Breakout Session Descriptions

Policy and Planning

Presentation Excellence: Stop being a Boring Speaker - Phil Davis - Do attendees look forward to your classes or dread them? Don't feel bad- training is a skill like anything else that can be learned and honed over time. This workshop will give you the key steps to improve your delivery and have more fun when you teach. Getting the material across is so much more than just knowing the subject- it's engaging the students and making learning fun. This workshop will cover elements of adult learning, how to organize your teaching plan; and most importantly how to deliver the session in an interesting, fun and memorable fashion.

Lessons Learned from Refresher Training via Cell Phones - Peter Dworsky, MONOC, and Cesar Bandera, Cell Podium - MONOC and Cell Podium conducted a pilot that evaluated the use of cell phones to deliver time-critical preparedness videos to dispatched EMS providers. During the pilot, MONOC triggered the broadcast of brief safety preparedness videos relevant to active events; these videos were pushed to cell phones at the sites regardless of carrier, type, or internet access (i.e., to both smartphones and “dumbphones”). The breakout session presents lessons learned from this pilot, including the effectiveness of using the cell phones already in the hands of EMS providers for just-in-time training and preparedness, and the instructional design of these safety videos.

Delaware Valley Intelligence Center (DVIC) Overview - Christopher Bonin and Capt. Walter Smith - This presentation will introduce participants to the DVIC program and provide an update on project progress. It will introduce current stakeholders, and extend an invitation for new partners. A professionally developed, animated virtual tour of the facility will be presented. Plans for DVIC's high-technology "Information Sharing Environment (ISE)" will be highlighted and the benefits of the DVIC and its ISE to the local emergency management and law enforcement communities will be discussed.

A Case Study in the Use of Human Patient Simulator Technology to Enhance Emergency Preparedness Exercises within Long Term Care Facilities - -

Developing a School Safety Plan - Dr. Jason Lody - Acts of school violence must be prepared for, using the caveat of "not IF, but WHEN." This preparation requires communication between school and public safety officials well in advance of any incident. Most confusion, and subsequent mistakes in response, are often caused by the lack of a clear response plan. Who is in charge on the scene? What is the plan for dealing with the media? What about communication to school families? Are the staff aware of any procedures in place that they are required to follow? What about inter-agency communication while on scene? These questions often go unanswered until an incident takes place, wasting critical response time that can have catastrophic consequences. Attendees will walk away from this workshop with a clear understanding of what is required in developing a response plan while studying recent school violence events in New Jersey and around the country.

Domestic Preparedness

What If – Are you prepared - Operation Surf’s Up – Ocean Medical Center Exercise Review - Robert Contreras and Michael Botts - Are you prepared to evacuate a medical center if needed? When was the last time you dusted off your emergency plan. What if something goes wrong and you have to make the decision to move over 300 critical, bed bound, and ill patients. Take an in depth comprehensive review of a full-scale exercise that was conducted of evacuating Ocean Medical Center, the real incident that occurred a week prior and how it helped with Hurricane Irenes response. Presenters will include Emergency Managers, EMS leadership, and Hospital Administrators point of view.

Tools and Resources to help Emergency Responders Protect Water Infrastructure and Enhance Community Resiliency - Grethen Giannelli - Emergency responders play a key role in protecting a community’s critical infrastructure, including drinking water and wastewater utilities, from a variety of threats such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, and terrorist attacks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has free tools and resources to help emergency responders prepare for events that could interrupt water services. Community-Based Water Resiliency (CBWR) fosters collaboration between water utilities, emergency responders, and other local stakeholders. The electronic tool has over 400 Water Sector resources making it a one-stop shop for water security and preparedness. An assessment feature in the tool provides feedback on current resiliency and lists resources tailored to the user’s specific needs and goals. The Tabletop Exercise Tool for Water Systems: Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Climate Resiliency (TTX Tool) provides exercises to practice and improve emergency response plans.

Do It Yourself Biology-Home Laboratories - Thomas Boyle - There is a growing movement in today’s society to be do-it-yourself biologists. These individuals are working alone or in small group with little or no training. There are currently no rules or regulations that govern do-it-yourself biologists. This presentation will provide you with insight on how the do-it-yourself biologist working in their own home or in structure facilities conduct their research. The presentation will also go over the rules and regulations that the leaders of the do-it-yourself biologists wish to adopt for all those conducting research in the home be required to follow.

