ChemLock Exercises - Vehicle-Borne IED
NOTE: This is part of a series of blog posts looking at various CISA Tabletop Exercises Packages (CTEP) offered to chemical facility managers by the new CISA ChemLock program, a voluntary chemical security program run by the Office of Chemical Security (the CFATS folks). CTEP administrative documents can be found here. The scenario manuals can be found here. Earlier posts in the series include:
The Situation Manual for this vehicle-borne improvised-explosive (VBIED) exercise bills it as a review of “emergency preparedness plans and response procedures for an attack at a chemical sector facility.” It follows the same format as the two earlier exercises that I have discussed in some detail in the IED exercise post. Using the same format will make it easier for facilities to run subsequent exercises as they will already be familiar with the exercise processes.
Incident and Response Module
The scenario for this module starts with a missing vehicle on the day before the exercise. On the day of the exercise a truck approaching the loading dock at the facility crashes into the dock and explodes.
The discussion questions for this module are somewhat different than those seen in the other to exercises. They cover the following (with various sub-questions):
What plans are in place to prevent or deter an attack at your facility?
How does the facility respond to stolen assets?
How are security and personnel trained?
Do your organization’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) include incident response roles and responsibilities for staff?
What assets are onsite to immediately respond to an incident?
What are your evacuation procedures for an incident of this type?
What notification methods (e.g., alerts, email, telecommunications, text message, special tolls) does your facility use to send alert information?
What does incident command look like during this phase of the response?
Does your organization, public or private, have mutual aid agreements in place with other organizations?
Who is responsible for notifying state or federal agencies of the incident, and at what point in the incident would this occur?
How would law enforcement conduct the response and address the threat?
How would the medical response be conducted?
What information or warnings are being released to the public?
If your organization or agency had received information of a potential threat prior to the day of the incident taking place, what mitigation procedures would have taken place?
Many of the sub-questions provided specifically address VBIED situations.
Remaining Two Modules
With the exception of the opening sentence of the scenario in the Sustained Response Module, this is the same scenario seen in the IED exercise as are the discussion questions and the same will be seen in the Short-Term Recovery Module. While this use of common questions could have led to different conclusions in the initial incident review, from here on out, there is little likelihood that there will be substantially different conclusions reached.
Commentary
While this is billed as a ‘Chemical Sector’ exercise, there is nothing in the scenario or discussion questions that would apply specifically to a chemical facility. The scenario could be applied to any manufacturing facility or warehouse in the country. There are no mentions of chemicals or chemical consequences in any of the discussion questions. This does not reduce the usefulness of the exercise, as the response discussion questions do identify areas of concern at chemical facilities, they just do not address the unique problems associated with a VBIED attack on a chemical facility.
It would seem to me that a VBIED attack on a chemical facility would most likely be targeted at chemical storage area where secondary effects of the attack would contribute to the efficacy of the attack. A simple change to the current scenario could be made by modifying the description of the attack to read:
“Another truck is pulling into the loading dock when the vehicle suddenly accelerates and veers sharply to the right, over the curb, through employees, and directly into the dock where a load of drums of (insert name of hazardous chemical shipped from or received at the facility), where it explodes. Bystanders are thrown back and struck by flying debris from the blast and the chemical is released.”
This would then lead to some additional questions that address the response to the chemical aspects of the incident. Those questions could include:
Does the facility have procedures in place to identify chemicals released during the attack?
How would that information be shared with police, fire, and emergency medical providers?
Does the facility or emergency response personnel have the capability to identify and decontaminate chemically contaminated personnel?