Many agencies go through the effort of developing Emergency Action Plans for their dams, identifying respondents, disseminating the documents, and cataloging responsibilities, but oftentimes training of respondents for such an event is not implemented fully. Pare was engaged by the Town of Sudbury to provide a training session for the Town staff and emergency responders that would assist with implementation of Emergency Action Plans for Town-owned dams.
Pare typically develops training sessions customized to the duration, audience, and scenarios specific to the particular community’s needs and the concerns, issues, and organizations that would be involved in the response.
Typical formats for Emergency Action Planning Training Sessions have included 1) Dams 101, to allow dam consultants, dam owners, and emergency response personnel to speak the same language and foster improved communications during an emergency situation; 2) an overview of potential failure modes to promote an understanding of what constitutes an emergency situation and how it affects the type of response; 3) Review of applicable emergency action plan templates and roles assigned to various participants in the plan, and 4) A mock response event to encourage active participation and communication and establish a baseline understanding of how an emergency situation may progress.
