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Have you planned for failure?
In emergency preparedness planning of our communities and response agencies the planning should not revolve around the success of our perceived plan in operation. Rather our plans should expect failure. They should expect problems with vehicles and access routes. They should expect communications failure. They should expect limited personnel and limited resources.
Because if our community emergency preparedness plans expect failure and plan for secondary action plans because of that failure, then we will be prepared.
What kinds of problems derive out of disasters in our communities and our community plans? Building destruction? Infrastructure destruction? Natural Disaster? Fire? Mass evacuation? Most of these scenarios bring with them one common thread that effects the emergency response agencies providing the services during these events. Multiple Casualty Incidents.
M.C.I. - Multiple Casualty Incident. Emergency responders around the world probably have different visions of what an M.C.I. is to them. What is it to you? Why are you reading this text?
The AAOS Emergency Care and Transportation text says that a Multiple Casualty Incident is an event that places such a demand upon available equipment or personnel resources that the system is stretched to its limit. But what does that mean to the first police car, fire engine, or ambulance as it pulls up to a scene and begins initial assessment of what ahs happened?
The news media has placed certain images of such events in our minds. Lockerbee Scotland, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta Georgia brought us emergency responses to MCI's that started from a terrorist or violent act. Hurricane Andrew along the Gulf of Mexico, Tornadoes throughout the South and Mid-west, earthquakes in the west, and Winter Ice and Snow disasters in the North have all developed into situations that taxed the ability for emergency responders to respond to the needs of communities around the country because of natural disasters.
Yes, all of these incidents taxed the emergency personnel and resources available to those communities. Yes, all these incidents could happen in your community even if it is a small rural community. Yes, these overwhelming incidents would definitely tax all our communities' resources. But what about your community? What type of an incident would tax the resources in your response district?
Fifteen patients in rural Maine, or any other rural reaches of our country, provides a different level of service and stress to that service than fifteen patients in Chicago, or San Francisco, or Dallas.
What if it was during a significant storm: rain, high winds, flooding, snow, or ice. The roads are impassable. Power is out. Mutual aid cannot respond because they too are having problems? How does that change the resources you have and what will be available? A two-car accident with three or four injured patients can now become a situation that is stretching your resources and what you can do for your citizens in an emergency. Now complicate the situation with a fire, a disabled emergency vehicle, or an injured rescuer.
How do you begin to deal with a Multiple Casualty Incident and how it effects your resources? How do you prepare to protect and serve your community during an M.C.I.? How do you manage resource as they arrive to your community during a disaster? How do you deal with the injured, the school, the parents, the employees, the media, the outside agencies, law enforcement, the hazardous materials team, the rescue specialist, the building engineers, and all those others that have now become involved with your incident? How do you deal with the emotional support of your people and their families? How do you prepare for the next time your services are taxed?
The answer begins simply with an Incident Command System.
The functions and principles of the Incident Command System will help us plan for what emergencies are possible in our community. An ICS plan will help us to Pre-plan for those facilities and locations deemed as target hazards by our assessment of potential problems. The ICS system will help us plan ahead for the needed resources through mutual aid agreements and region-wide response plans. AN ICS System will help us to set plans that will give a frame work of operations for those incidents that we "cannot plan for" like the jetliner crashing into our woods.
The functions and principles of the Incident Command System will help us establish and maintain control over a situation within our jurisdiction. The ICS system will help us allocate our resources in the best action plan possible to help those that need our most immediate care. The ICS System will help us to work with the other responding agencies that are needed to mitigate the situation. The ICS System will help us to deal with those agencies and individuals that show up to our incident, the media, the school administrators and parents, the factory owner, and all the people who have a stake in the scene we are trying to manage.
The functions and principles of the Incident Command System will help us to manage the operations of our scene. The ICS System will help us account for responder safety in the best possible manner. The ICS System will help us to best deal with the situation in an organized fashion to get the job done through a system of goals, priorities, and an action plan.
The functions and principles of the Incident Command System will help us to provide the logistical resources needed to accomplish the task. The ICS system will help us provide care to our own people, the emergency responders. The ICS system will help us locate and acquire the needed and specialized resources.
