Puerto Rico Emergency Management Bureau's (PREMBs) Emergency Operations Center - Standard Operating Procedures Tabletop and Functional Exercise 

Trainings are essential for emergency management personnel and help us to be prepared for any type of event. Staff from FEMA's Caribbean Office in Puerto Rico, in conjunction with the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Bureau, offered an interagency employee functional exercise at the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The objective was to evaluate how Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) are put into practice when an event occurs. It discussed functions, roles, responsibilities and interagency coordination at the state EOC level.

Through the exercise that contemplated the impact of a category 5 hurricane through Puerto Rico, it was observed that although the system used for the elaboration of reports needs to be updated, they could be submitted to the leadership in the required time. The SOPs helped the coordinators and the command group to establish priorities and objectives within certain time periods before, during and after the event. Lessons learned concluded that the SOP guides are efficient, they reinforced and expanded the knowledge of the processes and operational coordination within the EOC.