Local Approach to Discussion-Based Disaster Exercises and Readiness

September 3, 2025

You live and work in rural Calamity County, home to an award-winning carrot festival and its unique carrot currency. Calamity County suffers from frequent disasters. Helping animals in your community can be a hard row to hoe and you have some competition. The race is on to complete your assignment LADDER and be outstanding in your field. Use the hand you’re dealt to address the situation. Which problem can you fix with a circus tent? Emergency short-term animal shelter? Equipment storage? After-hours cocktail lounge? But watch out – Chaos is always around the corner.

LADDER isn’t the only place you should rise above the calamity. Use your creativity from the game to level-up your real-world plan to help animals in disasters with the guided discussion and after-action materials.

It’s game time – come on down! Who is playing? Extension educators, emergency managers, and animal response personnel team up to climb the LADDER.

Choose Your Adventure:
•Tabletop Edition: Gather ’round the table with your team.
•Online Edition: Chaotic calendars? Travel troubles? You don’t have to be in the same room.

The Mission Behind the Game

While the game is fun, the stakes are real. The increasing frequency and intensity of recent disasters highlight how animal health and security impact human safety and critical infrastructure. Too often, animals’ needs are not included in plans and exercises.

The goal of LADDER is to team Extension educators with their local emergency management partners to engage whole community partners in a low-cost, ready-to-use, discussion-based exercise. Together, we can improve disaster preparedness involving animals.

LADDER can be found online at: https://ladder.ca.uky.edu/