When seconds count, an earthquake tabletop exercise can mean the difference between chaos and control—helping teams uncover gaps, sharpen decision-making, and strengthen response plans for sudden disasters.
Emergency Management Oct 02, 2025
5-Step Earthquake Tabletop Exercise Guide
Tabletop Exercise Template
Follow the steps in this guide to conduct exercises that test your team's emergency response procedures.
It happens in seconds. One moment, everything is normal, and the next, the ground is shaking, buildings suffer structural damage, and lives are at risk. Earthquakes are among the most unpredictable disasters, striking around the globe—especially near tectonic plate boundaries and in regions with extensive underground mining.
Because there is little to no warning, emergency preparedness for earthquake hazards is complex. The challenge grows when quakes trigger cascading crises such as fires, power outages, infrastructure failures, or large-scale events like the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident in 2011.
“The thing people need to understand is that a crisis is never just one crisis,” explains Dr. Steve Goldman, Director of Advanced Business Resiliency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on an episode of The Employee Safety Podcast. “If you have an IT incident, it extends into communications, HR, operations, and finance. If you have an oil spill, it’s not just oil in the ocean; it’s all the ramifications for all the people making their living, it’s dealing with politicians, and getting recovery teams to the oil spill. A crisis is never just one crisis.” This is especially true of earthquakes.
But the right preparation and training can make all the difference, Dr. Goldman told us. “This is why you drill down and you drill wide to make sure it’s all covered.” With unpredictable emergencies like earthquakes, one of the best ways to prepare your team to act quickly during the initial quake—and any concurrent disasters—is by running a tabletop exercise. In this article, we will walk you through how to create and run an earthquake tabletop exercise so you and your team can be ready the second a critical event hits.
Get the Tabletop Exercise Template
Follow the steps included in this template to conduct simulated exercises that test your organization’s emergency response procedures.
What Is a Tabletop Exercise?
A tabletop exercise (TTX) is a training activity that allows your team to evaluate and practice its response to a potential emergency in a simulated, controlled environment. These exercises are discussion-based and usually conducted in a meeting room or around a conference table, where participants gather to discuss and analyze a hypothetical scenario and run through the emergency response plan rather than physically drilling it.
Why should you run tabletop exercises for earthquake preparedness?
Running a full-scale earthquake drill is an incredibly useful strategy for disaster preparedness. But these drills can be expensive and time-consuming, especially if you have not already trained your response. A tabletop exercise offers a low-stakes opportunity to create muscle memory for your response. These exercises work great when leading up to full-scale drills and practice runs.
Since earthquakes can set off disastrous chain reactions, having dedicated training to simulate all the different crisis situations will help everyone on your emergency response team and beyond become familiar with what they should be doing, no matter what complications arise. Then, the drill will prove that they can actually perform their roles.
Dr. Goldman recommends a regular cadence of practice for those who train with his team at MIT. “I would recommend once-a-quarter skill drills and at least one—ideally, two full-scale exercises a year with training leading up to them… to sharpen all those skills.” Repeated training ensures your team’s skills don’t fall by the wayside after too long without practice. That’s where tabletop exercises come in; they can help you repeat your training without disrupting your day-to-day work.
Download our tabletop exercises template to learn how to diagnose and address critical gaps in your emergency plan.
What are the best practices to strengthen your earthquake TTX?
A successful TTX starts with a scenario that feels real to your organization. Instead of relying on generic examples, build situations that reflect your environment’s unique risks, infrastructure, and operations. For some, that may mean focusing on supply chain interruptions after a quake. For others, it could be preparing for aftershocks that compromise high-rise buildings or trigger fires in crowded areas. The more the exercise reflects real-world complexities, the more meaningful the lessons will be.
Just as important as the scenario is who you bring to the table. Earthquake response touches every part of an organization, so cross-departmental representation is vital. Encourage active involvement by prompting discussion, asking “what if” questions, and creating space for candid conversation between teams that may not regularly collaborate. Clear, measurable objectives—such as testing communication flows or verifying decision-making chains—help participants focus their efforts and walk away with actionable insights.
Some best practices to keep in mind when planning and running your tabletop exercises include:
- Use injects strategically to introduce unexpected challenges, such as communication outages or aftershocks, to test adaptability.
- Appoint skilled facilitators and evaluators to guide the discussion, manage time, and provide structured feedback.
- Ensure active engagement by encouraging open communication and full participation from every department represented.
- Set clear objectives so participants understand what success looks like and can focus on the right outcomes.
- Foster a constructive culture where feedback is welcome as an opportunity to improve, not as criticism.
Above all, framing the exercise as a learning opportunity helps shift the focus from performance to improvement, creating stronger preparedness across the organization.
How do tabletop exercises compare to other drills?
Earthquake preparedness doesn’t rely on a single type of training. Different drills serve different purposes. Understanding how they fit together helps you build a stronger overall program. Tabletop exercises are one part of that mix—valuable for strategic discussion and plan evaluation—while functional and full-scale drills provide more realism and stress testing.
| TTX | Functional Exercise | Full Drill | |
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No single drill can prepare your organization for every challenge. Tabletop exercises are best suited for building familiarity, sharpening decision-making, and stress-testing emergency plans in a controlled setting. Functional and full-scale drills, while more resource-heavy, give you the realism needed to prove that your plans work under pressure.