Although we think of Incident Command as an on-scene function of our response agencies, the need for an Incident Command structure and functions begins long before the incident ever occurs.
Although you cannot prepare for every incident that may occur in your community it is possible to begin planning for the response needed to help during most situations. If you have a plan, that plan can also help you respond to those unpredictable situations like an airliner crashing in your woods. Without any advanced planning for potential problems, needed resources, and possible solutions your community and the citizens you serve are going to be left without the service they need, expect, and should expect.
Any planning process should be thought of in the context of a team event. Agency response planning or community emergency preparedness planning is not an issue that should be left to one individual. There are many people throughout each community that have vested interests in how well the community and the emergency response agencies are prepared to handle potential disasters.
It is important for emergency managers to understand the significance of a planning team.
What kind of event should our emergency services plan for and be prepared to deal with in our communities? Over the past several years we have all witnessed a variety of man-made natural tragedies that have affected not only the communities where they happened; but also and the fire service and all emergency services around the country. There are events that are triggered by violence, others by natural disasters, and still more by accidents and incidents that we respond to on a daily basis.
The most potential for anything as a target is similar to where we might expect a multiple casualty incident in each of our areas. Where are the people? To have a multiple casualty incident we need multiple people. Arenas, schools, hospitals, factories, movie theatres, etc. are all places where there could be an event that leads to a Multiple or Mass Casualty. Are you a small community, removed from a metro or urban area? That doesn't mean you're removed from dealing with an incident that goes beyond your initial means.
What type of event could tax the resources of an emergency response agency and the community?
There are a variety of problems that can greatly effect the services available to a community. The local of the community, level of service being provided, and the availability of additional support are all facets that may contribute to a pending disaster. An urban area will have more resources available under normal circumstances than a rural area with sparse resources.
Other thoughts on how the incident will unfold and what forces, either natural or organizational, should be given to such questions as:
Begin emergency planning for your community by looking for those places where people gather. Where are they? Talk to the people who manage and oversee these facilities. The people who deal with these facilities every day are an invaluable resource to you on what problems may occur in their area of the community, and they may already have some plans or some ideas on how to minimize the problems when they arise.
Let's look at some specific areas to see what pre-planning options are available.
Acts of Terrorism or Violence
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In most communities and probably yours is one of them, there are no large federal buildings housing offices of large federal agencies. And the chances of small communities, like those many of us serve in, hosting the Olympics are quite small. Terrorism, by definition, however, is not an act that strictly focuses on the large communities in our country.
In most American communities, we feel that if middle-eastern terrorists were to drive down our main streets with a Ryder Van full of explosives or automatic fire arms that they would probably stick out and be found out. And besides, most of us are not protecting strategic military posts or political centers of our country. So why should terrorism and terrorist acts be of any concern to you or I? Some situations that may lead to a violent act may be disgruntled workers after a lay-off or after a job action, students suspended from school or demonstrating an issue. There are also many organizations and individuals that support different causes that can all be a source of violence that will lead to the need for an emergency response. Any of these scenarios are as apt to occur in our smaller communities as well as the larger cities.
The scale at which the probability of violent actions occurring may be quite different in our smaller communities; but the possibility of violence that involves even the rural community is always there. A possibility as long as some one is upset with some one else.
Even though the probability of an incident occurring is very limited in most communities, we as mangers of the emergency services within our jurisdictions hold a responsibility to be prepared. Preparation for responding to violence is no different than preparing for our day-to-day emergency response. The three priorities of Life Safety, Incident Stabilization, and Property Conservation are still the three priorities whether a standard emergency response or one precipitated by violence. We have to first protect our people, protect the public, and then mitigate the incident.
As with all our actions as emergency responders, success begins with planning. Every jurisdiction imaginable has the possibility of an emergency caused through a violent act. With this information it is the responsibility of emergency managers to work together to formulate game plans on how to react and operate during these emergencies.
Just as with natural emergencies, multiple casualty incidents and other large-scale responses, all agencies involved should have input into the planning process. If the agency will respond during an actual emergency they should be involved in the pre-incident planning. If we wait until the emergency to have all the agencies together, the confusion will over power the proper management of the event.
