AFTER ACTION REPORT and IMPROVEMENT PLAN

1. AFTER ACTION REPORT and IMPROVEMENT PLAN November 5, 2010

2. Contents • Exercise Overview • Feedback about the Exercise • Evaluation of the Exercise • Feedback about VOAD Capabilities • Evaluation of Target Capability • Evaluation of Task Performance • Improvement Recommendations (Click heading to jump to section)

3. Exercise Overview

4. Mission of the Exercise This exercise was designed and facilitated to assess the capabilities of Santa Barbara County’s community-based and faith-based organizations to work as a unified team to support the needs of individual and families following a 6.8 magnitude earthquake.

5. Purpose of this After-Action Conference Analyze exercise results in order to: Identify strengths to be maintained and built upon. Identify potential areas for further improvement. Support development of corrective actions.

6. Participating Organizations American Red Cross - Santa Barbara County Chapter California Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief Catholic Charities - Lompoc Catholic Charities - Santa Barbara Catholic Charities - Santa Maria Community Action Commission of Santa Barbara County Direct Relief International Easterday Construction Inc Easy Lift Transportation Inc Foodbank of Santa Barbara County Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara ServiceMaster Anytime Smooth Inc Unity Shoppe Westmont College Number of Participants: 66

7. Performance improvement Cycle

8. Exercise Objective This exercise was designed to evaluate the following target capability: CBO/FBO Operations Management (Unified OPS) Assess collaboration and coordination capabilities while working from each organization’s normal base of operations. Assess and validate policies, plans, procedures, training, assumptions, and interagency agreements. Clarify roles and responsibilities. Improve interagency coordination and communications. Evaluate performance and identify opportunities for improvement. This capability formed the foundation for the activities, tasks, and observations in this exercise.

9. Activities Institute a unified command/liaison/communications structure (unified operations) among the appropriate Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) responding to the current event using the VOAD Disaster Procedures: Review offers of goods, services and funds from individuals and corporations. Match offers of goods, services and funds with the needs of CBOs/FBOs and/or individual disaster victims. Review requests for assistance from CBOs/FBOs and/or disaster victims. Refer requests for assistance to appropriate CBOs/FBOs. Provide critical situational reports regarding the recovery activities being undertaken by CBOs/FBOs to county emergency management and others as appropriate. Maintain a flow of essential disaster- related information to, from, and between each CBO/FBO.

10. Four Basic Tasks Establish incident objectives, priorities and operational periods. Develop a consolidated Incident Action Plan as it pertains to the activities of all CBOs/FBOs. Update Incident Action Plan as necessary. Task 1

11. Four Basic Tasks Each CBO/FBO shares its general disaster response information with Unified OPS. Individual CBO/FBO Incident Action Plans (IAP) are prepared and distributed. Individual CBO/FBO Situation Reports are prepared and distributed. Task 2

12. Four Basic Tasks Each CBO/FBO shares detailed disaster response information with the Unified OPS. Donation drop off locations. Needs Assessment Reports. Damage Assessment Reports. Service delivery sites. Service delivery shortfalls. Task 3

13. Four Basic Tasks Each CBO/FBO establishes and maintains contact with the Unified OPS. Liaison assigned to Unified OPS. Phone contact with Unified OPS. Participation in Unified OPS conference calls. Task 4

14. Feedback about the Exercise

15. Feedback About the Exercise—went well Scenarios went well. Good guidance from the moderation team. The exercise was well planned and started on time. All the partners were present except mass care. Conference calls helped keep rhythm of exercise going. Because it was computer-based, more people participated. We liked the online format of the exercise versus holding a physical meeting. The online exercise is more realistic.

16. Good training tool for new CSBC DR team members who have not seen this aspect of an emergency. Lots of good questions were raised. The internal dialogue among our staff members during the exercise allowed us to consider possible scenarios and formulate plans. An excellent experience in looking beyond the agency itself to the coordination with other VOAD members. Exercise was well structured. This was our disaster team’s first opportunity to work together. We celebrated this fact! Feedback About the Exercise—went well

17. No other agency called us asking for volunteers. It would have helped greatly if the American Red Cross (ARC) Mass Care volunteers showed up at the Chapter to participate. Involve disaster leads in the drill since they have the experience and overall knowledge that we AmeriCorps didn't have to contribute.

