/ Home / Exercise Watermark underway

Exercise Watermark underway

in

 

Over the next week the largest ever civil protection exercise in the UK gets underway. The Exercise, called Watermark, involves 10 government departments, 34 resilience forums and many teams from emergency planning, water and energy companies, hospitals and schools as well as a host of Business Continuity professionals coming together to test their preparedness against a range of different flooding Sceanrios.
 
Exercise Watermark is supported by DEFRA, who are contributing £820,000 to the emergency services, charities and others to help pay for flood rescue equipment and training. All of the equipment will be added to the National asset register for flood rescue resources and will be called upon in the event of major flooding events.
 
The Exercise will be testing participants in how they respond to surface water, river and reservoir and tidal flooding and many organisations have combined their efforts to get local people and business involved. Presently there are 54 specific events across England and Wales covering tabletop and business continuity exercises, practices of rescues and community engagement from Dartmouth in the South up to Humberside in the North of England. 
 
The exercise scenarios will be run at national, regional and local levels with core providers interacting with central government and COBR. Key contributors to Exercise Watermark of the local resilience forums many of whom are involved. 
 
The exercise starts today focusing on surface water and rapid response and over the following three days will cover river and stream, reservoir, Sea and tidal flooding. The exercise closes on Friday. In the next few months the results will be reviewed following an initial debrief and the collection of feedback. Over the summer action plan will be developed with the final exercise report being circulated in December 2011.
 
 
You can download the Environment Agency guide to business flooding and the risks by clicking on the file below 
 
UK guide to Flooding preparation.
 
If you would like to know more about how Business Continuity Management can help protect your organisation do get it touch.