City Manager's Report: Lakewood Conducted Emergency Exercise

(Editor's note:This is weekly report from Lakewood City Manager Andrew Neiditz)

Emergency management “table-top” training exercise:

The City’s emergency response planning cell (ERPC) conducted a training workshop on March 15 in the PD multi-purpose room based on emergency management scenarios. The purpose was to simulate the first two hours of response activity. Over 30 participants included all City departments, West Pierce Fire, and several of our utility providers, including Lakewood Water and Pierce County (sewer). The first scenario was a 7.1 earthquake on a weekday morning, and the other a major aviation fuel line explosion close to the I-5/512 interchange. This was a very successful start to a series of exercises which will lead up to a regional exercise called Operation Pine Cone on June 5.

Adam Smith’s office attends steering committee in City Hall:

At the South Sound Military & Communities Partnership steering committee meeting on March 16, 9th district U.S. Rep. Adam Smith’s staff attended and provided a presentation on Defense budget issues and future BRAC round scenarios. The agenda included a review of the recent JBLM service member survey data. The steering committee includes the city and county managers from Pierce and Thurston counties, including Lakewood, DuPont, Tacoma, Lacey, as well as WSDOT, Health Department, United Way, and Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce. JBLM and Camp Murray are members as well.