Abstract on Unified Resolve 2014
Office of Environment, Health, Safety & Security
July 31, 2014
minute read time
Daniel Blumenthal*, U.S. Department of Energy ; John Crapo, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education; Gerard Vavrina, U.S. Department of Energy; Katharine McLellan McLellan, U.S. Department of Energy; Michael J. Gresalfi, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Abstract: In response to a radiological or nuclear (R/N) emergency, Incident Command and the associated response community will require requisite technical expertise, and the application of appropriate decision-support tools, and derivative products in order to effectively manage response operations. Unlike the spectrum of natural disasters which occur with some frequency, and which our nation’s first responder community has great familiarity with, an emergency that includes an R/N element, whether initiated by an accidental or manmade event, is at best an infrequent occurrence and generally not an operational emergency response experience most of our nation’s regional, state and local first responder communities have participated in. The Unified Resolve 2014 annual exercise, conducted by the National Capital Region's Incident Management Team (NCR IMT) during March, 2014, provided the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Emergency Response with an ideal opportunity to pilot and asses a proposed R/N operational support position, designed to provide state and local incident command with technical subject matter expertise within both the planning and operational elements of both area and unified command. This proposed cadre of R/N technical specialists, volunteers willing to support their home region’s state and local incident commands when facing an R/N emergency, are presently referred to as “Radiological Operations Support Specialists (ROSS). The role of the ROSS cadre is envisioned to be an on-scene R/N subject matter expert to Incident Command, to provide both adaptive planning support and operational advice, with respect to a wide range of R/N modeling, measurement, and analysis capabilities, decision-tools and products available from across the Federal community, to include both DOE, EPA and others. The ROSS cadre would include personnel who are already radiation professionals, to include health physicists and others. They would receive additional training in the specifics of radiological emergency response. The skills include knowing what Federal assets are available to help local responders, how do the data and modeling products provided by these Federal assets support local decision making, and how do the radiological issues impact or complicate local decision making. The exercise helped to define the role of this specialist, additional training required, and the types of data products needed by incident management personnel. The goal is to develop a nationwide cadre of local experts who can immediately support the local response to a radiological incident before any Federal expertise has time to arrive.