Lessons Learned from 2002 Spill of National Significance (SONS) Exercise Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACT The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) hosted the 2002 SONS Gulf National Incident Commander (NIC) Exercise in New Orleans, Louisiana on 23–25 April 2002 and the 2002 SONS Gulf Executive Seminar in Washington, D. C. on 26 April 2002. This massive effort was accomplished through almost two years of planning by a government/industry workgroup representing the USCG, Texas General Land Office (TGLO), Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office, ExxonMobil, Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group, and Environmental Protection Agency Region VI. The original SONS exercise was scheduled to exercise the Nation's ability to respond to a SONS in a two-part format. The terrorist attacks at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in September 2001 required that the original SONS exercise plans be delayed and amended. The final SONS exercise format was a three-part series. The first part involved tabletop discussions with port-level responders to determine what actions and issues would result from the exercise scenarios. The second part was a multi-day NIC tabletop exercise to understand the roles and responsibilities of the NIC by exploring the NIC's reactions to the scenarios and the issues raised by the affected ports. The third part was an executive-level seminar attended by senior federal government and industry executives as well as elected officials to discuss reactions to national-level issues identified by the NIC and to enhance interagency communication at the headquarters level.