Gas Main Explosion Tabletop Exercise for Health Care Facilities

This exercise is part of our catalog of tabletop exercises for health care facilities.

Scenario Overview

Participants are the management team of a fictional nursing home when a loud explosion suddenly shakes the facility and disrupts normal operations. Power is lost, staff and residents are injured, and the building must be evacuated while confusion and concern spread quickly throughout the site.

As the situation unfolds, leadership must account for missing individuals, manage injuries, and make urgent decisions about how to evacuate and relocate residents safely. At the same time, staff are under stress, families are concerned, and continuity of care must be maintained even as the facility becomes unusable.

This exercise challenges health care leaders to manage a sudden facility-impacting explosion that creates life-safety concerns, evacuation complexity, resident relocation challenges, and the need for immediate operational recovery planning.

Why This Scenario Matters for Health Care Facilities

Health care facilities have unique responsibilities during emergencies, including protecting vulnerable patients or residents and maintaining continuity of care even when the physical facility is compromised. An explosion affecting the building can create immediate life-safety concerns while also requiring complex evacuation and relocation efforts.

This exercise helps leadership teams evaluate how they would respond when a facility must be evacuated, residents must be relocated, and care must continue under highly disruptive conditions.

Exercise Objectives

• Evaluate leadership decision-making following a sudden facility-impacting explosion.
• Discuss evacuation procedures for residents, patients, staff, and visitors.
• Review relocation planning and continuity of care for displaced residents or patients.
• Assess communications with staff, families, responders, and external partners.
• Examine coordination challenges during a high-stress evacuation and relocation effort.
• Identify priorities for early operational recovery and restoration of care services.

Typical Participants

• Executive leadership
• Operations management
• Clinical or resident care leadership
• Facilities leadership
• Human resources
• Communications or public affairs staff
• Emergency preparedness or crisis management team members

Exercise Format

Conduct-It-Yourself Tabletop Exercises are structured, discussion-based simulations designed to help organizations test their response to disruptive events without the time and cost of a fully facilitated exercise. Participants are placed in the middle of a realistic scenario as it unfolds and must work through decisions, priorities, and consequences as a leadership team.

Each downloadable exercise package includes everything needed to conduct the session internally, including facilitator instructions, exercise overview materials, participant forms, a detailed scenario script, and a ready-to-run PowerPoint presentation that guides the scenario and discussion. The materials are designed so organizations can conduct the exercise as delivered or customize the storyline and supporting materials to reflect their own facilities, operations, and testing objectives.

Most exercises are designed to be conducted in approximately 2 to 4 hours. A typical agenda includes an exercise overview and scenario briefing, the facilitated disaster simulation discussion, group review and preparation for debriefing, and a structured post-exercise discussion to capture lessons learned and improvement opportunities.

Exercise Focus

• Evacuation
• Emergency Response
• Crisis Communications

Related Tabletop Exercise Scenarios

Organizations exploring this scenario may also find these exercises useful:

• Cyber Crime Tabletop Exercise for Health Care Facilities
• Multiple Disruptions Tabletop Exercise for Health Care Facilities
• Workplace Hostage Tabletop Exercise for Health Care Facilities
• Shelter-in-Place Tabletop Exercise for Health Care Facilities

Purchase & Download

This exercise is delivered as a downloadable package that includes facilitator instructions, scenario materials, and structured discussion prompts to guide the exercise.