A multi-agency exercise named Merlin Aware held at Durham Constabulary Headquarters in October 2005 highlighted the need to hold future exercises, within County Durham & Darlington, at both Strategic (Gold) and Tactical (Silver) levels, with the latter level exercise involving ‘live play’.

Proposals were discussed at both the Joint Emergency Liaison Group (JELG) and the Durham & Darlington Local Resilience Forum (LRF) and both groups gave their support for future exercises:-

Exercise Yoda

‘Exercise YODA’ was the first, which took place in June 2006. It was a multi-agency CBRN Silver table-top exercise and set the scene for a future live exercise named “Exercise Inglewood”.

 

The aims of the exercise were to:-

• Test the Multi-Agency National Concept of Operating procedure for CBRN.
• Test the Multi-Agency Regional Concept of Operations for CBRN.
• Enhance individual role competencies.
• Enhance individual’s knowledge of partner agencies capabilities.
• Provide command decisions for a live exercise to be held in the future.

It was hosted by Durham Constabulary and involved police, fire, ambulance, local authority, health, military, home office and voluntary agencies and formed the basis for the live exercise named ‘Exercise Inglewood which took place in October 2006.

Exercise Inglewood

‘Exercise Inglewood’ was the second in the chain of exercises aimed at testing the local response to a CBRN incident. It was a live exercise which involved both Category One and Two Responders and the voluntary organisations.

The exercise took place in October 2006 and allowed participants to act out the procedures agreed at the silver table top exercise named ‘Exercise Yoda’ in June’06.

It consisted of setting up decontamination units with 45 live casualties passing through the unit; the activation of the Survivor Reception Centre, the arrangement of transport and the establishment of a casualty bureau.

Exercise Vernon

This exercise took place in Jan’07 and was a mixture of  table top and  live play and looked at the Gold and Silver issues from the point where the last exercise ended all the way through the recovery and restoration phases, e.g. the path of the plume was not looked at in June, the issues surrounding distribution of the anti viral, the expected death rate, body holding areas and mortuary issues, the clean up and decontamination of the blast and plume areas, the media aspects, the long term evacuation issues, and security. The perception of the outside world and supplies to the areas.

 

Exercise Agni (Agni is a Hindu deity. The word Agni is Sanskrit for "fire")

Under the COMAH Regulations (Control of Major Accident Hazard Sites) 1999 the County Durham & Darlington Civil Contingencies Unit (CCU) currently writes and maintains three Off-Site Emergency Plans on behalf of the local authorities within County Durham & Darlington.   The COMAH regulations state that all off-site emergency plans should be exercised, as a minimum, once every three years

In accordance with these regulations Exercise Agni which was based on a fictitious scenario which developed necessitating the activation of the Hydro Polymers Limited Off-Site Emergency Plan was hosted by County Durham & Darlington Civil Contingencies Unit in September 2006. 

The exercise consisted of players considering problems from three phases of the incident’s scenario and interacting in a multi-agency group.

It tested the validity and performance aspects of the plan, encouraged familiarization of COMAH practices with all participating organisations; identified parts of the plan that required amendment and ensured that all arrangements within the plan dovetails with other emergency plans in operation. 

Exercise Oscar

This was an exercise developed to test the Huntsman Ethylene Pipeline Plan in accordance with the Pipeline Safety Regulation 1996. Oscar was a multi agency table top exercise held at County Hall (need date) and its objectives were as follows:

Objectives of the exercise:

• To test the call out procedure (activation)
• To familiarise agencies with their roles and responsibilities and the roles of others involved in a pipeline incident.
• To familiarise responders to the properties of ethylene and the potential problems they may face when dealing with a Huntsman pipeline incident
• To familiarise agencies as to the route of the Huntsman pipeline
• To improve interagency networking and liaison with all possible responders
• To improve the pipeline plan by considering any findings or issues that arises from the exercise.
• To familiarise players with the media interest that a pipeline incident may generate and the types of questions that they may be asked at a press conference.

Exercise Fort Carson

The Civil Contingencies Act was introduced along with the FRS Act in 2004 and required a Local Resilience Forum (LRF) to be established in each Police Force Area, with representatives of both Category one & two responders. The Government also provided a Community Risk Register and each LRF needed to identify which of the risks were within their own area. They then had responsibility to prepare plans, train & exercise and warn & inform the public so that they would be prepared to deal with any incidents that may occur. 

This was the background for the FRS led Multi-Agency Exercise named ‘Fort Carson’ which was a multi vehicle road traffic collision and was identified as a priority 3 on the Community Risk Register. The exercise was held in May 2007 and involved representatives from the following agencies:

• Highways Agency
• Police
• Ambulance
• Fire & Rescue Service
• Great North Air Ambulance & Mobile Medical Team
• Civil Contingencies Unit / Voluntary Sector
• Environment Agency
• A/One (HA Service Provider)