18. More participants and more diversity would be better. With more training exercises in the future, we can become more confident in doing our work together. Other than an abbreviated phone list, there were no reference materials available for consultation. Participants were not familiar with how the VOAD operates or what the purpose of VOAD is. Feedback About the Exercise—To Improve

19. Evaluation of the Exercise

20. Exercise Evaluation Observations Very hard to do computer and phone calls. Recommendations Conduct a tabletop exercise with everyone in the room. Would have been nice to have a template action plan to help with objectives. It would have been helpful if each group had a conference call to strategies and develop a coordinated response plan. A face to face meeting needs to be facilitated in order to discuss response by each of the agencies in attendance. Drill needs to be face to face not computer based.

21. Feedback about VOAD Capabilities

22. Feedback about Capabilities—went well Our communication with VOAD and partner agencies went well. Identified linkages for accessing services, people and agencies for coordination of efforts. Identified agencies that are NOT in the VOAD that NEED to be invited for future efforts.

23. Feedback about Capabilities—went well Helped identify internal emergency response issues that need to be addressed in order to be in a position to respond to future incidents. Coordinated conference call with all organizations participating in food distribution in the Lompoc area to avoid duplication of service. We had our resource directory available and a hard copy printed in our VOAD binder.

24. Feedback about Capabilities—went well We were able to reach our partner in temporary home repair and come with a plan to divide the work into areas. We were able to come up with an ad hoc action plan that seemed to hold up under the scenario. It re-enforced the challenges and needs to be addressed pre-disaster. Internal Disaster Plan was up to date and only minor changes/updates are needed.

25. Feedback about Capabilities—went well Our board members showed up to help. VOAD leadership was very helpful. Understanding our organization’s roles. All the VOAD members who submitted reports indicated that they had contacted other VOAD members about needs and had coordinated activities with them.

26. Feedback about Capabilities—went well This exercise identified key agencies that may be responsible for recovery efforts. Our plan for the day went smooth. We all came together as a community. We had a good communication.

27. The organizational structure of VOAD and our own company’s disaster response plan. Coordination efforts with the other for-profit associations and companies. Phone communications outgoing and incoming were useful to facilitate triage efforts and assess our ability to meet needs in a timely way. Communication with VOAD was helpful and close communication with regional Catholic Charities administrative team. Learning the functions and operations of the other VOAD members and hearing about their disaster plans was helpful. Feedback About Capabilities—Went Well

28. Feedback about Capabilities—to improve The assumed coordinated efforts of the SBCA needs to be established before any major event. SBCA needs to join VOAD. Safety equipment and emergency communication devices need upgrade. Clarify how homeless issues would be addresses and by whom. Would have been helpful to have pre-printed volunteer intake forms on hand. Lists skills, availability and transportation needs. Have readily available the Disaster Procedures and Disaster Resource Directory in the VOAD Member Binder.

29. Feedback about Capabilities—to improve Better explanation of partner services offered. Learn more about local organizations that we could collaborate with, determine the services they offer and how we may be able to help them. Determine internally, in the event of a disaster, what types of products we would be able to accept outside of our typical inventory. Use an emergency backup generator for our radios, office computers and internet connection.

30. Feedback about Capabilities—to improve Better understanding the hierarchy of management within VOAD in the event of a local disaster. Establish a site layout plan and directives that are easily found and implemented for rapid response. The first check would be to survey on-site station to ensure safe operation after an emergency. Compile emergency contact information to distribute to our affiliates and partner agencies. Have cell numbers and e-mail contact for all employees.

31. Feedback about Capabilities—to improve Need to reach out and discuss our emergency capacities with our existing contract customers so we are better positioned to assist them when an emergency hits our community. Enhance communication structure within our own operations and with our partner agencies. Designate or identify potential staff and equipment resources for issues not associated with normal operations but which could be used for emergency response in addition to those. Have a disaster plan in place.

32. Feedback about Capabilities—to improve Make our emergency plan available to VOAD and other agencies as necessary. Making the public and VOAD members more aware of our capabilities and the current systems in place to respond efficiently to a disaster. More on-going training among staff to better facilitate our disaster response capabilities. Make sure we have our generator in place in addition to a radio.

33. Feedback about Capabilities—to improve Convene subcommittee meetings (Feeding, IKD, Casework, Financial Donations, etc), either in person or via conference call, to agree on shared plans for coordinating their activities. We need to designate a leader earlier in the process. We need further training in Disaster Relief. Providing more basic information about disaster preparedness and safety. Smooth out our team.

