You know this isn't rocket science. If you are going to create an emergency network system you test it. You go through a real time test, incorporating a staged emergency and have all your response team treat it as real.
I worked for a ministry in Canada that had a section called the Emergency Measures response. They used to sit around spit balling all sorts of catastrophic situations where you'd have mass casualties. Everything from plane crashes in densely populated areas, train derailments with noxious substances, natural disasters like floods, etc. They hired volunteers to act as victims who display injuries similar to those in plane crashes, etc and have EMT's treat the 'patients' to gauge how quickly they respond.
It tests everything from a standby situation to actual implementation. It is the reason why, back in 1979 Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, experienced an actual train derailment where the train was carrying hazardous chemicals that caught fire. A coordinated effort of several police forces evacuated over 200,000 citizens without any injuries or deaths. It was called the Mississauga Miracle.
I remembered with disbelief how the response for the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was a shambles because all the prep work ever done for emergency responses to catastrophic damage created by hurricanes had only ever focused on the contiguous United States.