Rehearsing the Evacuation Before You Need It
Nine activation-focused questions to clarify command decisions, operational sequencing, and evacuation readiness
When I conduct tabletop exercises as the culminating event of a planning effort, I often structure the module report-outs as Rehearsal of Concept Walkthroughs (ROC Walks).
In the Marines, ROC Walks were mission rehearsals. Units would gather around a map or sand table and succinctly brief—phase by phase—what they would be doing during the operation.
These events were powerful because they forced clarity of action, built shared awareness of what everyone was doing, and it gave leaders an immediate sense of the readiness across the team.
In public safety, the same concept is incredibly useful—especially during the pre-incident window when Action Points or decision thresholds are met.
A ROC Walk gives teams a way to:
Refresh familiarity with the plan
Clarify sequencing and decision authority
Surface friction points before conditions deteriorate
And align around how activation will actually unfold
Here’s a short explanation of how I think about ROC Walks when pre-incident decision thresholds are met:
The reason I like incorporating this format into evacuation plan validation exercises is simple: participants remember it and they walk out of the exercise with a tool (the list of questions) customized for their agency to re-create the same type of event.
If an evacuation is needed before the organization is able to train their teams, they agency has a mental model and the resources needed to pull the right people together and quickly rehearsing the activation of their plan.
Over time—and across multiple client engagements—I’ve refined a structured set of nine questions that guide teams through the initiation of evacuation operations in response to wildfires. They are designed to ensure familiarity with:
Incident organization
Operational sequencing
Decision-making authority
Messaging coordination
Transportation resources
These questions are not theoretical or open-ended prompts, but are activation-focused activities across nine key operational responsibilities.
I’m sharing them below for those who want to run a ROC Walk of their own.