Tag Archives: DHS

ICS 300 for the Illinois Air National Guard 182nd Airlift Wing

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Solid start to our FEMA IEMA DuPage County OHSEM’s ICS-300 class this morning with the Illinois Air National Guard with a welcome from Fire Chief Otto.

Making sure our DoD assets have the same training provides us an opportunity to have consistent interagency coordination in any disaster.

Group work provides a great chance to integrate various agencies and work into scenarios. Great dialog from all participants.

Since the 182nd is part of the Air Mobility Command, we also included several table tops to help incorporate the air branch for response logistics.

Incident command can be used anywhere…esp with prioritizing resources and supporting those who need critical needs from across the state and nation.

Great collaboration amongst all participants in preparation of disaster response challenges for all agencies involved. The time to discuss these issues is now in a bright lights classroom.

If you wait till the disaster, your poor decisions in crisis could be a disaster itself. So foundational multiagency training before a disaster is soooooo critical.

Proud to be here serving those who serve our country.

Many thanks to the hospitality from everyone here at the base.

Reporting live from the 182nd Airlift Wing…

@rusnivek

2019 May is cray!

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Justin Timberlake better be busy too because this month because it’s about to get redic.

First week in May, our team was invited to teach ICS-300: Intermediate ICS to leadership staff at the Illinois Air National Guard.

Second week, will be the ICS-400 class and the solid bunch of social media classes (Basic Social Media, Social Media Engagement Strategies, Social Media Tools and Techniques).

Third week, we will be popping the FEMA G0290/0291 Basic PIO and JIC/JIS course with one of my favorite FEMA DSASers…Sister Michael!

Fourth week, I will be presenting at the 2019 National Preparedness Symposium at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Alabama.

And the last week is the full set of FEMA Basic PIO and JIC/JIS Course at Aurora Police.

If you are calculating that out, that’s 128 hours of straight classroom time.

Fortunately, I enhanced the playlist this past weekend.

Headphones in, affirm the mission and objectives, head down…No time for rest.

@rusnivek

Day-2 of the new FEMA Region V COOP Course

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Starting off day–2 of the new FEMA COOP class.

Solid discussion lead by Northwestern Medicine’s Continuity Manager Sam with our all-hazards pros on alternate locations including cold, warm, and hot EOCs.

Not only locations, but also triggers on when to move emergency operations centers. These kinds of discussions also spark debate on levels of activation as well as essential personnel. We openly discuss triggers and standards that help make it easy for COOP Managers and leadership to roll out their continuity plan.

As we identify specific incidents and actions needed, we can also assess viability of personnel and staff….ESSENTIAL staff to these secure national COOP locations like

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Additionally, we focus in on the importance of not only writing a plan, but also exercising a plan. Good dialog w/ Joe on the city of Aurora’s exercise plans.

While not as sexy as response or even preparedness, these kinds of continuity exercises test recovery. Can’t begin to tell you how important that is to your constituents esp when things are going to 💩. Catastrophic planning is only as good as your last exercise – trust me, when faced with crisis, people will not always do the most common sense thing.

Why is our agency leaning in on the COOP stuff? Well, if all goes according to my plan, we should have at five (5) Master Continuity Practitioners on our staff. Awwwww yeah!

As we close up, Sam leads the post test wrap up to evaluate that level II retention that FEMA EMI loves.

In the end, when you see the participants smiling and hearing their responses in how they are going to directly implement these new rollouts and changes to the plans….is so gratifying.

I am proud of the work we do in Emergency Management. As an instructor I expect a lot out of you. And your students most definitely do too.

As an instructor, your influence to your participants can generate enthusiasm beyond expectation. Dedication is critical to the success of your mission. I am thankful for all the smiles in our FEMA Region 5 COOP class on this #AlohaFriday.

@rusnivek

Brand new FEMA Region V COOP class Day-1

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Kicking off the new FEMA Region 5 Continuity of Operations class here at the DuPage County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Proud to have Northwestern Medicine’s Continuity Manager Sam Boyle and DuPage County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Operations Supervisor Joe Joseph with us to share some of the changes with FCD-1, FCD-2, CC-1, HSPD5, PPD-8, NSPD-51, HSPD-20, and of course the NIMS update.

Mid-day discussion with Joe on the Continuity planning process with the new FEMA course materials for COOP focused around essential functions.

Look at those smiles!

All made to enhance the skills of our public safety partners.

Shout out to all the leadership and participants who took the time away from their desks to enhance their program’s ability to function beyond catastrophic incidents.

