Emergency Operations Plan: OGL completed a thorough review of New Kent County’s Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) with Commonwealth of Virginia and Federal Guidance using various crosswalk instruments. Updates and revisions were made to the emergency contact, ESF 6 (Mass Care) and ESF 11 (Agriculture and Natural Resources) sections of the EOP to address major inconsistencies relevant to participation in an upcoming VOPEX exercise. In addition to the updates and revisions provided to New Kent County, OGL provided a roadmap for the comprehensive revision of the EOP to address the broader range of other issues identified during the review. All EOP modifications were prepared and submitted to New Kent County Fire for review and comment. Those comments were incorporated in the finished product and submitted to the County in final form.
Rail Hazard Response Annex: To address the preparedness and response issues associated with the increased and evolving use of freight rail to transport flammable liquids, OGL supported New Kent County with the development of a Rail Hazard Response Annex and development of several graphic information system (GIS) rail-related deliverables. OGL used a tailored version of its planning process, based on the National Plan Development Process (NPDP), to support New Kent County with the following deliverables:
- EOP Rail Hazard Response Annex (Strategic)
- Annex Implementing Instructions (Tactical)
- Multi-use Graphic Information System Overlays (Strategic and Tactical)
The Rail Hazard Response Annex was developed to be, as defined by Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101, a “Hazard-, Threat-, or Incident-Specific Annex.” The contents of the Rail Hazard Response Annex focused on the special planning needs generated by a rail incident involving the following six hazardous materials: Crude Oil, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, Sulfuric Acid, Ethanol, Butane and Sodium Chlorate. The Annex Implementing Instructions, as defined by CPG 101, were developed in the form of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), one for each of the six identified rail hazardous materials. The SOPs provided tactical directions to the emergency management and public safety personnel responding to the incident. Like the Annex, the SOPs also included maps, charts, tables, checklists, resource inventories, and summaries of critical information (as appropriate) specific to each hazardous material. The Multi-use Graphic Information System (GIS) Overlayed augment both the Rail Hazard Response Annex and Annex Implementing Instructions (SOPs), and support emergency managers and first responders with evacuation if necessary. The overlays were integrated with the GIS layers of the rail lines themselves to display grade crossings, rail mile markers, and access points. OGL produced GIS deliverables in paper as well as electronic format for distribution to first responders and the County’s E-911 Call Center.
THIRA: OGL assisted New Kent County with its Jurisdictional Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment through a series of workshops designed to walk local stakeholders through the four-step process of identifying local threats and hazards of concern, giving those threats and hazards the context in which they will most likely occur locally, establishing local capability targets for each of the 32 National Preparedness Goal (NPG) core capabilities based on local threats and hazards, and applying the results of the assessment to identify local resource requirements driven by the assessment to identify needs gaps to drive further strategic and fiscal planning. The first workshop focused on identifying local threats and hazards of concern to New Kent County, putting those threats and hazards into context, and identifying the impacts those threats and hazards will have as measured against each of the 32 NPG core capabilities. The second workshop focused on using the impacts identified in the first workshop to identify New Kent County desired outcomes. The identification of impacts and desired outcomes informed the creation of local capability targets for each of the 32 NPG core capabilities that are based on local threats and hazards of concern. A final workshop was conducted to identify the resources New Kent County needs to reach each capability target, which helped identify needs gaps that will be used to complete further strategic and fiscal planning to fill the gaps.