COVID-19: As part of the City's planning efforts for the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, NYC Emergency Management's exercises team designed and conducted several tabletop exercises and workshops, including a two-part City Hall policy tabletop discussion, and workshops that focused on surge staffing, personal protective equipment (PPE), and service centers.

In preparation for winter weather, the Tow Truck Task Force virtual functional exercise was designed to assess Tow Truck Task Force agencies' capabilities to intake vehicle tow requests, coordinate and prioritize tow assignments, and submit requests to dispatch tow resources based on the Tow Truck Task Force Protocol.

Gas Outage Response and Restoration Workshops were held to review notice or no-notice or limited-notice disruption of gas service to a neighborhood of residential customers. Discussion included interagency (City/utility) coordination, public information, and human impacts of an outage. Public safety and safe return of gas service were also discussed.

The exercises team relaunched an Integrated Preparedness Plan, an inclusive document that consists of priorities from City agencies and organizations that also considers threats, hazards, and risks, to inform interagency preparedness priorities.

2020-2021 Coastal Storm Exercise Series: The agency-led exercise series included a tabletop discussion for sheltering and evacuation operations for a specific hurricane evacuation zone, an executive level exercise, as well as 10 internal tabletop exercises for staff.

Fort Hamilton Exercise Series: NYC Emergency Management participated in an exercises series with partners at Fort Hamilton. Agency staff served as part of the planning and control team as well as participated in the workshop, functional, and full-scale exercise held at Fort Hamilton along with FDNY and NYPD. NYC Emergency Management’s public information and public warning teams worked with public information officers from Fort Hamilton and other agencies and partners to outline messaging strategies and best practices to ensure messaging is coordinated before, during, and after an incident.

Penn Station Exercise: The agency participated in the NYS Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services' (DHSES) tabletop exercise at Penn Station's Moynihan Train Hall in May 2021. Designed specifically for public information officers and senior incident commanders from identified public safety agencies, focused on best practices for communicating with the public during crisis. The exercise allowed incident commanders to get insight into the public messaging strategy, and emphasized the importance of providing/receiving accurate and timely information.