Together, these methods create a layered approach to preparedness; one that balances strategy with action and sets the stage for your next tabletop exercise.
How Do You Create and Run an Earthquake Tabletop Exercise?
Creating a tabletop exercise for earthquake disasters is relatively straightforward and takes just five steps. Using an earthquake tabletop exercise template can also make it even simpler. Follow these five steps, and download this free tabletop exercise template to get started.
1. Gather your tabletop team
The first step is to assemble the team performing the tabletop exercise by identifying key stakeholders and participants from various departments. You’ll want to consider including people involved with emergency response roles such as emergency management, incident command system (ICS), communication, logistics, HR, facilities, and other relevant areas. Expanding participation ensures you have an organization-wide response prepared. Here are the roles you will need to fill on your team:
What are the roles and responsibilities in an earthquake tabletop exercise?
Facilitator — This person will act like a moderator or director. The facilitator won’t directly participate in the exercise but will kick things off and lead everyone through the scenario. They may also redirect the conversation if things get off-topic.
Participants — These people will be the ones actually navigating the exercise and “performing” their roles. Participants should feel empowered to speak up, ask questions, and follow the proposed plan. They will draw on their experience to suggest changes or improvements during the exercise, and their reflections will be factored into the improvement plan. Participants should represent a cross-section of your company, with people from all different departments and job functions.
Evaluator — Like the facilitator, this person will not participate in the exercise. Instead, the evaluator aims to observe the exercise and suggest improvements. They will quietly watch the proceedings and take notes on what went well, what went poorly, and what could be changed to create a better response the next time. Depending on the size of your exercise, you may include multiple evaluators.
Observers — The last group is made up of observers. These people are often experts or stakeholders and do not participate in the exercise, but they can contribute to the conversation and answer questions.
2. Design the earthquake scenario and objectives
When designing your earthquake scenario—or any other tabletop exercise scenario—you want it to feel as realistic as possible. Include key details about the hypothetical event as well as specifics of your organization. The scenario should simulate the event occurring at your business rather than relying on a generic earthquake.
What’s an example of an earthquake TTX?At 3 pm on a workday, with hundreds of employees on site, a magnitude 6.2 earthquake occurs near your workplace. The shaking lasts for less than a minute. Your building has incurred slight structural damage, and the roads leading to and from your facility have been damaged.
You can also tailor scenarios to fit your industry or region. | |
| Healthcare (Southern California hospital): A 7.1-magnitude quake rattles the Los Angeles basin, damaging older buildings and creating a surge of patients with trauma injuries. Backup generators must support intensive care units while emergency managers coordinate patient transfers to less-affected hospitals. | Education (Japan university campus): A 6.8-magnitude quake strikes during peak class hours, disrupting transit systems and stranding students overnight. Campus housing services must coordinate with local officials to provide temporary shelter and meals while communications remain down. |
| Manufacturing (Midwest facility): An unusual quake along the New Madrid Seismic Zone halts production as heavy equipment topples and hazardous chemicals spill. Supply chains stall when river crossings and freight routes are temporarily shut down for inspection. | Corporate Headquarters (Northern California Bay Area): A major quake along the Hayward Fault disrupts offices, injures employees, and cuts utilities. HR and communications teams must coordinate immediate safety checks, while leadership assesses the impact on global operations. |
| Technology/Data Centers (Pacific Northwest): A Cascadia Subduction Zone quake knocks out regional power and internet connectivity. Server racks are damaged, and IT teams must activate disaster recovery plans to preserve customer data while structural engineers assess whether the facility is safe to re-enter. | Retail and Tourism (Las Vegas, Nevada): A 6.3-magnitude quake shakes the Strip during peak tourist hours, triggering mass evacuations from hotels and casinos. Emergency services are overwhelmed as visitors panic, communications networks clog, and business continuity teams scramble to maintain operations across multiple properties. |
Once you have the scenario, you want to set objectives for what participants will work toward with the exercise. Are you practicing how you will communicate about the earthquake? Are you practicing the immediate emergency response of drop, cover, and hold on? Are you focusing on risk mitigation efforts? Are you organizing your business continuity or emergency operations plans? Are you working on disaster recovery and getting your business back up and running? Decide ahead of time what the specific focus is so you use your time wisely.
Drop, cover, and hold on
If you are indoors during an earthquake, here’s what you can do to stay safe. Drop to the ground, take cover under a sturdy piece of furniture (such as a table or desk), and hold on until the shaking stops. Be sure to avoid windows, tall furniture that could topple over (like bookshelves), and any other objects that may fall.
This video will walk you through everything you need to know to run effective tabletop exercises.
3. Create injects to practice with complications
Where will an earthquake land on the spectrum of impact? And what will the direct and indirect impacts be? There’s no way to be sure. That’s why preparations and practice responses need to account for complications. In tabletop exercises, this takes the form of injects: unexpected developments introduced by the facilitator to see how participants adapt in real time.
