programs in the public and private sectors. Avagene Moore: Establishing public and private disaster prevention and preparedness partnerships with businesses in the Puget Sound region and building "Disaster Resistant Communities" continues to be a major area of emphasis for him. He has been designated the Homeland Security Coordinator for the King County Executive. Avagene Moore: You are encouraged to see the background page for Eric's complete bio. He is quite an accomplished emergency manager and heads up a commendable program in King County. Avagene Moore: The EIIP Virtual Forum is very pleased to host this session today. It is my pleasure to welcome Eric Holdeman to the EIIP Virtual Forum! Eric, I now turn the floor to you. OK, Eric. Eric Holdeman: Hello everyone from cold and clear Western Washington State! And my first lesson in ... Eric Holdeman: I'm pleased to be able to be part of this forum today and hope to share a few insights we've garnered from participating in the Top Officials 2 (TOPOFF 2) (T2) Exercise. Eric Holdeman: Most of my comments will be about the design process since perhaps some of you might be considering future participation, or may be approached by the Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP). Eric Holdeman: T2 was a multi-state exercise with both Illinois and Washington States participating. In Illinois it was the State of Illinois, Chicago, Cook County and their collar counties Eric Holdeman: Here in Washington State, the State participated along with the City of Seattle, King County and as an offshoot of the exercise; Pierce County, which is south of King County. Eric Holdeman: January 2002 was the start of the process when ODP approached all three major players to participate in T2 in 2003. Much of the initial concern was about funding and expectations from ODP. Eric Holdeman: $2.5 million was made available to the Washington Venue for use to allocate for the exercise. Only a small portion of that amount was allowed to be used up-front for the design work. Eric Holdeman: ur venue commitment was to participate to the level of funding provided. The real out-of-pocket expense was the time spent on this exercise versus working on other elements of our emergency management program. Eric Holdeman: ODP staff was generally easy to work with. We had a dedicated ODP lead for our portion of the exercise. He spent considerable time out here in Washington State. Eric Holdeman: ing County gave him office space, a computer, access to a copier, etc. in order to help facilitate the day-to-day coordination needed. This worked well for us. Eric Holdeman: On paper we had a joint design team made up of representatives from each major organization. Unfortunately this broke down with each jurisdiction conducting independent exercise design efforts for sub-venue events. Eric Holdeman: Canada also participate in the exercise, but was late coming to the table, had to deal with SARS, and meaningful play that should have impacted our multi-lateral coordination did not happen. Eric Holdeman: I think a real problem for the design and execution of the exercise was that FEMA was not at the table as a major partner on the Federal side. There wasn't anyone at the local federal level working during the first nine months of the design process. Our local FEMA Region did not become active in the design and preparations until about October 2002. Eric Holdeman: Our local FBI Office, with whom we have excellent relationships, was a reluctant partner in the exercise. They were consumed by daily threats and with the Iraqi War looming. The FBI did not do sufficient planning for the exercise. They were betting the exercise would be cancelled because of the war. Eric Holdeman: Because of FEMA not being at the table, and the FBI being a third or fourth party to the exercise, little federal coordination was happening both here locally and back in Washington D.C. I heard repeatedly that information was not flowing down from D.C. to Federal Regional Offices. Eric Holdeman: We knew more about what they were suppose to be doing than they did. They also were not provided any exercise funds, so their participation had to come from their operational budgets, which did not include funding for this level of an exercise. Eric Holdeman: During the exercise design process we found ourselves being "surprised" by various aspects of the design process. After a while we decided not to make any assumptions about how the design process would proceed Eric Holdeman: There was some difficulty in merging the needs of the national level with that of the local level. This was evident in the pre-exercise schedule in designing a series of seminars that were meant to help prepare both venues for the full-scale exercise. Eric Holdeman: The bottom line is that you are responsible for getting your region ready for the exercise. The national level preparations will not do the trick. Eric Holdeman: Here are some other points about the design process. Eric Holdeman: * Initially there was a "Red Force" concept, an opposing force" which was to be operational during the exercise