Author Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager

Fusion Centers & The Art of Intel

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In reference to an MSNBC article titled “Homeland Security Fusion Centers Called Useless“… This was a pretty critical article on the utility and outputs of fusion centers.  Fusion centers have been highly funded by the federal government over the past decade as a means of pulling together local, state, and federal law enforcement officials into one regional facility with the purpose of collecting, sharing, and analyzing intelligence information pertinent to domestic crimes and terrorism.

While the article was critical of the outputs of fusion centers, such as failed leads and off-base reports, there have been successes.  The article eludes to them, but some of those successes are still classified/sensitive information.  Given that, this article may not be fairly representing the progress of fusion centers.  That said, there are still some obvious improvements to be made.

This is not CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, or Law and Order.  The collection and analysis of information (law enforcement intelligence, or otherwise) is not often times a straight forward or simple process.  It can not be accomplished within the confines of an hour-long prime time show.  While I’m not an intel analyst, I’ve performed similar work many times over as a Planning Section Chief and Situation Unit Leader working in incident command posts and emergency operations centers for various types of incidents.  Add in a multi-agency response (which nearly every incident of any measure of complexity surely entails), and you’ve got your hands full just figuring what has happened, much less what’s going on right now, and trying to forecast what will likely happen.  One needs to determine exactly what information is needed, where to get it, how to get it, validate it once it’s received, consider how the information should be shared, cross-reference it with other data, and still make sure that it’s all timely, relevant, and accurate.  Intel gets even more complicated, particularly in the ‘cross referencing’ activity I just listed.  The best way I’ve seen this explained is by ‘collecting the dots and connecting the dots’.  A great book for your intel types is “Intelligence Analysis – A Target Centric Approach“.  It should be required reading for all fusion center staff.

Fusion centers are still a fairly new concept – perhaps could even still be considered a fad.  They are a concept that has likely not reached maturity.  They have certainly been tested in real life and by way of prevention exercises.  On a daily basis they must weed through tons of boring and seemingly irrelevant information, identifying one bit here and one bit there that might be relevant.  These folks are further challenged by a multi-agency environment (certainly a strength in the long run, but still presenting challenges of its own) and the necessity to identify patterns within the intel.  No easy task.  They have policies, processes, and procedures.  They have training and exercises.  Clearly, though, we are doing something wrong.  But what? 

The 2-1-1 Advantage During Disasters

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I’m currently involved in efforts in central New York to bring 2-1-1 into the area.  2-1-1 is a nationally recognized and standardized information and referral system for public services.  Citizens can dial 2-1-1 (or reference their area’s 2-1-1 website) and obtain information on any day regarding services available to them for a variety of needs from government and local organizations, particularly health and human service related needs.

One of the strongest supporters of bringing 2-1-1 into the area is the county Department of Emergency Services – which oversees 9-1-1.  Especially during times of major emergencies and disasters impacting the area, 2-1-1 can relieve the 9-1-1 center of those calls which are important, but not life threatening emergencies.  The 2-1-1 center can be provided, directly from service providers, the Emergency Operations Center, or other authorities information on evacuations, sheltering, emergency food and water, points of distribution, traffic and school closures, crisis counseling services, volunteer opportunities, and other information.

California 2-1-1 indicated that during the San Diego wildfires of 2007, 2-1-1 provided information and support to more than 130,000 residents in a span of five days, including over 41,000 calls alone on one of these days (they averaged about 5,000 calls a day during ‘normal’ non-disaster operations).  This information, and more, is cited in a 2-1-1 after action document they published titled ‘Trial By Fire’.

Support a 2-1-1 system in your area!

The Human Factor

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While most of my blog is focused on emergency management, it is after all my blog.  So I’m taking some liberties to write a bit off topic on something that I feel rather strongly about – and fortunately, I’ve found that my opinion is shared by others.  This is the matter of ‘self checkout’ at stores.

You’ve seen them at your local mega-mart, grocery store, or even big box hardware store.  The machines don’t seem to scan bar codes as well as the machines used by the cashiers (granted, I also don’t have the honed and practiced intuition of where to find those silly things that the cashiers have, either), and they yell at your for not putting the item in the bag when either you have or it’s too large to fit into a bag.  And, of course, there is the frequent occurence of the machine refusing to serve you any longer until a cashier inputs their secret code.  Frustrating.

There is certainly a business case for them.  The general idea is efficiency – usually one cashier overseeing four of these machines; and cost savings – one cashier instead of four.  I get that.  That said, most stores I frequent tend not to have lines at these machines.  Many people avoid them.  I hear comments from fellow patrons about how frustrating they are.  Some people, myself included, do appreciate this lack of lines when you only have a handful of items and it can (hopefully) get you out of the store sooner.  I’ve even experienced the one individual who is overseeing several self checkouts call a customer over from a staffed line and scan the items themselves for the customer, knowing that people resist these machines.  How many of you have spoken back to the self checkout machines?  I know I have… “I DID place the item in the bag!”