The key is to introduce injects to keep the group engaged without overwhelming them. A facilitator can pause the discussion and read the inject as though it’s a breaking news alert, a call from a field team, or an update from local officials, such as the emergency operations center or a designated spokesperson. Once presented, give participants a few minutes to process and adjust their response before moving on. Adapting to injects keeps the exercise dynamic and helps reveal communication, decision-making, and resource allocation gaps—especially when key stakeholders need to weigh in quickly.
Here are some earthquake injects you can use, along with how you might present them:
- Multiple aftershocks: Announce that a 5.2-magnitude aftershock has just rattled the area, forcing participants to recheck safety procedures and reassess building integrity.
- Building damage: Introduce news that a stairwell has collapsed, trapping employees on the upper floors. Ask participants how they would adjust evacuation and rescue efforts.
- Power outages: Cut power mid-discussion by stating that the building is dark and backup generators are slow to start. Challenge IT and facilities teams to manage communication and safety in low-light conditions.
- Delays with first responders: Inform the group that emergency services are overwhelmed and won’t arrive for several hours. Ask what alternative measures the team will take to stabilize the situation.
- Healthcare system strain: Share that local hospitals are at capacity and cannot accept additional patients. Push the team to consider on-site triage and care.
- Blocked or destroyed roadways: Announce that main roads are impassable due to landslides or collapsed overpasses, forcing logistics and leadership to rethink transportation and supply routes.
- Tsunami threat (for coastal regions): Introduce a coastal warning issued after the quake, requiring immediate discussion of evacuation plans and coordination with local authorities.
- Supply chain impacts: Reveal that vendors and suppliers are offline or unable to deliver due to regional infrastructure damage, testing business continuity and procurement plans.
By thoughtfully weaving in these injects, facilitators can transform a static discussion into a realistic, evolving scenario. By layering in challenges that expose vulnerabilities, teams understand where their response plans for earthquakes are strong and where improvements are needed.
4. Run the exercise scenario with active engagement
Next, it’s time to execute the tabletop exercise. Your facilitator will guide participants through the exercise scenario, introduce any injects, and moderate discussions. Active exercise participation is key. Encouraging collaboration, adaptability, and real-time problem-solving ensures the session feels like genuine exercise play rather than a scripted activity. Evaluators should observe participants’ engagement, noting communication styles, decision-making, and resource allocation.
Keep your exercise objectives front and center throughout the process so the group stays focused and gains the most value from the session. This approach ensures the exercise tests procedural knowledge and the team’s ability to adapt under pressure.
5. Reflect and set an improvement plan with an after-action report
The final step is holding a structured debrief to reflect on the exercise. Evaluators should share observations, but it’s equally crucial for all participants to contribute so that different perspectives are captured. Many organizations start with a quick hot wash discussion to surface immediate impressions, followed by a more formal after-action review to dig into details.
| Best practices for post-exercise reflection include: | After the debrief, turn lessons learned into an actionable after-action report (AAR), including: |
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Assigning accountability is critical. Improvements only happen when specific people or teams are responsible for making changes—and when timelines ensure progress is measured.
Finally, treat the AAR as a living document. Review it regularly, update your emergency preparedness and mitigation strategies as new risks emerge, and use it to guide your next round of tabletop exercises. Continuous reflection and refinement ensure your earthquake response plans remain current, actionable, and resilient against vulnerabilities.
Creating a Solid Foundation for Earthquake Preparedness
Preparing for the unpredictable might seem like an overwhelming task. However, earthquake tabletop exercises give organizations a manageable way to practice and strengthen their response. They don’t stand alone, either—when done well, these exercises dovetail with other preparedness activities to create a stronger, more resilient foundation.
Some of the key plans and trainings that tabletop exercises can reinforce include:
- Disaster Recovery Plans: Procedures for restoring IT systems, data, and operations after a disruptive event
- Business Continuity Plans: Strategies to maintain or quickly resume critical business functions following an emergency
- Emergency Response Plans: Frameworks that outline roles, responsibilities, and procedures for all phases of emergency response
- Emergency Communication Plans: Protocols for timely, accurate internal and external communication
- Evacuation and Shelter-in-Place Procedures: Guidance for safely evacuating or securing personnel during an emergency
- Fire Drills and Fire Evacuation Plans: Regular practice for responding to fires, which may be triggered by earthquakes
- First Aid and Medical Response Training: Training staff in CPR, first aid, and response to injuries during a disaster
- Incident Management Plans: Procedures for handling disruptive incidents that may coincide with or follow earthquakes
- Supply Chain Resilience Plans: Strategies to manage disruptions to suppliers, vendors, and logistics
By connecting earthquake exercises to these broader plans, organizations ensure lessons learned don’t remain isolated—they feed into every layer of preparedness. The result is a culture of resilience where planning, training, and practice all work together to protect people and operations.
Download this free tabletop exercise template to simplify the process and strengthen your foundation today.
Get the Tabletop Exercise Template
Follow the steps included in this template to conduct simulated exercises that test your organization’s emergency response procedures.
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