As heat events increase in intensity, frequency, and duration over time, action must be taken to understand why heat impacts happen, who is most at risk, and what can be done to reduce risk in the short- and long-term. To become more resilient to these events, communities are striving to prepare for extreme heat’s impacts on people, businesses, and industries.

One important tool communities can use to plan for extreme events is a tabletop exercise. A tabletop exercise (TTX) is a collaborative planning tool that simulates emergency situations in an informal environment. A facilitator guides exercise participants through an emergency scenario from the safety of a conference room to explore their preparedness and response strategies. When applied to extreme heat events, the TTX can empower communities to evaluate their plans and response, identify and remediate gaps, and put the extreme heat event into a climate context for longer-term risk management and mitigation.

In 2023, NOAA, NIHHIS, and partners in Las Vegas, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Miami, FL; and Charleston, SC completed a pilot project titled “Building Equitable Resilience to Extreme Heat.” The project supported state and local initiatives designed to reduce the negative impacts of extreme heat events, especially for disproportionately affected populations. One of the key phases of this project was developing and running tabletop exercises, which can empower communities to evaluate current plans and response capacity, identify and remediate gaps, and consider the event in a climate context for longer-term planning. The exercises were developed with a diverse set of participants, including representatives from community-based organizations that are often not directly involved in TTXs. The tabletops utilized existing heat plans and governance, and they helped participants learn about best practices and areas for improvement.

This Introduction to Heat Tabletop Planning and Coordination captures the lessons learned from the pilot project, and it is intended to be a foundational resource for other communities interested in developing and hosting their own tabletop exercises. Heat TTXs can take 6-9 months to plan, execute, and report on.