Homeland security drills adopt military-style simulations.

Commanders and supervisors of Baltimore's emergency response agencies, participating in a homeland security exercise, tested a new computer-based simulation system designed to make training more realistic.

The exercise, conducted by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Analysis Center last year, used the Emergency Preparedness Incident Command Simulation, a computer-based, event-driven simulation designed to stimulate emergency response commanders to make decisions, allocate resources and seek additional help as necessary. The EPiCS system also records the consequences and activities of decisions made at command levels for later review.

While the on-scene personnel and resources were represented in the computer simulation, the Baltimore commanders worked from their normally assigned workspaces in the mobile command post and emergency operations center. Participants from Baltimore City Police, Fire, Health and Public Works departments stayed in contact with their own personnel over normal communications channels. Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley held a mock press conference.

Participants said that an EPiCS exercise is better than a tabletop exercise because it is not scripted, it runs in real-time, and it requires the use of actual communication media that create a more realistic environment.

EPiCS was developed through a partnership between the Army TRADOC Analysis Center at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and the National Institute of Justice's Office of Science and Technology. The intent was to take a military simulation model and adapt it for civilian public safety agencies.

Scenarios played out in EPiCS exercises include terrorist attacks with WMD chemical and radiological agents, shootings, hostage situations, potential nuclear weapons accidents, and riots. Facilities represented include schools, a metropolitan subway system, a harbor tourist area, a state prison, a federal courthouse, a large international airport and a power plant.

Survey results from 101 respondents show that interagency interaction and communication are the two most important aspects of an EPiCS exercise.

In Baltimore, the general objectives were to evaluate the Emergency Operations Center, the interaction between agencies and individual agency response.

Results of the exercise indicated a need to modify Baltimore's EOC and pointed to strengths and weaknesses in the response plan and in the communication links that are common to most metropolitan areas.

Additions to the system include the capabilities to represent geographical features realistically. It can depict up to five interior floors in buildings, tunnels, water, fire, material dispersion (chemical, radiological and nuclear), people in various conditions (unharmed and mobile, damaged and mobile, damaged and immobile, and dead), and the mounting of people on and off vehicles.

The director of the Federal Protective Service's National Capital region, Joseph Trindal, was first exposed to the EPiCS system in Alexandria, Va. His first experience with EPiCS was a June 2002 simulation of a terrorist attack on the Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, Va., where the trials of terrorist suspects Zacarias Moussaoui and John Walker Lindh were to take place. The objective was to exercise joint trial operational plans for the U.S. Marshal's Service, Alexandria city public safety agencies and other partners.

Baltimore Police Department Lt. Rodney Giacomelli, who served as the Baltimore exercise director, wrote in a letter to the National Institute of Justice: "Through the exercise, we were able to learn several important lessons concerning our emergency response procedures and operations. We have conducted an initial evaluation of the exercise and are in the process of making changes to our emergency management philosophy.... I know that we could not have learned these lessons through a tabletop exercise, and I doubt that we would have been able to capture as much information about our procedures if we were to have run a live exercise."

The EPiCS system is capable of stimulating not only the local level, as in the Baltimore exercise, but also all other levels of response. In an exercise conducted in El Paso, Texas, the system supported 85 commanders in five different locations from 21 different agencies.

Because the system simulates on-scene personnel, it alleviates the need for first responders to be taken away from their regular duties while their commanders participate in an exercise.

After the event, the simulation recording and an array of multimedia tools are used for analysis and review by the participating agencies. This playback feature allows all agencies involved to study their decisions individually and collaboratively.

"The after-action product of the exercise--encapsulated on a CD ROM--is an outstanding training and briefing tool," said Trindal.

The process involves building interactive terrain and resource databases, testing the system, orienting the field-level participants, conducting the exercise, and preparing the after-action review materials. Once the interactive terrain is built, it can be used at any time by any of the agencies that respond to that particular location.

The tools that make up the system are developed, maintained and owned by the U.S. Army TRADOC Analysis Center. They include an analytical version of Janus, a military simulation tool used internationally by the U.S. Army and National Guard to train and drill leaders in command and control operations; Operational Test Visualization, a graphical display tool responsible for the recording and playback capabilities of EPiCS; and a digital terrain tool that uses photographs and Global Positioning System (GPS) points to build three-dimensional views of buildings and other terrain features for planning purposes.

The on-scene activities are played out in Janus and the output is ported to the visualization tools for recording. During the planning stages, digital photos, video and maps are gathered to support the visual display of the exercise. ND

Carl R. Baxley is a retired U.S. Army colonel and senior program manager of Advanced Systems Technology, Inc. Julie A. Seton is the EPiCS program manager. Her e-mail address is [e-mail].