October 2016
Full Report - PDF format
The third FEMA-NASA Near-Earth Object Impact Tabletop Exercise (TTX#3) was held at The Aerospace Corporation on October 25, 2016. The first and second were held at the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Headquarters on April 3, 2013 and May 2, 2014, respectively. The purpose of each exercise was to acquaint disaster response planners with the nature and evolution of information available for, and inherent challenges of, a potential asteroid impac emergency.
TTX#3 was based on the threat that could be posed by a fictitious, modest-sized asteroid discovered four years prior to possible impact. The exercise development team presented representative NASA-collected data and analysis of impact potential in a series of example press releases to the participants; these were presented at intervals during the exercise, as progression of the threat evolved with the probability of impac determined to be increasing. The last updates showed that the hypothetical impac would occur near North Los Angeles, California, in the Pasadena area. Exercise participants, who represented national, State of California, and local disaster responders, were invited to consider disaster mitigation and response activities at each update. This document provides details on the exercise for TTX#3 and summarizes key points of discussion and recommendations from that exercise.