REP Radiological Emergency Response Operations (RERO)

Radiological Emergency Response Operations is a five-day course includes lectures, hands-on training, and team exercises. Students learn the concepts, equipment, and procedures related to radiological incident response, including a commercial nuclear power facility. During the course, the responders work in teams to perform radiological emergency response operations in a realistic exercise environment. The course culminates with an exercise that implements the Incident Command system in response to an incident that requires team coordination. The course adheres to Federal Emergency Management Agency Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program, the Environmental Protection Agency Manual or Protective Action Guides and Protective Actions for Nuclear Incidents and Federal regulations.

Course Delivery

Resident (National Emergency Training Centers – Center for Domestic Preparedness -CDP)  

Target Audience. The target audience for this course is any member of organized Federal, state, local, or tribal radiological/hazardous materials response teams who are responsible for responding to or managing a radiological incident. Personnel assigned to such teams include, but not limited to:

a.    Fire service;

b.    Law enforcement;

c.    Health physicists;

d.    Industrial hygienists;

e.    Environmental Health;

f.     Radiological safety officers; and

g.    Other emergency service and response personnel with similar responsibilities.

h.    Federal evaluators of commercial nuclear power facilities’ off-site REP exercises and state, local, tribal, and utility personnel who are involved in the development of offsite REP plans and exercises may also attend including any responders outside of the 10- and 50-mile emergency planning zones (EPZ).

A spreadsheet of jurisdictions, broken down by FEMA Region and state, eligible to attend Radiological training courses is available here.

To be eligible for the course, the student must successfully complete the following courses:

• IS-100.b, Introduction to the Incident Command System, 
• IS-200.b, ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Incidents,
• IS-700.a, National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction, 
• IS-800.b, National Response Framework (NRF), An Introduction 
• AWR-923-W Radiological Emergency Management
• Fundamental Course for Radiological Response or equivalent. (this has been retired without a replacement)
• Meet the requirements and standards of Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER), 29 C.F.R. § 1910.120(q)(6)(ii), (2009) and/or National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 472 Standard for Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials/Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents, Chapters 5 and 6.7.

The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) is an Accredited Provider (AP) of Continuing Education Units (CEU) and is authorized to award the following CEUs for successful completion of this activity:

• IACET (International Association of Continuing Education and Training) - 4.0 CEUs