This past week, EMSI conducted a three day exercise for the National Capital Region (NCR) Incident Management Team (IMT). Held in Front Royal, VA March 14-16, the exercise included participants not only from the NCR IMT, but from the Central Virginia and Hampton Road IMTs, as well as participants from IMTs in Baltimore, MD, and southeastern Pennsylvania. The scenario exercised was a hurricane impacting Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.

Formed in 2004, the NCR IMT is a multiagency, multijurisdictional, multidiscipline, Type 3 All-Hazards IMT comprised of over 100 highly trained professionals from regional partnering jurisdictions in the NCR. Due to the threat of natural and manmade disasters, the NCR-IMT is comprised of members from a cross section of agencies including Emergency Management, EMS, Fire, Law Enforcement, Public Health, and Public Works. EMSI has worked with the NCR IMT since 2008 and has conducted several full-scale exercises for the team. EMSI has also conducted Incident Command System (ICS) position specific training, Advanced Incident Management Team (ICS-420) training, and ICS Practical Application Exercises for the NCR IMT.

As part of this exercise, EMSI provided coaches and mentors to guide NCR IMT members through the ICS process. These Type 1 ICS qualified coaches and mentors also served as ICS position evaluators to sign position qualification task books, helping participants earn their own qualifications. EMSI also aided planners with Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) compliant exercise design, scenario development, exercise control and evaluation, simulation cell management, and the after-action review to ensure that not only were capabilities exercised, but that lessons learned were captured for process and response improvements in the future. Pictures from the exercise are available on the EMSI Flickr account.

EMSI has extensive experience supporting IMT exercises and specializes in designing and conducting exercises for IMTs. Our IMT exercises create a realistic and challenging environment to test an IMT’s procedures and processes, evaluate an IMT’s ability to work effectively as a team, and create a learning environment for exercise participants. With a deep and seasoned cadre of Type 1 ICS practitioners, EMSI is uniquely positioned to provide coaching and mentoring support to IMT exercises.

EMSI is a premier all-hazards, full-service, multi-discipline incident management and emergency management services and solutions provider specializing in all aspects of incident management and emergency management including training, exercises, response, and consulting. Comprised of national and international all-risk, all-hazard response experts, EMSI’s seasoned cadre brings a unique background and perspective in dealing with incident and responder needs at every level of government and industry, to include the international community. Since inception in 2000, EMSI has played a major role in helping government and industry clients alike, prepare, train, and respond to emergencies of any cause or size. EMSI has proven experience in helping various local, state, national, international, and private sector entities with their incident management and emergency management programs.