FHWA 'relocates' to ITD for disaster exercise

ITD and other state agencies have developed comprehensive plans that will enable them to resume and continue operating in the event of an emergency. In many cases, that means moving to an alternate location and setting up temporary offices.

This week ITD shared a conference room with the Federal Highway Administration’s Idaho Division for a live test of its continuity of operations plan. Although the plan was developed more than a decade ago, the exercise at ITD this week was its first comprehensive disaster test.

FHWA’s 15 employees evacuated the offices at Lakeharbor west of ITD at about 8:30 a.m. Monday after a mock fire. Nine of the evacuees relocated to the East Annex conference room, and the remainder telecommuted from home the rest of the day.

Those who traveled to ITD brought cell phones, laptop computers, an external hard drive and server backups. The temporary office became live and operational within an hour, with access to e-mail, phones and a computer network, explains FHWA’s Frank Tooke. They forwarded FHWA’s phone calls to the conference room before leaving their permanent offices.

To help with the exercise and future needs, ITD established a dedicated, permanent VOIP phone number for FHWA at ITD Headquarters.

Perhaps the biggest surprise relocated federal employees discovered in the exercise was that one of the two computer server backup drives they took to ITD’s Headquarters was blank. They expected to find construction-related documents.

The Idaho office has a “devolution” agreement with the Utah FHWA Division office and can transfer authority for processing transactions and make payments in a crisis. Monday’s drill included the signing of several project agreements in Utah that normally would have been done in Boise. The Utah office also processed payments Wednesday as an extension of the exercise.

Tooke and Chris Lynch had been working on exercise details sporadically for several months. The continuity of operations plan generally is reviewed every year, but Tooke said the office might plan more frequent hands-on drills.

“It was quite a learning experience,” he added.

“From an ITD standpoint, we couldn’t have asked for anything else. Everything went very smoothly. We will correct the few issues that we identified during the exercise.”

Bryan Smith, manager of ITD’s emergency program, monitored the exercise and provided feedback during Monday’s evaluation, or “hotwash.”

“I was very impressed with how well it went and how efficient they were, to be up and running within an hour of the interruption.”

Tooke and Idaho Division Administrator Peter Hartman said the exercise couldn’t have gone as smoothly without ITD’s assistance.

Shannon Barnes, Bill Finke, Michelle Cobler and Dan Babcock joined Smith in helping with logistics of the operation at ITD.

Published 12-14-2012