Core Partner Collaboration through a Joint Severe Weather Functional Exercise

A joint functional exercise was conducted by Johnson County Kansas Emergency Management and the National Weather Service (NWS) in Kansas City in 2016, spanning over two hours of simulated real-time severe weather operations both at the NWS office and the primary and alternate emergency operations centers in Johnson County. The exercise served as severe weather operations training for emergency management staff and as communications training for the NWS, and also an opportunity to build the collaborative partnership between the two agencies. Data for the exercise were based on the 16 May 2015 EF-3 tornado which impacted areas west of the KFDR Frederick, Oklahoma Weather Surveillance Radar 1988-Doppler (WSR-88D), but were remapped to the KEAX Pleasant Hill, Missouri WSR-88D in order to realistically simulate a high-impact event over Johnson County, Kansas without any familiarity on the part of exercise participants. Tools used for facilitation of the exercise and communications include a severe weather webinar briefing conducted by the NWS, two-way communication through NWSchat and 800 MHz radio, severe weather report injects, simulated real-time radar and severe weather warnings, simulated siren activation, and WebEOC reporting. The presentation will describe in detail the exercise design and implementation, results from the hot wash and survey evaluations completed by the exercise participants and facilitators, and future plans for expansion of the exercise to involve additional partners and jurisdictions.