Skip to content

Exercise

exercises

Exercises enable entities to identify strengths and incorporate them within best practices to sustain and enhance existing capabilities.  They also provide an objective assessment of gaps and shortfalls within plans, policies, and procedures to address areas for improvement prior to a real-world incident.  Exercises help clarify roles and responsibilities among different entities, improve interagency coordination and communications, and identify needed resources and opportunities for improvement.

National Exercise Program

National Exercise Program Base Plan (PDF 724KB, TXT 3KB)

The National Exercise Program (NEP) provides an organized approach to set priorities for exercises, reflect those priorities in a multi-year schedule of exercises that serves the strategic and policy goals of the U.S. Government, and address findings from those exercises through a disciplined interagency process. The NEP establishes the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) as the exercise methodology and tools to support the NEP. For more information on the NEP, please visit the NEP Webpage.

Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program

HSEEP is a capabilities and performance-based exercise program that provides a standardized methodology and terminology for exercise design, development, conduct, evaluation, and improvement planning.

National Exercise Simulation Center

The National Exercise & Simulation Center (NESC) is a Congressionally-mandated, state-of-the-art exercise facility that serves as the central resource hub linking exercise and planning personnel with existing modeling and simulation capabilities. The NESC’s mission is to enhance the Department of Homeland Security’s all-hazards preparedness and response mission through the promotion of effective and efficient large-scale exercises and the application of modeling and simulation to these exercises.

Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP) Exercises

Since 1988, FEMA and the U.S. Army have assisted communities surrounding the seven chemical stockpile sites to enhance their abilities to respond to the unlikely event of a chemical agent emergency. The US stockpile of chemical agents is safely stored at six sites across the country. These sites are located in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana/Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon/Washington, and Utah. Sites comply with annual CSEPP exercise requirements.

Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) Program Exercises

FEMA established the Radiological Emergency Preparedness (REP) Program to (1) ensure the health and safety of citizens living around commercial nuclear power plants would be adequately protected in the event of a nuclear power plant accident; and (2) inform and educate the public about radiological emergency preparedness. REP Program responsibilities encompass only “offsite” activities, that is, State, tribal and local government emergency planning and preparedness activities, to including exercises that follow REP exercise methodology.

Last Modified: Friday, 04-Nov-2011 12:03:54 EDT