No one can dictate how your department should operate or react to a situation in regards to the way you operate your strategic and tactical decision making process. That responsibility is yours to decide. But by planning as a multi-agency force we can operate a safer more effective operation. Working together ahead of time, each agency will have an understanding of the needs and the resources of the other agencies. Instead of a situation governed by egos, it will be more effective to have a situation governed by cooperation and understanding.
Start simple. When meeting together for the first time brainstorm with each other on the possibilities and probabilities of violent events occurring within your jurisdictions. Other emergency agency managers may have a different outlook or more insight to a particular area or neighborhood. This may be an insight specific to that area that you or others may have overlooked. By opening the lines of communications, we are not only opening the planning process to protect our communities but also forging better inter-agency cooperation for all our response needs.
First, make a list of reasons why people use violence as being discussed. Personal and professional grudges, employment issues, intimidation, and political causes may be a few. Once we see these different reactions, then we may be able to see how and where our community may be affected by this potential for violence.
Make a second list of locations within your jurisdictions that could be the target of these violent actions. Every response jurisdiction has some specific areas or buildings that can become targets, no matter what the size or location of the community.
Even private homes can be the target of terrorism or an act of violence that draws the local emergency services into a response. Maybe not terrorism like we see on the world news each night; but violence induced tragedy that our agency will have to react to in an emergency. A third list is for resources. What are some resources that may be needed in the event of a terrorist or violence induced emergency in the community?
What is available through local mutual aid and local response agreements?
What specialties are available locally?
Operational guidelines should include information for procuring these resources and equipment under all circumstances. It's 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning what telephone numbers are called compared to when the incident happens at 2:00 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon? All these questions should be answered and specific steps spelled out ahead of time to save time and avoid confusion when the emergency and response arises.
An emergency that involves children is one that raises the stress level of any emergency responder. But imagine that the emergency was at one of the schools within your response district. The parents, the administration, teachers, and staff from the school, the media, and the general public are all going to be wound tight expecting quick and efficient response from your organization. Are you prepared?
As with any emergency response, those that go the best are led by pre-planning. An emergency at a school that involves one or dozens of students is no different. That pre-planning should involve the school staff themselves. They are the ones that deal with the children, the parents, and the facilities on a daily basis. And they are also the ones that can help plan for the proper response in dealing with those factions during an emergency.
There are certain parameters within an emergency response plan that staff from the school can be used very efficiently and effectively. Even in those instances where their direct involvement in the operation is not needed, their professional understanding of your response plan will help the incident progress smoothly.
The School's Plan. There are certain tasks that may need to be carried out during an M.C.I. or other emergency that involves outside agencies responding to your local schools. These functions would best be carried out if planned for before the incident arises.
· Informational Telephone Tree. One means to keep worried parents and traffic from the emergency scene is to keep them informed. One way may be to use off-site telephones to operate a pre-planned telephone tree to disseminate information to parents.
Depending on the nature of the emergency incident, that plan, which evacuates the students and staff onto the school grounds, may prove inadequate or dangerous to those involved. By planning a secondary evacuation plan, students and staff should be able to quickly evacuate not only the school but also the school grounds.
The school's emergency plan should include a secondary transportation plan. As with the evacuation plan, the nature of the emergency and the routes of the emergency vehicles may prohibit the use of the primary transportation plan that is normally used on a daily basis. By having a secondary plan in place for an emergency, non-injured students who were evacuated or are being evacuated can be easily moved by foot to a pre-designated point.
This point could then serve as a pick up point for the buses. This would alleviate some of the parking and access problems that may be encountered at the school where the incident is happening.
The school's contingency plan for a multiple casualty incident should also include where certain resources may be obtained -- or how they may be utilized -- for each of the community's elementary schools. Such resources may include:
Incidents that involve your community's school children will quickly become an emotionally charged one. Pre-planning for assistance when dealing with parents is very important. A liaison position specifically for parental issues will help manage the concerns of parents and help make a positive image of your department's handling of the situation.
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