Civil Protection relief drills
Civil protection relief drills are an important tool for prevention and for checking emergency plans, with the objective of testing the intervention model, of updating territorial knowledge and suitability of resources.
It also aims to instruct those involved on emergency management and the population on the correct behaviour to adopt.
The circular by the Head of the Civil Protection Department on 28 May 2010 laid down criteria for organisation and carrying out of training activities identified as two typologies: civil protection exercises and relief drills.
The former entails contribution of different Operating Units and Members of the National Service, participation of bodies and administrations that, in various ways and activated according to standardised procedure through the network of operations centres, contribute to management of a real emergency.
The drills can be carried out on a national, regional, provincial and local level.
For national drills, programming and organisation are the responsibility of the Civil Protection Department in agreement with the Regions or Autonomous Provinces where they are held. Those classified as regional or local, on the other hand, are promoted by the Regions or Autonomous Provinces, by the Prefetture (central governmental institutions on a provincial level) or by any other administration of the Civil Protection National Service, relative to plans within their competence.
The fundamental elements for programming a drill are contained in the “document for organisation of exercise” – shared with all the participating administrations – which establishes, among other things, the territorial context and the reference risk scenario, coordination system, objectives and intervention strategy and ways for involving the population.
Further classification of activities identifies “table-top drills” with activation of operations centres and the telecommunications network, and the “full-scale exercise” with actions locally and possible involvement of the population.
The relief drills, on the other hand, can be carried out by each of the operating units and aim to check the intervention capacity with their own resources for carrying out activities of competence.
An important national drill took part on the island of Stromboli in 2005.
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