Tag disaster recovery

Contingency Planning

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 3 Comments

I’m going to wrap up 2020 by discussing contingency planning, which is a practice not seen often enough. Before I get started, I should contextualize my use of the term ‘contingency plan’. My general use of the term, at least in emergency management applications, is intended to refer to a plan which may be needed to address the disruption of current event management, incident response, or recovery operations. Essentially, it’s the emergency plan to use while dealing with an emergency, in the event that something bad occurs.

When might you need a contingency plan? Contingency plans should be developed for the kind of situations that have you looking over your shoulder or asking ‘what if…’. Weather events are often good examples, such as a response taking place during some very active tornado weather. You might be responding to the impacts of an earlier tornado, or something completely unrelated, but a tornado warning is in effect, meaning that one could materialize at any time. This could also be a response taking place in a low-lying area during a flash flood warning. We sometimes build contingency plans into our standard operating guidelines or procedures (SOPs/SOGs) by having back-up teams, such as rapid intervention teams (RITs) in the fire service, which are standing by to rescue firefighters in trouble during an interior firefighting operation. Assessing risks on an ongoing basis and developing contingency plans should be part of your incident management battle rhythm.

Where to start with contingency planning? Let’s fall back to the CPG 101 planning process. Yep, that works here, too. The first step is to build your planning team. Contingency planning is a responsibility of the Planning Section, but others need to be involved. Working from a traditional ICS structure, I’d certainly suggest involving Safety and Operations, at a minimum, but depending on circumstances, you may wish to expand this, such as considerations for failures in the supply chain (thus Logistics and Finance/Admin), which may be less of a life safety matter, but can heavily impact operational continuity.

With consideration to the Safety Officer, I’d argue that tactical safety is the primary focus of the Safety Officer; while things that can have much broader impact to the incident, while still a concern of the Safety Officer, may require more in-depth and coordinated planning, thus why I tag the Planning Section to lead contingency planning efforts. My experience has always had the Planning Section taking the lead in this. That said, your incident management organization may decide to assign this to the Safety Officer or an assistant Safety Officer. That’s totally fine in my book, so long as it’s being addressed.

Step two of the planning process is to understand the situation. Some of your risks might be really apparent, such as the tornado warning, but others may require a bit more assessment and discussion. If you need to dig deeper, or are looking at a potential need for a variety of contingency plans, I’d recommend using a risk assessment matrix to help assess the likelihood and impacts of the risks you are examining. Here’s an example of a risk assessment matrix from the United States Marine Corps. Sadly, the risk assessment matrix is not yet a common tool in our incident management doctrine and practices in the US, though I do see it referenced elsewhere. In looking at the tool, obviously those with higher probabilities and severity of impact are the priorities on which to focus. Be sure to consider cascading impacts! Keep in mind that this risk assessment, depending on the duration and kinetics of your response and the dynamics of the environment, may need to be performed more than once throughout your operations. It should at least be considered every operational period.

Step three is to identify goals and objectives. Of course, in the broadest sense, our operational priority is always life safety, but we need to refine this a bit based on the specific hazard we are planning for. Second to life safety, we should also be considering operational continuity, ensuring that we can return to current operations with the least disruption possible OR be able to immediately respond to emergent needs created by the hazard in the event of the hazard creating a more kinetic environment. Your plan may also need to address impacts to the public at large (essentially anyone not part of your incident management organization). Depending on your operational scope and the area of responsibility, this may actually exceed the capacity and mandate of your incident management organization. You will need to determine how to ‘right size’ the scope of your planning efforts. This is perhaps a good opportunity to consult the local emergency manager. Don’t lose focus, though. The contingency plan is not intended to save the world. Remember, responder safety is our number one priority.

Step four is developing the plan. This is largely an outline of the essential elements. There are a number of components to consider for your plan. First, with consideration of cascading impacts, we should identify what aspects of the hazard we can mitigate and how. If there are hasty mitigation steps we can take, those may help limit the risk to life, resources, and operations. Next, consider your concept of operations for the life safety aspect of this plan. As with any other emergency operations type of plan, we need to maintain situational awareness and have protocols for notification and warning. Using the tornado warning (during an active response) as an example, who is responsible for maintaining a watchful eye on the skies and keeping tabs on dynamic weather products? If they see something of concern, who do they notify and how? Is there an emergency radio frequency that everyone’s radio will automatically go to if used? Perhaps three blasts of an air horn? Identify what will work for your operating environment. Keep in mind that if the matter is of urgent life safety, you want to minimize the number of steps and the amount of time taken between awareness and notification to responders. Next, upon notification, what is the emergency action plan – i.e., what needs to take place? Evacuation? Shelter in place? Some other action? A great reference for this from the wildfire incident management community is Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, and Safety Zones (LCES), which is part of their incident safety analysis.

