On Saturday, March 25, 2023, the Shivering Shores functional exercise was delivered in person over six hours (pausing for a one-hour lunch) at the York University Emergency Operations Centre (EOC). It was a joint effort by the MDEM program and Disaster & Emergency Management Student Association (DEMSA), the first in the post-pandemic world.
The exercise was designed to mirror a real-world event—the winter storm that hit Southern Ontario over Christmas 2022. Exercise participants were placed in either the Town of Fort Erie’s EOC or in a simulation cell where they would provide injects to the EOC as well as act as resources that the EOC could phone for additional exercise information. Those in the EOC were assigned to typical EOC roles (Command, Communications, Operations, Planning, Logistics, etc.) and provided with information specific to each role with the goal that they would work together to develop plans in response to exercise injects.
The real-world-based incidents were taken from the actual winter storm and ‘injects’ developed for the exercise to ensure that the participants in the EOC would escalate the situation to declare a state of emergency in the town. The exercise objectives were for participants to gain an understanding of how an EOC would be activated and run during an emergency. While the exercise was not designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the participants, the actions of the participants were guided based on realworld practices and information supported by exercise coaches. The participants learned how to:
- Declare a state of emergency in the town,
- Complete two planning cycles including two Incident Action Plans (IAP) and Briefings.
From left: Anastassia Timofeeva, Domini Baldasaro, Karolina Janik, Alain Normand
From left: Iana Shatilova, Joeseph Lorusso, Alain Normand, Ola Okarmus, Anastassia Timofeeva, Michelle Wiench, Nur Qase