simulating the terrorist cell. That effort self-destructed at the first presentation of the concept. Eric Holdeman: All parties did not observe exercise "Eyes Only" concept of protecting what the sequence of events would be and the detailed aspects of the exercise. Eric Holdeman: * King County was interested in incorporating the "Real" media into the exercise play. This was nixed by ODP, citing "Issues of National Security." The Virtual News Network (VNN) simulated the media. There was insufficient funding provided to make their play realistic. Eric Holdeman: * Remember that the contractor supporting the exercise design is working for ODP, and not for you. They take their direction from ODP. Eric Holdeman: * Lastly, there wasn't a sequence of increasingly complex series of exercises leading up to the full-scale exercise. Eric Holdeman: ere are some other big questions to consider about TOPOFF: Eric Holdeman: Is TOPOFF an Exercise or a Demonstration of our capabilities? Eric Holdeman: * Are you exercising reality or some other form of construed event to fit your purposes? Eric Holdeman: * How scripted are you making the exercise? What level of "Free Play" is being allowed to occur? Eric Holdeman: How does "Unified Command" occur beyond the event scene? Eric Holdeman: * Is the Joint Information Center (JIC) concept one that organizations are willing to support and work towards Eric Holdeman: I would also like to highlight a portion of the exercise that will never appear in any of the after action reports. That was the Cyber Exercise conducted over a two-day period the week before the full-scale exercise. Eric Holdeman: What made this a real success was the partners stayed at the table during the design process and worked through issues to have a single coordinated event that added real value and examined vulnerabilities that are real, and routinely are not exercised. Eric Holdeman: In this instance the contractor supporting that portion of the exercise added real value. -- In summary: Eric Holdeman: * The TOPOFF series of exercises is getting incrementally better. Eric Holdeman: * Dept. of Homeland Security and Secretary Ridge are committed to this exercise concept. Eric Holdeman: * It is your opportunity to exercise with the feds. Eric Holdeman: * Doing a joint exercise like this will test the strength of your local and regional partnerships Eric Holdeman: I was also asked to comment on our regional activities here in King County. Eric Holdeman: Since coming to King County seven years ago, the vision I've tried to foster is one of regional collaboration before, during and after disasters. Some of the things we've done with our partners are: Eric Holdeman: * Written a Regional Disaster Response Plan for public and private organizations here in King County. To date we have 114 signatories and the planning continues. Eric Holdeman: * We have a Regional Public Information network that is both a group and a web site that allows public agencies a single place to post news releases and "pushes" information out via email to PDAs, pagers, cell phones and computers. Go to www.govlink.org and click on RPIN. Eric Holdeman: * We have an Inter-county Mutual Aid Agreement with 10 of the 39 counties in the state as signatories. Eric Holdeman: * We are working here in King County on a Regional Mitigation Plan. Eric Holdeman: * Recently we just signed a Tri-county Interlocal Agreement with Pierce and Snohomish Counties to collaborate on emergency management in general and Homeland Security in particular. Eric Holdeman: * And, we just moved into a new state-of-the-art "Regional" Communications Emergency Coordination Center (RCECC) that is intended to be a hub for coordination during and after disasters here in King County. Eric Holdeman: Thanks for taking part in this forum and I look forward to dialoging with you today. In the future you can contact me at 206-205-4060 or at eric.holdeman@metrokc.gov Avagene Moore: Thank you for that fine overview, Eric. I am sure our audience has many questions for you. ... Avagene Moore: Our protocol for audience questions is to enter a question mark ? to indicate you wish to ask a question or make a comment. ... Eric Holdeman: Together we can learn a lot from one another! And now, back to our moderator---Avagene! Avagene Moore: Sorry, I jumped in to quickly, Eric. Then go ahead and compose your question to have it ready, but do NOT hit your Enter key or click on the Send button until you are recognized by name. ... Avagene Moore: We will take questions in the order the question marks are sent to the screen. We are ready to begin now. Please input your ? now if you wish to ask a question. Avagene Moore: Input your ? now and compose and have ready when I call upon you. Jennifer Vuitel: ? Amy Sebring: ? Jim Miller: ? Avagene Moore: Jennifer, you are first. Please compose and send to the screen. Jennifer Vuitel: Could you please expand on how well, or not, the JIC worked? Eric Holdeman: Jennifer, I had hair before I started working on the JIC issue... Eric Holdeman: Public information was a huge issue here... Eric Holdeman: We