Exercise Support

Disseminating accurate, timely, coordinated, and complete information to the public and media during a crisis is a crucial element of effective emergency response operations. A multi-agency emergency preparedness exercise is the best way to test plans, procedures, and staff performance in the areas of information gathering, production and dissemination.

Argonne brings experience, realism, and insight to the exercise process from pre-planning to post-exercise critique. Public affairs exercise support can include:

• Developing scenarios and providing pre-planning expertise to ensure an adequate test of emergency public information.
• Serving as evaluators, facilitators, and/or controllers during exercises, including in-depth evaluation of exercise play and recommendations for improvement.
• Managing a “simulation cell” that provides realistic inquiries from the news media, public, businesses, and legislators – all based on evolving exercise play.
• Acting as “mock media” to challenge players through live interviews, news conference role play, and comprehensive real-time simulation of broadcast and print media coverage. (more…)