As part of Virginia's Severe Weather Awareness Week, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, in partnership with the National Weather Service, will host a statewide tornado drill on Tuesday, March 11th, at 9:45 a.m. To learn more about Virginia's Severe Weather Awareness Week, click here. Every school, business, workplace, and family across the commonwealth is strongly encouraged to participate in the drill. Interested organizations are encouraged to pre-register by clicking here.
The Southwest Virginia Healthcare Coalition Regional Healthcare Coordination Center (SVHC RHCC) will be on standby to support any organizations interested in contacting the Coalition during their exercise. This is an excellent opportunity to exercise your emergency operations plan or any supporting annexes that pertain to tornados. Your amount or level of participation will depend on what you would like to accomplish during this event. Consider the following questions:
- Do you want to test a plan or policy?
- Have you made any changes or updates to your emergency operations plan?
- Or is it that time of year that you should re-review your emergency plans?
- Are tornadoes listed as a hazard on your risk or vulnerability assessment?
- You should review your risk assessment each year to determine whether there are any new threats or hazards of concern.
- If tornadoes are listed, consider participating.
- What type of exercise do you want to do?
- There are various exercise types, such as drills, tabletops, functional exercises, and full-scale exercises. To learn more about the types of exercises, click here.
- For an in-depth dive into the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program, click here
- What are the demands on your team or your staff on this day?
- After you have chosen which type of exercise you want to complete, review who would need to be involved
- A majority of exercise types involve an incident command team for participation.
- Will this help you meet your regulatory compliance?
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How to Participate
Pre-Event
- Choose which type of exercise you are doing.
- Review any applicable plans/policies.
- Share information with your team & host any meetings necessary
Day Of:
- Notifications will be broadcast on NOAA Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System via the Required Monthly Test (RMT). There will not be an actual tornado warning issued and the notification will not be sent to cellular phones.
- For additional information on radio notifications, click here.
- As notifications are received, organizations are asked to participate until you adequately practice your procedures.
- During the drill:
- At Home: Get indoors in a pre-designated shelter area such as a basement, storm cellar, or the lowest level. If there is no basement, go to the center of an interior room on the lowest level (closet, interior hallway), away from corners, windows, doors, and outside walls.
- In an Office/Building: Go directly to an enclosed, windowless area in the center of the building -- away from glass and on the lowest floor possible. Then, crouch down and cover your head. Interior stairwells are usually good places to take shelter, and if not crowded, allow you to get to a lower level quickly. Stay off the elevators; you could be trapped in them if the power is lost.
- For healthcare organizations interested in engaging the RHCC, please contact 1-866-679-7422 and let them know you are participating in an exercise. Following your request, an on-call duty officer will notify you.
Post-Event
- Host an after-action review with your team that participated
- Review all of your documentation and print off any documents from this event (will be available day after exercise)
- Ask the following:
- What happened?
- What went well?
- Where could you improve?
- Complete a formalized after-action report
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