Overview

The concept of Transportation Management Teams (TMT) was introduced in the Delaware Integrated Transportation Management Strategic Plan (December 1997). The Strategic Plan recognized that effective transportation management required the cooperation and coordination of people and institutions and recommended that the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) implement an incident management team composed of police, fire and rescue, natural resources, and transportation agencies. The TMT is a dynamic group that will work together – not only for planning purposes but also for field operations – to support the management of incidents and events that impact the transportation system. TMTs will be created for critical areas across Delaware with the responsibility of establishing communication, response, resource, and responsibility procedures and guidelines. During an incident or event that impacts the transportation system, the TMT will use the procedures and guidelines to make joint decisions on responding to the incident or event.A Transportation Incident and Event Management Plan (TIEMP) that utilized TMTs to establish communications, policies, and procedures for the coordinated management of any natural and/or manmade incident or event that impact the transportation system was developed. The TIEMP identified specific roles and responsibilities for the coordinated management of transportation resources to maximize the safe outbound flow of persons and vehicles from the affected areas and give emergency personnel access to the affected area(s). The TIEMP used the concept of levels of impact to determine levels of response. The use of levels allows the amount and assignment of resources (i.e., people, vehicles, equipment, and materials) to be more readily defined and can reduce the times associated with incident identification, response, and clearance. The Sussex County Hurricane Evacuation Annex is a supplement to the TIEMP. The Annex describes a concept of operation that will be used to manage the transportation system to support the evacuation of the “at-risk” population during tidal inundation incidents and events that may affect Sussex County including hurricanes, nor’easters, coastal storms, tidal or storm surges, and heavy rains. The Annex is a product of the efforts of the Sussex County Hurricane Evacuation Committee that preceded the TMT. On September 14, 2004, representatives from state and local police, fire and rescue, natural resources, and transportation agencies met at the Delaware Emergency Operations Center in Smyrna for the Statewide TMT Kickoff Meeting. At the meeting, the attendees agreed to move forward with TMTs for each county. Countywide kickoff meetings were held in January – March 2005, and the following six (6) TMTs were formed:

• Northern New Castle County (north of C&D canal)Southern New Castle County (south of C&D canal)Kent CountyEastern Sussex County (SR 1 corridor)Central Sussex County (US 113 corridor)
• Western Sussex County (US 13 corridor