APRIL 30, 2015--On May 6, 2015, nearly 60 staff from across NOS offices will be participating in a NOS Concept of Operations (CONOPS) Exercise.

Code named "The Little Splash," this training event is designed to exercise NOS’ capability to establish incident coordination as described in the 2014 undated CONOPS Plan adapted by VADM Devany, the NOAA Deputy Undersecretary for Operations. The exercise will be held jointly with NOAA’s Homeland Security Program Office (HSPO). The event that triggers this year’s exercise is a small tsunami wave impacting the East Coast resulting from a major landslide in the Canary Islands off Africa. The level of impact projected for exercise play is somewhat similar to that experienced by Hawaii and the West Coast following the 2012 Japan earthquake and tsunami—not catastrophic, but significant.

NOAA staff (and NOAA families), facilities, and missions will be impacted and challenged even if only through simulated exercise play. In addition to the Operations Center in Silver Spring, exercise play will occur in Chesapeake, VA and Charleston, SC. These two field locations will be providing real-time situational reports to the NOS Incident Management Team (IMT) in Silver Spring as to impacts and response activities. The exercise includes a press conference activity (exercise only) that will include the office of NOAA Communications and External Affairs. The primary focus of The Little Splash exercise is to provide training related to the CONOPS Plan and build greater capacity within NOS for the next real event be it a hurricane, earthquake, tsunami, major oil spill, or even terrorist event. Remember, this is only an exercise.

For additional information, please contact Charlie.Henry@noaa.gov.

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