Also, for those that were paying attention on the day? Is it really the perfect date?

Hmmmm…

Boom.

COOP? Operations? Social Media? Public Information? Pop culture? Everything is a calculated because even in a FEMA class, we don’t miss a beat!

Welcome to my program. This is how we do things at our house.

@rusnivek

Debut the new FEMA COOP course in Illinois

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Pretty excited. Starting tomorrow, we get to deliver the brand new FEMA COOP course.

With all the changes from FCD-2 and other national doctrine (including NIMS) – I am proud to be the first one to bring this course with FEMA Region V.

Totes #excited for Continuity of Operations!

@rusnivek

New ICS 300 and ICS 400 debut tomorrow

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Pretty excited to hear about the changes to ICS 300 and ICS 400 tomorrow. I know FEMA EMI has been working hard on these fundamental changes with the ICS structure and command and control.

The last update was really October 2013 so we are totes due for a refresh.

Yeah 2013-2019. Six years isn’t the typical cycle.

This refresh is going to be special as they embody the changes that DHS/FEMA Director of National Integration Doc Lumpkins has set forth in his NIMS refresh.

Proud to carry his work on throughout so many communities across this great country.

@rusnivek

#MediaMinutes interview w/ RTV6 Paris Lewbel

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As part of our ongoing efforts to help enhance the skills of the PIO, here’s another #MediaMinutes interview w/ RTV6 Paris Lewbel.

For more information on Paris:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/plewbel

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plewbel

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plewbel/

Almost Friday folks….you can do it!

@rusnivek

 

FEMA Basic PIO Day-1 at Summit County (OH) Public Health

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Another fine start to the FEMA Basic Public Information Officer class here in Summit County, Ohio!

Many thanks to the pros at the Summit County Health Department who are hosting this week’s class.

Outstanding hospitality as always!

And of course special thanks to Jena Beckett and the team from Summit County EMA for enhancing their team’s knowledge on the fun of being a Public Information Officer!

We are in the command room this week so you know it’s serious!

As always, we lay the groundwork for successful operations for any PIO.

But we also share real-world experiences that could help in their daily routines to better their visibility. And yes, of course we still do all the media mock interviews.

Public health is a great partner when it comes to outbreaks and opioid intervention tactics so many of our participants opted to test their media skills on an outbreak and response.

Also great to have former Columbus newsies Rachel Feeley on our PIO side (now with Ohio Department of Health) as we continue our mock interviews for everyone.

See, deep down inside, some reporters want to be public safety PIOs. 🤣

For those newly assigned PIOs, we get them on camera as soon as possible!

The whole idea is that we expose new PIOs to this kind of media interview(s) so they aren’t shocked the first time they do it in real life. It’s always a bit more nerve racking when you are n00b PIO and have a bunch of mics and high intensity lights shoved in your face during the start of a major disaster or crisis.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand finally, a big shout out to my team across this great nation as FEMA turns 40 this week!

Here’s a quick video that External Affairs put together.

Proud to work along side all of you through countless disasters.
@rusnivek

Day-1 of the FEMA G775 EOC Management & Operations Course at DuPage County OHSEM

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Starting out the official FEMA G775 EOC Management and Operations course today.

And if you didn’t know what EOC was…..

And now you know.

In this class, we are fortunate to talk about our fine partners in public safety represented in 15 different ESFs. As an example, the biggest nerd….I mean guru on radios is everyone’s favorite Comms guy, ladies and gents, put your hands together for John Neeeeeeeeeeeebl!!!!!!

Happy to give the floor to him to share the efforts of the ITECS trailers and the COML function with everyone.

We also discussed a ton on positions and what is done to serve the EOC. We talked a bit on plans and how they drive the train along using the planning P as a guide to the formulation of the IAP.

Now, your EOC is waaaay more than just getting a few computers. 

Yikes. That’s right, you can’t have everything on computer, you need ACTUAL human beings running the show.

Not only a warm body, but also highly trained individual and pros that possess knowledge and experience to make critical decisions to support operations as well as support the ongoing operational periods. So basically we need peeps that know how to work a disaster.

So to help put things into perspective, we showcased our own EOC too.

 

Honestly, we hope that you know our EOC because if we spin up, we want you to know our setup so that we can all function well TOGETHER. Again, the EOC should be used as a coordination center for our all-hazards partners.

Solid first day as we talk about the benefits of the EOC. Glad to have so many partners here in class with us.

Reporting live from the DuPage County OHSEM FEMA EOC Ops class…

@rusnivek