Overview Join the hundreds of private sector organizations that will participate virtually in the White House directed National Level Exercise 2011 (NLE 11) next week (May 16-20.) Virtual Engagement provides participants with a flexible and meaningful way to participate in NLE 11 – whether they are a business owner, a responder, or an individual interested in how they can prepare for and help respond to an incident of significant magnitude.  This selection enables participants to follow the flow of the exercise and afford them the opportunity to consider the impact on their own environment.

How it Works During the week of May 16th, participants will receive a daily email with a link to an NLE 11 specific website that provides scenario and exercise updates, a short series of questions, and a feedback mechanism.

The questions are designed to provide an opportunity for input and feedback to FEMA from individuals and organizations that historically have not been able to participate in National Level Exercises.   FEMA will utilize a “Whole Community” approach to encourageentification of novel alternative solutions and unique capabilities that could be utilized during the life saving and life sustaining challenges of a catastrophic disaster response.  The input from the virtual engagement will be analyzed for applicability for future response planning.

Sample questions include

1. What would you be most concerned about during an incident of this magnitude?
2. How would you be communicating with your employees to determine the impact on them?
3. Do you have specific hazardous or fragile materials in your facility/business location that you would need to retrieve or stabilize immediately?  If so, what would you be doing to access your location?

Registration Process FEMA’s GovDelivery system is being used for registration as a Virtual Engagement participant. In order to register, the participant must click on the following link: https://service.govdelivery.com/service/multi_subscribe.html?code=USDHSFEMA

Once the pop up box opens, enter a valid email address and click on the “Go” button.  This will bring the subscriber to the FEMA.gov subscription page.

Scroll down the topic list until the NLE 11 topic and eight respondent categories are listed.

Select which of the respondent categories (you may select up to eight) you fall into and therefore want to provide feedback and input into during the NLE 11 Functional Exercise week (May 16-20).

Registration Questions Please send all questions regarding Virtual Engagement to NEP@dhs.gov. Please include Virtual Engagement in the subject line of the email.