I heard the best comment yesterday from a fellow shopper who was standing in line next to me (both for registers with cashiers).  He remarked to his friend about how he never uses the self checkout because he wants to ensure justification for jobs for cashiers.  I certainly can’t argue with that, and, in fact, I support it.  Another issue I have is that if I am saving the business money by using their self checkout, that savings should be passed on to me.  I am, after all, checking myself out.  And bagging my own items.  What’s that worth on average?  Perhaps a 5% savings on your final bill?

I rarely use the self checkout, much for the same reason I hardly ever use a drive through.  I like the face to face service.  I can ask questions, ensure that both my order and bill are correct, and if something goes wrong I don’t have to seek someone out to remedy the situation.  I think self checkout, while a great idea from a cost savings perspective, is a bad idea when it comes to customer service – which is a concept that seems to be eroding within society.  Much of our economy is service based, yet service keeps getting worse.  Business owners – if you don’t focus on the customer and their needs, you won’t reach your profit potential.

Every Business Should Have a Plan to Stay in Business

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Over the last few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of making a number of presentations to and connections with businesses and organizations over the topic of Business Continuity.  I’m thrilled that people are thinking about this and that my interactions brought about some great discussions.

Businesses can and do fail in the aftermath of a disaster!

Let’s look at some numbers:

  • Over 25% of businesses do not reopen following a major disaster (Institute for Business and Home Safety)
  • 70% of small firms that experience a major data loss go out of business within a year (Price Waterhouse Coopers)
  • 80% of companies that do not recover from a disaster within one month are likely to go out of business (Bernstein Crisis Management)
  • Of those businesses that experience a disaster and have no emergency plan, 43 percent never re-open; of those that do reopen, only 29 percent are still operating two years later (The Hartford Financial Services Group)

The Institute for Business and Home Safety says that each year disasters such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires force thousands of businesses to close.  But even more common events, such as building fires, cause the same result.  So what can you do?

  • Ensure that your building meets local code and safety standards, including electric, plumbing, chemical storage, and fire safety (don’t forget the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers!).
  • Check your insurance plan to ensure that you are getting the best coverage possible.
  • Back up computer data and files regularly to an offsite location.
  • Create a disaster plan for your business to address life safety issues.
    • Create a business continuity plan to address how you will stay in business after a disaster.

There are a number of resources for business preparedness available at the following:

TR

Preparedness Exercise a Best Practice

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Over the last few months I’ve been working with a county health department through my role as chair of our local VOAD (Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster).  This work has revolved around an exercise that is required of them for Points of Distribution, or PODs.  PODs, if you don’t know, are designated locations where a local health department can bring in citizens for inoculations or prophylaxis in the event of an epidemic or other severe health event.  PODs can also be used for distribution of commodities, such as food, water, or tarps, in the event of other disasters.  There exist standards of practice for PODs – from the management system (the incident command system, or ICS), to the stations the POD is organized in.  The exercises are required by way of the state and federal health preparedness grants that the local health departments receive to ensure that the plans are tested and the personnel are practiced.

Early in the planning stages for this exercise, the health department decided they would use this exercise as a way of contributing to the preparedness of the community.  They had the funding available to provide basic preparedness kits for 300 families and would use the POD stations to provide information and kit materials to those who went through it.  What a great idea!

The local health department could have done this on their own, but instead chose to invite several community partners to join them.  These included the local chapter of the American Red Cross, local Salvation Army Corps, the county Department of Emergency Services, the new Regional Volunteer Center, the County Animal Response Team (CART), and others, including the VOAD.  The partnership was hugely beneficial, leveraging the resources and talents of all participants for the exercise.  The local health department was able to obtain the kit materials and handle promotional activities such as a local commercial featuring the county executive, radio ads, local news paper mentions, and posters for print and e-mail distribution.  They also handled the on-line registration for the event.  The assisting agencies provided their expertise and knowledge of various preparedness areas, providing speakers and print materials for the event.  Our area is very culturally diverse and the assisting agencies were able to provide the print materials in a variety of languages, and some agencies provided much needed services of interpretation.

Two days before the event registration reached 300 – the cut off based on the kit materials we had available.  I’m confident that, had we the materials, we could have accepted registrations upward of 400 or even 450.  Clearly this was an indicator of an interested community and the need to do this again!

The event itself went very well, with even the host facility – who has a catering service – providing refreshments and snacks for both staff and attendees.  The schedule was tight… with only about 20 minutes being given per group to go through the POD.  Groups averaged between 15 and 20 people, and a new group was ushered in every 10 minutes (when people pre-registered for the event they chose a time slot).  There were some late comers, early arrivals, and a few walks in – all of which were accommodated with a bit of coordination.  We had parking attendants ensuring a good flow of traffic, sign in staff ensuring that people were getting in, and other staff to help folks all along the way through the POD.