ended up, for various reasons, with having four JICs Eric Holdeman: So, it was quite complicated... Eric Holdeman: For King County we put together a regional JIC... Eric Holdeman: We had over 40 agencies contributing over 120 personnel... Eric Holdeman: It was the first time we had such a combined effort of people and agencies. Avagene Moore: Amy, your question, please. Amy Sebring: I understand from the media that there has been a federal , "internal" after action report. Have you seen it, and do you know if they intend to make at least some of the findings public? Eric Holdeman: There is a draft document that is marked FOUO... Eric Holdeman: Given what I see in the press every day that is sent to me FOUO my guess is that lots of what is written will go public. Avagene Moore: Jim, you are next, sir. Jim Miller: How did all this start? Did you request ODP to get involved in an exercise you were planning or did they come to you with the idea? Avagene Moore: ? Eric Holdeman: Jim, ... a trail of tears experience... Eric Holdeman: ODP acutally came to us... Eric Holdeman: They were looking for a State with an international boundary so they could play with Canada. Avagene Moore: Eric, you commended the "cyber" pre-exercise effort. Who was involved in that? And will the lessons learned there be useful to the next TOPOFF? Avagene Moore: (Others with questions, please input your ? at any time.) Eric Holdeman: Reference the Cyber Exercise... Paul John: ? Eric Holdeman: The parties were the same, state, county, and city with some private participants... Eric Holdeman: What was special about the event is that the IS people put aside their differences to actually do collaborative work... Eric Holdeman: Lots of relationship building went on, and an appreciation for sharing information with one another during times of cyber attack. Ed PearceCBCP: ? Avagene Moore: Paul John, next, please. Paul John: How did the funding flow from the Feds(ODP?):- To State then County down the line? Eric Holdeman: Let me remember... Amy Sebring: ? Eric Holdeman: Paul-John, we ended up doing separate agreements with ODP. The state tried to stay out of any discussions on splitting the funds between the city and the county. Avagene Moore: Ed, your turn, please. Ed PearceCBCP: I am responsible for disaster planning in the private sector and have worked closely with local emergency managers. How did the private sector participate? Eric Holdeman: Ed, thanks for participating today... Eric Holdeman: Private partners are a vital part of what we do here in King County... Eric Holdeman: Unfortunately not all the players valued that level of participation. We pushed and did achieve some business interaction... Eric Holdeman: Here at the County ECC we had our local electrical utility, BNSF RR, and the Port of Seattle with our regional transporation agency. Burt Wallrich: ? Avagene Moore: Amy, please. Amy Sebring: I gather from your remark regarding Unified Command beyond the incident scene there were some difficulties in this area? Can you explain the challenges you faced there? Eric Holdeman: Amy, I think this is the crux of a bigger issue... Eric Holdeman: Early int he design phase at a national seminar--multiple federal agencies all said they "were in charge"... Eric Holdeman: Locally we had the issue of what does "jurisdictional integrety" mean in relationship to "joint" decision making... Eric Holdeman: Not having a series of exercises leading up to the "big one" hampered our interactions during T2. Avagene Moore: Burt, please. Burt Wallrich: I have a question related to Ed Pearce's: Were any NGOs involved, either through the VOAD or other collaborative structure or individually? Avagene Moore: (Please input your ? to ask Eric a question or make a comment.) Jennifer Vuitel: ? Eric Holdeman: Burt, as I recall, the only NGO was the Red Cross... Avagene Moore: ? Eric Holdeman: Together with our Parks Dept. they set up a shelter for evacuees, with special attention to this being done in a WMD atmosphere. Avagene Moore: Jennifer, please. Jennifer Vuitel: In retrospect (and back to JIC) do you think 4 JICs would have worked effectively in a real situation? Eric Holdeman: Jennifer, I'm a big believer in putting people face to face in times of crisis... Eric Holdeman: You can talk about having a Joint Information System (JIS), but... Eric Holdeman: There should only be one JIC, and multiple Information Centers ICs feeding the single source that is releasing information to the media and the public. Avagene Moore: Eric, as someone who has been in this business a long time, I find it discouraging that we are not making more progress in collaborating and communicating with each other. In your professional opinion, what needs to be done to bring us all to the table and really improve our capabilities? Eric Holdeman: Avagene, I continue to wrestle with this every day... Eric Holdeman: Big events like 9-11 do help people recognize their interdependencies... Eric Holdeman: We use the 9-11 event as a motivational tool to launch the signatory process for our Regional Disaster Plan... Eric Holdeman: