Partnerships for Innovation
Thirty miles southeast of Las Vegas near Boulder City, Nev., stands Hoover Dam, a national historic landmark that provides flood control along the Colorado River, water for commercial and public use, and hydroelectric power to much of the southwest United States.
Built and managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), is this enormous, vital landmark truly secure in the event of a terror attack? That’s the question BOR wanted to have answered.
After more than a year of planning, Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) assisted BOR’s Critical Infrastructure Exercise Program with the Hoover Dam-08 Full-Scale Exercise (FSE), which attempted to measure the effectiveness of security at the dam.
This 12-hour drill took place both in and around the dam as the ORAU team—BOR’s lead exercise planners—guided more than 200 individuals and 24 participating federal, state and local agencies through a series of planning conferences, tabletop exercises, drills and vignettes intended to prepare them for the capstone FSE.
The unclassified exercise provided a safe learning environment for participants and gave the agencies an opportunity to test their emergency response plans, policies and procedures, as well as to build interagency relationships for effective cooperation and coordination in the future.
In addition to Hoover Dam-08, ORAU has helped plan and conduct similar national security exercises at Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah and at Grand Coulee Dam in Washington.
ORAU has supported BOR’s Critical Infrastructure Exercise Program since January 2003.