Comments made by people as they went through, along with the brief surveys they took at the end, were all quite positive.  The event had local media exposure, with the county executive and health department director being interviewed, as well as some attendees.  The attendees received information on the importance of preparedness, local hazards and information, how to be alerted in the event of an emergency, information on special family needs, and, of course, the kit itself.

Many health departments conduct POD exercises by cycling volunteers through and handing out candy or breath mints – which is fine if you don’t have much funding – it still accomplishes the goal of the exercise.  Using a POD to conduct flu clinics is common practice and very functional.  This idea, though, was creative and provided an excellent opportunity to give something back to the community.  It increased awareness of members of the community and helped them to be better prepared.  Obviously we hope they will all tell their friends and family about what they learned.  We know that any future events like this would be very successful.  I absolutely encourage others to something like this – it’s a true best practice.

Tim Riecker

The National Preparedness Report: Community Perspective

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The National Preparedness Report (NPR) was published by the US Department of Homeland Security at the end of March.  It is a requirement of PPD-8  and is intended to provide an annual report summarizing the nation’s progress on various preparedness measures as they are identified through the core capabilities.  The data for the NPR is derived from state preparedness reports where the states self assess their confidence and progress in each of these core capabilities.  While the results shown in the report are reflective of a national snap-shot, they may or may not be reflective of the state of preparedness in any given community around the nation.  That said, reviewing the NPR provides a good opportunity to consider the state of preparedness in your own community.

As the chairperson of the VOAD in my area, I wanted to share the information contained in the NPR with our member agencies and organizations but wanted to target specific capabilities and data points to show direct relevance to our collective mission.  This was fairly easy to do since the core capabilities largely define many of the objectives we want to achieve or sustain through our partnerships.  Below are some of the core capabilities I chose to share with our membership.  These are relevant in every community across the nation.  How does your community rate?

Community Resilience

The NPR identifies this as a strength that continues to trend upward nationally.  This is a core capability directly related to the formation of VOADs and other similar groups.  It is defined as ‘…engaging with whole community partners… to strengthen community preparedness.’    This type of community engagement is a proven advantage not only in theUS, but across the globe.  The more organizations and people that can be reached result in better preparedness for the community.  Unfortunately, despite the national push we’ve experienced for the formation of entities such as VOAD and Citizen Corps, the vast majority of communities across the nation don’t have them in place.   Does yours?  If not, why not?

Fatality Management

Identified by the NPR as an area that still needs improvement despite progress.  Likely because this capability is very comprehensive – body recovery, victim identification, coordination with state and local authorities for temporary mortuaries, sharing information with mass care services (a task handled by many community organizations) for the purposes of reunifying family members and caregivers with missing persons/remains, and proving counseling services to the bereaved (another heavy task for community organizations).  A mass fatality incident also represents the worst case scenario for communities and is difficult to pull together a comprehensive plan for.  Given this, there exists a huge planning gap for fatality management.  It is a capability that must be planned for and thoroughly exercised.  There are a number of resources found on both the open internet as well as LLS to aid in planning.  Consider reaching out to communities that have been unfortunate enough to deal with a mass fatality incident – they usually assemble a model plan based upon their lessons learned.

Mass Care Services

The NPR states that ‘Public and private partners providing mass care have the resources to support feeding and hydration needs of survivors following a catastrophic event, but distribution of these resources presents challenges.’  All the more reason to strengthen our private partnerships and strive for strong private sector participation with emergency management preparedness efforts and with community groups such as VOAD and Citizen Corps.

Public and Private Sector Resources

Similar to the statements made in the NPR on Mass Care Services, whole community stakeholders have a demonstrated ability to provide for commodities such as meals, water, generators, blankets, cots, medical equipment and medications, as the NPR states.  Most communities certainly have the right private sector resources (big box stores, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.) to accomplish this but it still require the formation and maintenance of strong partnerships between government and non government organizations to determine needs, obtain the resources, and distribute them to the public.  Consider memorandums of understanding with private sector partners and engage them and their employees in your planning efforts.

Economic Recovery

If area farms, business, and industry can’t get back on their feet, the community can’t recover.  The NPR identifies some progress in this area.  Concepts of COOP are catching on and are being reinforced in various industry standards (the ISO just released their updated preparedness standards).   There is a great opportunity for partnership, outreach, and education of the private sector in terms of preparedness activities.  Additionally, while government is often times resistant to provide direct assistance to private entities, the benefits of getting a community grocery store cleaned up or access to a generator so they can re-open has a major impact on the community recovering.  Remember, the private sector has a lot at stake in the event of a disaster… it impacts their business facilities and operations, supply lines, employees, and customers.  Community partnerships will benefit them as well.

