 Imagine traveling abroad when suddenly disaster strikes, forcing U.S. citizens to evacuate and return to the U.S. immediately. Would California be ready for something like this? CaliMA and the California Department of Social Services recently sponsored a repatriation tabletop exercise at the LA Ontario International Airport with a goal to test communications and organizational roles and responsibilities in preparation for such an event. What we're doing here the California Emergency Management Agency training an exercise branch does exercise support for all the regions throughout the state. LA Ontario Airport had volunteered and was chosen to do this for repatriation exercise because they have the time and the resources available. Ontario has been selected as the port of entry airport in the west coast for this type of event which includes any repatriation of citizens from around the world specifically in our case from Pacific Rim locations whether it be time of war, disease, any type of uprising that would cause a large-scale movement of U.S. citizens back into the continental United States. This exercise brought together federal, state and local partners allowing each organization to have face-to-face discussions and interact throughout several repatriation scenarios. The scenarios prompted free-form discussions highlighting concerns and potential issues about the current repatriation process. This was the first of its kind and what organizers hope will be a series of exercises aimed to improve the repatriation processes and procedures of responding organizations. Even though there are three formal plans written to address repatriation none of the airports to our knowledge have ever conducted an exercise where they've brought together the first responders, fire law representatives and entities from the airport and then the surrounding operational areas. What we're finding out is that there are some deficiencies that we need to come up and fix. In the event we need to have another event but what's good is we take these lessons learned and then really refine that plan for better use. We deal with fires, we deal with earthquakes, we deal with all the other type of events in California this is a little different than that and we're dealing with American citizens and I think it's incumbent on us in California to make sure that we're support to the federal government, support to those American citizens and the cities and counties that are assisting. For more information about the California and US repatriation programs visit the California Department of Social Services website at www.cdss.ca.gov