On Thursday, May 31, a group of City staff including the City Manager, department directors, line-level staff and representatives from the Menlo Fire Protection District participated in an a series of emergency response exercises. The exercises included simulated emergency situations, natural disasters and other major incidents as well as training to enhance skills in the event of a situation that may affect the city. The exercise involved training on roles and responsibilities of key staff in addressing needs in the areas of public safety, operations, logistics, planning, budget and public information. Emergency events do not always require the same level of response, and are dictated by the severity of the event and its effect on the health and safety of the public.

This exercise was an earthquake scenario that required varied level of emergency responses from each team of staff which included:

• Developing an Emergency Operation Center (EOC) action plan, 
• Prioritizing damage assessment inspections,
• Tracking and managing incident information,
• Developing media and public information releases,
• Sending information to the public and media, 
• Tracking and managing resources, and 
• Utilizing personnel resources.
  
  

The training exercise was led by Ryan Zollicoffer and Sergeant Aaron Dixon of the City’s Police Department. Mr. Zollicoffer is the disaster response manager for the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), Menlo Park Fire and the City of Menlo Park. Sergeant Dixon is the emergency operations coordinator for the City of Menlo Park and is responsible for providing on-going training for City staff in emergency preparedness and management. In the training, the team also learned the new database tools available to assist in tracking resources, making equipment and personnel resource requests and monitoring and managing incidents.