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise, Full Scale Exercises the Port Authority Way. - James Munday, NJ/NY Port Authority - Are we ready for the next Madrid style train bombing, an attack on our bus systems, an explosives attack with active shooters, an airport VBIED attack and plane crash? The answer is NO. No one can say we are 100% ready. However, the Port Authority of NY & NJ, conducting 3-4 FSEs annually and 15 over the past five years, can say they and their mutual aid partners are almost there. This is the result of the PA’s ability to partner with outside agencies and implement DHS’s HSEEP model, which establishes a building block approach for emergency preparedness through a structured program of incident command training and emergency response exercises.

Responder Safety in Times of Civil Unrest: Understanding Crowd, Group and Mob Behavior - Steven Crimando - Social unrest across a significant portion of North Africa and the Middle East has dominated the headlines for much of 2011. Beyond the “Arab Spring”, the “American Autumn” has seen “Occupy Wall Street” protests in major cities across the U.S. The number of “flash mob”, as well as “flash rob” incidents across the country has also increased dramatically, fueled by the rise in social media. The collective behavior associated with civil unrest can result in violence affecting participants in uprisings, protests or flash mobs but can also be directed against emergency management personnel, first responders, and critical infrastructure. Emergency management professionals and others working in law enforcement, EMS and other emergency response disciplines, must ask themselves, “Can it happen here?” Anger directed at banks, energy companies, government agencies and other public and private entities, such as that seen on Wall Street or in Wisconsin during labor actions, can trigger potentially violent collective behavior resulting in injury, death and destruction of property. Emergency management and response professionals aware and concerned about current world and national events, and the possibility of adverse collective behaviors, will benefit from a knowledge and understanding of the causes, warning signs and behavioral dynamics of groups, crowds and mobs. Such an understanding better prepares leaders, decision-makers and tactical operators for the new challenges associated with the use of social media (Twitter, Face Book, etc.) and globalization as they relate to the development of crisis situations and the potential of dangerous and violent behavior.

Response and Recovery

Buying Damaged Homes While They Still Have Mud in Them - Sgt. Michael Gallagher, NJOEM and Michael Foley, FEMA - The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) opens in the aftermath of a Presidential Disaster Declaration and usually takes more than 12 months for projects to be awarded. Due to the massive devastation to residents from Hurricane Irene around the State, Governor Christie tasked State agencies responsible for Mitigation efforts to purchase damaged homes before they were cleaned up and repaired. FEMA and the State Hazard Mitigation Office developed a plan to reduce/streamline the process down to under 6 months and began to implement that plan immediately. This session will outline the challenges related to such an aggressive program and the lessons learned during implementation.

Managing Aircraft Disasters - -

Autism Lifesaving Emergency Response Training - B. Madeleine Goldfarb, MA - In partnership with the New Jersey State Department of Health and Senior Services and the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management this program aspires to increase the level of core competency and understanding of autism spectrum disorders for all learners. We achieve this through a program which will engage and support the varied first responder professionals who contribute to the safety and well being of all residents. This program is designed to enhance the core competencies of all learners. The A.L.E.R.T. program is a face to face didactic learning experience and is recommended to all first responders.

Don't Become the Emergency When Responding to the Emergency - Bob Sauselein - The purpose of this presentation is to provide participants who are likely to respond to an emergency on a construction project an improved capability of identifying hazards commonly found on construction sites.

Public Health Leadership Initiative for Emergency Response - Concetta Polonsky and Rebecca Baron, NJ Center for Public Health Preparedness - It is essential in a post 9/11 world that public health and first responders work together to properly prepare for and respond to public health and other emergency events. This case-based training will provide leadership skills needed to become the next generation of collaborative leaders. The Public Health Leadership Initiative for Emergency Response aims to improve the capacity of the preparedness workforce to effectively collaborate with other agencies. Participants will be exposed to new concepts of leadership by applying its fundamental principles in a simulated emergency, further bridging emergency response to local public health. This seminar will also serve to inform participants about the Public Health Preparedness and Response Core Competencies.

