Review - ChemLock Exercises – Vehicle-Borne IED

 

NOTE: This is part of a series of blog posts looking at various CISA Tabletop Exercises Packages (CTEP) offered to chemical facility managers by the new CISA ChemLock program, a voluntary chemical security program run by the Office of Chemical Security (the CFATS folks). CTEP administrative documents can be found here. The scenario manuals can be found here. Earlier posts in the series include:

Overview,

Chemical Sector IED (short version), and

Chemical Sector Active Shooter (short version)

The Situation Manual for this vehicle-borne improvised-explosive (VBIED) exercise bills it as a review of “emergency preparedness plans and response procedures for an attack at a chemical sector facility.” It follows the same format as the two earlier exercises that I have discussed in some detail in the IED exercise post. Using the same format will make it easier for facilities to run subsequent exercises as they will already be familiar with the exercise processes.

The scenario for this module starts with a missing vehicle on the day before the exercise. On the day of the exercise a truck approaching the loading dock at the facility crashes into the dock and explodes. The provided discussion questions address:

• Plans that are in place to prevent or deter an attack at your facility,

• How security and personnel are trained,

• Standard operating procedures (SOPs) for incident response roles and responsibilities for staff,

• Assets onsite to immediately respond to an incident,

• Evacuation procedures for an incident of this type,

• Notification methods facility uses to send alert information,

• Incident command processes,

• Mutual aid agreements in place with other organizations,

• Notification of state or federal agencies of the incident,

• Law enforcement conduct of the response and address the threat,

• Medical response,

Commentary

While this is billed as a ‘Chemical Sector’ exercise, there is nothing in the scenario or discussion questions that would apply specifically to a chemical facility. The scenario could be applied to any manufacturing facility or warehouse in the country. There are no mentions of chemicals or chemical consequences in any of the discussion questions. This does not reduce the usefulness of the exercise, as the response discussion questions do identify areas of concern at chemical facilities, they just do not address the unique problems associated with a VBIED attack on a chemical facility.

For more details about the exercise, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/chemlock-exercises-ca9 - subscription required.