On August 23rd, Blue Lake Rancheria (BLR) and Blue Lake Casino Hotel department leaders and executives came together for a tabletop exercise in order to discuss the January 13th, 2024 Flood event, and how BLR can prepare for flooding events like this in the future. Along with BLR & Casino leaders, other local emergency response professionals were also present to give response and feedback to the exercise.
“The tabletop flood exercise was excellent. I can easily see Blue Lake CERT and others using the tools taught by the presenters to increase our flood readiness. As CERT teaches us, when more people and agencies are prepared for emergencies – we are all safer.” – Lin Glen, Blue Lake CERT
Ryan Aylward, Warning Coordination Meteorologist/PIO for the Eureka National Weather Service started the exercise off by presenting the group with forecast reports of the January 13th, 2024 Flood, and showing how quickly the storm progressed within the timespan of 24 hours. Ryan presented the group with information regarding flood events and provided crucial perspective from his profession.
During the exercise, Larry Masterman from Preparedness Consulting & Training International and D. Leslie Miller from Square Knot Preparedness Education and Coaching walked the group through scenarios, asked tough questions, and gathered response & feedback about the details of the exercise in order to solicit lessons learned from the recent flooding event to be better prepared for emergencies, and to assist Blue Lake Rancheria OES Resiliency Training and Innovation Center in creating a Flood Annex for the BLR Tribal Emergency Operations Plan.
Originally Published: 9/6/2025