Housing

Perhaps the largest shortfall nationally.  It seems that no one has the capabilities to deal with long-term housing issues.  While Federal assistance is sometimes available, we must keep in mind that all disasters begin and end locally… so the care of the community is left to community organizations in the end.

Further information on PPD8 and the NPR can be found at http://www.fema.gov/prepared/ppd8.shtm.

 

Tim Riecker

Learning from Cuba – Building a Culture of Preparedness

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

With the official start of hurricane season next week, there have been a number of articles reflecting on past hurricanes, hurricane preparedness, and similar topics.  One particular article mentioned a report written just a few years ago by Oxfam – an international confederation of organizations centered on human rights with a goal of ending poverty which includes the response to emergencies.  Despite having been in Emergency Management for fifteen years, I’ve never read much on Cuba – only cringed when a hurricane would hit them head-on, thinking that a third-world nation didn’t stand a chance.  It turns out that my assumptions couldn’t be more wrong.

The full report from Oxfam can be found at http://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/cuba-weathering-the-storm/.  It’s titled ‘Weathering the Storm: Lessons in Risk Reduction from Cuba’.  Structurally, their model is reminiscent of our old Civil Defense model where citizens were recruited for the roles of wardens in their neighborhoods.  These wardens reported to a government person who coordinated efforts for the  community.  Cuba uses this model very successfully.  The ‘wardens’ are responsible for spreading information and  conducting local drills in coordination with whole-government efforts.  The  wardens know their neighborhoods.  They know who might need special assistance in the  event of an evacuation.  The results are staggering.  The report cites that in the seven years between 1996 and 2002, six major hurricanes struck Cuba, yet only 16 people died as a result.  Compare this with hurricane Isabel which hit the mid-Atlantic  US in September 2003.  It was directly responsible for 22 deaths.

The report provides information on planning efforts, communication, education and awareness beginning  with small children, and – like it or not – a political commitment in the nation to protect its people from disasters.  In the end, I feel the most significant factor is the culture of preparedness and community which exists amongst the people.  It is perhaps the most valuable lesson to be learned and quite likely the most difficult to transfer.  Not impossible, though.

There are localized efforts all around our nation for community preparedness.  These efforts need to be encouraged, both in concept and financially, by Federal and state governments alike.  It all starts with individuals, as individuals make a community.  Every person out there can make a difference.  There are volunteer opportunities in every community.  Volunteer Match can help you to identify opportunities that fit your interests and skills.  Or perhaps you have a favorite organization, such as the American Red Cross or the Salvation Army or your local fire department.  Chances are that your church has involvement in disaster preparedness and response efforts, such as Lutheran Disaster Response or Catholic Charities.  It all starts with you.  Then your family.  Then it spreads to your friends and your neighbors.  Then to your community.  Make a difference!

The motto of my consulting firm, Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC, is ‘Be proactive and be prepared’.  It’s a challenge to everyone to be involved.  At the very least make sure that you and your family are prepared, but please consider donating some of your time to a local organization and help build a culture of preparedness.

-T. Riecker

Reinvention 101

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

I recently read an article posted on entrepreneur.com (originally posted on secondact.com) about Robert Downey Jr.’s life recovery and re-emergence into super-stardom.  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223546  It’s a good read for those of you who might need a little inspiration in life.

First I want to mention that I am a huge fan of Robert Downey Jr.  As Nik told me after seeing The Avengers on opening night – it is the greatest superhero movie ever made.  I’m a huge fan of the Iron Man movies and he has done wonders with Sherlock Holmes.  Despite the difference of time period, the two characters – Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes – are amazingly similar.  Inventive, arrogant, successful… geniuses, essentially.

Back to the article – It’s amazing what Robert Downey Jr. has been able to do in turning his life around.  One thing is for certain, he hasn’t done it on his own.  He has had help.  No person can overcome what he has without it.  That’s not a poke at him – it’s the reality of being human.  It takes a village, as they say.  A strong network of support – friends, family, colleagues – can help any person overcome adversity.  This help can come in many forms – emotional support, self-worth (it’s a part of emotional support, but so significant it deserves its own mention), financial support, professional opportunities, and more.

His success has overcome his mistakes.  Some people have forgotten about his mistakes, which I’m sure is fine with him.  Other people are overlooking his mistakes, seeing the better man he is now.  That might be the perspective that he actually prefers.  I’d be interested to know.

I’ve made mistakes in life, just like anyone else.  I’ve learned the five lessons described in the article – largely without even knowing it.  Once I read this article the realization of it all struck me.  I’ve accomplished a lot.  That has given me a great boost to continue on and forge ahead.  It’s also made me realize, once again, the value of the people in my life.  The list is nearly endless, so instead of an Academy Award speech, I’ll just say ‘Thanks’.

-Tim Riecker