After Action Report / Urban Shield 2009
Urban Shield was an enormous disaster preparedness exercise conducted throughout the Bay Area UASI Region. This exercise was predominantly organized and facilitated by the Alameda County (California) Sheriff’s Office under the direction of Sheriff Gregory J. Ahern. The Urban Shield exercise is a one-of-a-kind multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional Full-Scale Exercise (FSE). Urban Shield 2009 assessed the overall Bay Area UASI Region’s response capabilities related to multi-discipline planning, policies, procedures, organization, equipment, and training. Urban Shield has improved the region’s ability to prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism and other man-made or natural catastrophes.
The Urban Shield exercise provides the Bay Area UASI Region with critical gap analysis information. This exercise identified the existing level of preparedness and capabilities, and will assist in prioritizing upcoming expenditures in order for the region to become more prepared in the future. Urban Shield tested regional integrated systems for prevention, protection, response and recovery in this high-threat, high-density urban area.
Urban Shield 2009 was a continuous 48-hour FSE in which first responders were mobilized and deployed to 25 different exercise sites, hosted by 15 various agencies, spanning 700 square miles within Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties. These sites replicated concerns related to critical infrastructure, as well as tactical, medical and fire response to critical incidents. For example, scenarios included domestic and international terrorist incidents, active shooter, hostage situations, dignitary protection, multi-hazard environments, high risk search warrants, mass transportation incidents (e.g. aircraft, railway, bus, maritime), extreme dynamic entry, explosive ordinance detection (EOD), breaching, intelligence gathering and planning, amongst others.
The overarching goals of Urban Shield was to provide a multi-layered training exercise to enhance the skills and abilities of regional first responders, as well as those responsible for coordinating and managing large scale events. This exercise was designed to identify and stretch regional resources to their limits while expanding regional collaboration and building positive relationships. In addition, this exercise provided increased local business and critical infrastructure collaboration. Urban Shield operated under the principals of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS). An Incident Command System (ICS) structure, with four Area Commands and a Department Operations Center (DOC), were implemented to manage this extremely large exercise while addressing target capability concerns from the National Preparedness Guidelines.
As a result of this exercise, over 3,000 persons throughout the Bay Area UASI Region received critical training and experience. Urban Shield incorporated law enforcement personnel representing 48 agencies, 200 fire personnel representing 28 departments, 175 regional EMS personnel, and 216 SWAT officers representing 27 law enforcement tactical teams. In addition, regional canine units, marine units, explosive ordnance disposal teams, search and rescue units, dive teams, and mounted posse participated. A number of state and federal agencies, including personnel from CalEMA, F.E.M.A., U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, F.B.I., U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were involved. Finally, Urban Shield included approximately 400 evaluators and/or observers from the region, the State of California, as well as Washington D.C., Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, New York, Washington, Massachusetts, France, the Kingdom of Bahrain and the State of Israel.