34. Evaluation of Target Capability

35. Evaluation of Target Capability Overall Performance Ratings by Evaluators (CBO/FBO Operations Management (Unified – OPS)

36. Evaluation of Task Performance

37. Task Evaluation Task #1: Establish incident objectives, priorities and operational periods. Observations Foodbank has a good understanding of what needs to be done, they immediately started checking on their client agencies, assessed stock available, alerted Feeding American to put them on standby, made a plan to talk to VOAD feeding agencies that would be requesting food and coordinated a conference call to help develop a plan to provide food by priority. They contacted Pacific Realty and Wal-Mart to see if they could get additional warehouse space for supplies coming in. Did not utilize existing Disaster Plan in exercise. There was not a clear understanding of the action plan or what objectives would be used. There needed to be plan to work off of, which wasn't available. The group did a great job in focusing on its plan. CSB demonstrated a strong understanding of their role and partnership with other CBOs and FBOs. They set clear objectives and priorities. They didn't necessarily frame them in an operational period.

38. Task Evaluation Task #1: Establish incident objectives, priorities and operational periods. Recommendations Take Incident Command System (ICS) training. Go through their disaster plan to determine if they missed any steps. Pull feeding group together to discuss outcomes of exercise to develop a better coordinated plan for future disasters. If not in the current plan add the need to immediately request a conference call with all the feeding agencies to develop a plan and coordinate food preparation, food distribution, food donations, develop a schedule of food pickup and deliveries.

39. Task Evaluation Task #2: Each CBO/FBO shares its general disaster response information with Unified OPS. Observations They did share information effectively in briefing. Plan not distributed to response team or provided in writing to the VOAD liaison. Too many variables that were not clear; there was a tendency for redundancies to occur. It was unclear as to who some of the players were. Team communicated well with all participants and stayed involved.

40. Task Evaluation Task #2: Each CBO/FBO shares its general disaster response information with Unified OPS. Recommendations If the plan does not have one now, develop an Action Plan outline to assist with start-up in the future. Develop before the group’s initial meeting a list of questions they needed answers to so they could ask while on a conference call. Understand how disaster management systems work: ICS: Incident Command System SEMS: Standardized Emergency Management System NIMS: National Incident Management System Should be a list of common objectives for the conference call. Common safety issues do not need to be discussed. To insure we have strong local leadership, start operations while the regional leadership is responding.

41. Task Evaluation Task #3: Each CBO/FBO shares detailed disaster response information with the Unified OPS. Observations They are still learning who and what they need to share. Most activity was occurring onsite of the Solvang CSBC. Not sure if there plan has this information in it or not on how to prioritize needs, every call they received they said yes they would meet and deliver, I did not see how they were going to capture this information and prioritize how it would be delivered. There was no incident brief for them to capture detailed information like information on demographic and disaster assessment. Although there was an assigned VOAD Liaison, there was no collaboration and information was not disseminated properly.

42. Task Evaluation Task #3: Each CBO/FBO shares detailed disaster response information with the Unified OPS. Recommendations I would recommend that they have a status board to log requests with date, time and quantity needed as well as have a resource allocation log. Establish a layout plan for the Solvang location and insure a punch list exist for set-up, operations and partners.

43. Task Evaluation Task #4: Each CBO/FBO establishes and maintains contact with the Unified OPS. Observations Several attempts were made to contact the VOAD Liaison and they were never able to make contact. They tried their best to keep in contact, but again without the objectives being clear and not having the other agencies together, the discussion was mainly one-sided. They felt they did a good job without even wondering what other agencies were doing or what the redundancies were. The team understood roles, worked through unified operations to clarify questions with coordinator and provided plan during conference call.

44. Task Evaluation Task #4: Each CBO/FBO establishes and maintains contact with the Unified OPS. Recommendations Future exercises need to be done in person. I was trained to always leave a message in an emergency. The group was told not to. This will be a busy command. The term has a form of ICS in place, but further training and understanding of ICS may assist with effective operations.

45. Improvement Recommendations

46. Improvement Recommendations From the Exercise Director and VOAD Coordinator

47. Improvement Recommendations From Participants in the After-Action Conference

48. Improvement Recommendations From Participants in the After-Action Conference * Yolanda McGlinchey reports that discussions are already underway to establish a National Citizen Corps Council in Santa Barbara County.

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