I think this is not just an intellectual issue, but an emotional one colored many times by the politics of each region. Amy Sebring: ? Avagene Moore: Does anyone else have a question for Eric? Please input your ? now. Thanks, Amy. Whenever you are ready, please. Amy Sebring: I gather there will be a TOPOFF 3? Do you know when/who is being planned? Eric Holdeman: And, if I can add---to my last answer--I tell my folks to go where the energy is. Don't bang your head against a brick wall of someone who doesn't think regionally. Eric Holdeman: Amy, I've heard that states/regions have been approached, but there has not been a public announcement of where T3 will occur. Jennifer Vuitel: ? Avagene Moore: Eric, I have been told that the next TOPOFF will include the UK as a player. Jennifer, please. Jennifer Vuitel: Has the momentum decreased for continued planning in your region or have you been able to maintain? Eric Holdeman: Jennifer, I like big events... Eric Holdeman: They cause organizations who normally are not at the table to start interacting... steve@davislogic.com: ? Eric Holdeman: We did have a series of three "discussions" with the Mayor of Seattle's Office leading up to T2... Eric Holdeman: Since the end of T2, no follow-up sessions have been held... Eric Holdeman: Our regional planning is continuing both for disaster response and mitigation--but I don't see T2 as being a major influcence on this. Avagene Moore: Steve Davis, your question, please. steve@davislogic.com: How is your Homeland Security Strategy reflecting lessons learned from T2 and actual disasters? Eric Holdeman: Steve@, pause- stall, hesitate... Amy Sebring: ? Guest1: To what extent was there success with the interface to business and industry and to humanitarian ngos, communications questions, etc. Tom May steve@davislogic.com: I am working on one now and looking for the less than obvious things to include Eric Holdeman: I don't think T2 has impacted our strategy one bit--yet. We are a UASI region and working now on our strategy. The Threat Assessment should drive our resource allocation... Isabel McCurdy: ? Eric Holdeman: But, I think it will come down to dividing up the dollars--- people have to want to do things jointly together. You give up some control for more effective relationships. steve@davislogic.com: I was thinking more of planning and organizations to impacet regional cooperation Avagene Moore: Eric, do you see the question by Tom May, Guest 1 - accidentally input I am sure. If you can address that one before I call on Amy, please. Avagene Moore: I think you have addressed it somewhat in other questions. Eric Holdeman: Guest11, I think there was some success in people seeing how government works. We also had QWest participate from their Corporate Office. Exercises bring people together. Avagene Moore: Amy, please. Amy Sebring: What kind of formal debriefing process was held subsequent to the exercise? Eric Holdeman: Amy, we had a hot wash following the exercise. People were trying to be polite... Eric Holdeman: ODP used a different type of evaluation style... Eric Holdeman: They did not measure you against your plan... Eric Holdeman: They had people there to document who said/did what and when... Eric Holdeman: Then they took this all in a post mortum fashion and put it all together to bring a sequence of decision making out. Avagene Moore: Isabel, your question, please. We will have time for one or two more questions if anyone wishes to input a ? for Eric. Isabel McCurdy: Eric- Being a British Columbian from Canada, what lessons learned resulted from international participation? Jennifer Vuitel: ? Eric Holdeman: Isabel, unfortunately I didn't see much benefit at the county level... Eric Holdeman: The real benefit was the Dept. of State working with their counter parts on information sharing during an event that could spand international borders. Avagene Moore: Jennifer, please. Jennifer Vuitel: What was the most important lesson you learned from the exercise? Eric Holdeman: Jennifer, while it was a "painful" experience for me... Eric Holdeman: We need to do more, not less of these exerecises. This was the first time in 32 years... Eric Holdeman: Of doing exercises for myself that we had all the levels playing in the same exercise at the same time. We need to understand one another's roles better. Avagene Moore: We are out of time for the November 12 EIIP Virtual Forum. Eric, we appreciate your time and effort on our behalf today. If you will allow me to make a couple of announcements ... Avagene Moore: If interested in partnering with the EIIP, please see http://www.emforum.org/partners/criteria.htm . Avagene Moore: We will have the transcript of today's session posted later this afternoon. Please look for it then. Avagene Moore: Thanks to everyone for participating today - you have been a great audience - and ... Avagene Moore: Please help us thank Eric Holdeman for his fine presentation. Eric, you did a great job! See you in Orlando at the 2003 IAEM Conference that begins this Saturday. Thank you for working the EIIP Virtual Forum into your busy schedule!