The Mt. Laurel Twp. Office of Emergency Management will be conducting a damage assessment drill named “Operation ML Recovery,” on Saturday May 31, 2014 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The primary goals of this drill are to allow our County Community Emergency Response team members to practice performing Rapid Damage Assessments utilizing a new web-based damaged assessment data collection tool. Rapid Damage Assessments allow emergency managers to get the “big picture” quickly, in major events such as tornadoes and flash floods so that we can more appropriately plan the recovery efforts.
Rapid Damage Assessment teams shall be surveying neighborhoods in slow moving marked and unmarked vehicles. All personnel participating in this exercise will be in uniform and have appropriate identification. Rapid Assessment teams will be checking residential dwellings from their vehicles, for street address numbers mounted in accordance with the township code to simulate categorizing structures into FEMA Damage Assessment Classifications. These results will be inputted into a web-based tool by our survey teams utilizing wireless laptop computers, tablets and smart phones. This damage assessment data will be monitored in real time at the township emergency operations center. This tool will automatically plot data on a township map, and continuously updates total damage estimate costs based on the structures value and damage category.
It is anticipated that at the conclusion of this exercise that the township’s Damage Assessment Plan will be revised to include this new web based damage assessment tool and improved based on our lessons learned. Homeowners are encouraged to help your emergency services find you, by ensuring that your address is clearly marked, in at least 3-inch numbers on your home structure that are in a contrasting color from the structure and are visible from the street.