Weather

Won't you be my friend? The operational use of Facebook by the National Weather Service - Ross Dickman, NWS - A review of the growing role of social media in weather events and how the National Weather Service is using Facebook in this situations. Emergency management partners are becoming a growing part of the social media community interacting with the NWS during weather events.

What the bleep? A briefing package from the National Weather Service just showed up in my inbox. What do I do now? - Gary Szatkowski, NWS - Decision support service is the latest focus by the National Weather Service in working with its partners. A great forecast isn't good enough if partners don't know the best way to leverage the information in the forecast. And often, decision makers have to act prior to the issuance of any formal watches or warnings by the National Weather Service. To fill this need, the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly NJ has been issuing briefing packages to its key partners for potential high impact weather events. The briefing packages are created in Powerpoint, converted to a PDF file, and sent via email. This presentation will cover the decision making process used to issue briefing packages, what information you will see in a briefing package, and some suggestions on the best way to leverage the information in a briefing package. This service is still evolving, so come with questions, concerns, and suggestions. Two way discussion is strongly encouraged.

Evacuating New Jersey-Threat from Hurricane Irene - James Eberwine, Absecon OEM/ NWS-retired - The threat of a landfalling Hurricane in the mid-Atlantic Region is one of the greatest concerns for Emergency Managers. Being the most densely populated region in the country, the question has been, "How are we going to evacuate so many people?" The concern for the evacuation process, i.e. Contra-Flow/Reverse Lane Strategy which has never been done until Hurricane Irene threatened area, has been the primary concern for decision makers. The Slosh model and the Hurrevac program are tremendous tools for making that decision. However, even with these tools, the call for an evacuation is a decision that is not based on a whim, but only considered after examining the results if there is no evacuation, and the decision to get people out of harms way. We will look at the concerns facing the emergency management community that resulted in the evacuatio of over 1,000,000 people in New Jersey alone.

Hurricane Irene Weather Forecast The Good, The Bad & The Ugly - National Hurricane Center - A comprehensive weather review of Hurricane Irene, covering what actually did occur, as well as the quality and accuracy of the forecasts issued prior to its arrival. The presentation will focus on what information is available, and what reasonable assumptions can be made, when emergency managers reach critical decision points.

Observing New Jersey's Weather in Support of Emergency Operations - Dr. David Robinson, NWS - This presentation will provide an overview of the NJ Weather and Climate Network (NJWxNet) and discuss a web portal that caters to the weather needs of the emergency management community. No matter what the hazardous event, having a wide array of weather information readily available and engaged individuals capable of interpreting observational and forecast information is critical to all aspects of emergency management. The Office of the NJ State Climatologist operates the real-time NJWxNet, possesses considerable knowledge of the weather and climate of the state, and has experience in cooperating with and training public safety officials.

Water, Water and more Water - Using National Weather Service forecasts to help deal with all this flooding - William Marosi, NWS - The past 12 months have brought multiple rounds of major to record river flooding. This river flooding has been associated with nor'easters, as well as Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. This presentation will review the weather behind these extreme events, and the best ways to utilize NWS forecast and warning services prior to and during river flooding events.

Health

A Case Study in the Use of Human Patient Simulator Technology to Enhance Emergency Preparedness Exercises within Long Term Care Facilities - J. David Weidner, MPH, REHS, New Jersey Healthcare Association -

"I'm sorry, I can't share that inforamtion with you", Exposing the Myths of HIPAA. - Adam Wojciehowski - What exactly can I tell a cop about my patient? This presentation will provide a simple, concise explanation of how HIPAA applies to EMS/Law Enforcement collaboration. Drunk Drivers, Domestic abuse & suspected crimes, are all areas health care providers find themselves reluctant to share vital information. The "myths" of HIPAA can bring communication to a halt and they can compromise appropriate clinical care and public safety. HIPAA is not meant to create a significant barriers, it provides tools that agencies should use in developing policies on sharing information.

All Hazards

Geology of the Central Virginia Seismic Zone in Vicinity of the August, 2011 Eathquakes: What We Know and Don't Know - Richard W. Harrison -