What happens after those protective actions? Ideally some kind of status check-in of the impacted personnel for accountability and continued situational awareness. Who is responsible for communicating that and to whom is it communicated? Is it wise to have some sort of rescue team standing by incase anyone is in trouble? If so, what resources need to be tasked to it, what is its organization, and what are their operating protocols? Can you reasonably keep the rescue team out of harm’s way to help ensure continuity of their capability?

You may also have a continuity of operations (COOP) aspect to this plan, to address how the incident management organization will minimize down time, restore prior operations, and possibly even identify alternate methods of operations. Depending on the hazard, a reassessment of the operation may need to take place to see if objectives will change to address a new situation created by impacts from this secondary incident.

Consider the current operational environment that every jurisdiction is facing at this moment. Jurisdictions, EOCs, and others should certainly have a contingency plan in place right now that addresses things like potential Coronavirus exposures, symptomatic personnel, and personnel that test positive. Many have been dealing with it, but do they have their protocols in writing? Most do not. In New York State, all public employers are now required to develop a plan to address these and other factors for public health emergencies.

Step 5 is plan preparation, review, and approval. This is the actual writing of the plan. Of course, you are in the middle of an incident, and it’s likely that the contingency(ies) you are planning for is breathing down your neck. Depending on how much haste is needed, your plan might be a few bullet points, or it could be a few pages long with more detail. Obviously do whatever is appropriate. Have the planning team members review the plan to ensure that it addresses all critical points and accurately reflects the necessary steps. Have you identified what will trigger the plan? Who is responsible for monitoring the situation? Who is responsible or activating the plan? How will they activate it and notify others? What are the responsibilities of others once they are notified?  Once you and the planning team are satisfied that you’ve addressed all the important points, the plan should be forwarded to the appropriate authority for approval, such as the incident commander, EOC manager, agency administrator, etc.

I’ll also note here that if you have multiple threats and/or hazards for which you are developing contingency plans, try to keep your contingency operations as similar as possible. The more complexity you have, especially to deal with different hazards, the more problems can occur during implementation. For example, your means and methods for notifying personnel of a tornado and a flash flood can likely be the same if their protective actions are also the same.

Lastly, step 6 is implementation of the plan. This is where someone should be working on any mitigation actions that you identified and personnel should be briefed on the plan, so they know what they are responsible for and what they need to do, when, and how.

It seems like a long process, but it can be done in a few minutes for urgent hazards. Some contingency plans may certainly be longer and more complex, especially if you are preparing for something that has a lower risk factor or something that isn’t yet a hazard, like a distant weather front. Several years back, I was part of the overhead team for a state-wide months-long debris removal initiative in the aftermath of a late season hurricane. As operations went on, we eventually entered the next hurricane season, and with that we identified the threat of future tropical storms to our area of operations (an entire state) and the operations we were responsible for. We needed to identify who and how systems would be monitored, trigger points for activation of the plan, and how to communicate emergency actions to several debris removal and debris monitoring contractors. We had time leading into hurricane season and were able to develop a well-crafted plan to meet this need. Fortunately, we didn’t have to use it.

Have you written contingency plans for incidents and events? What lessons have you learned from contingency planning?

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As a final bit on 2020, we are all certainly happy to see it pass. Keep in mind that while the new year offers a mental benchmark, we still have months ahead of us continuing to manage the consequences of the pandemic and our response to it. We have learned a lot of lessons from this response, which every organization should be capturing, if you haven’t already. As we go into the new year, resolve to do something meaningful with those lessons learned. Don’t just let them languish in yet another after-action report. Implement those corrective actions!

Stay safe.

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Six Emergency Management Priorities for the Next Administration

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

New administrations get to identify their priorities for various areas of focus… this can be both good and bad. It’s not a simple thing. New priorities should embrace progress, while ensuring that certain existing priorities, programs, and projects remain. Yes, some existing programs may deserve to be scrubbed, but far too often we see administrations go ‘clean slate’ doing away wholesale with what has been implemented by their predecessor or their predecessor’s predecessor. Emergency management requires consistency, yet we also require progress. It has been frustrating through the years to see many good practices discarded simply because they were a priority of another administration, and new practices introduced that aren’t well thought through, simply because it was someone’s good idea or they wanted to put their name on something. Emergency management (and I suppose most others) is an area of practice that must embrace forward looking consistency if that makes much sense.  Sometimes tradition needs to be dragged along kicking and screaming, while new practices need to integrate with legacy implementations, lest we continue to create a never-ending complexity of stove piped programs with little to no connective tissue.

Before I jump into the pool, I also want to acknowledge that no one person can obviously be knowledgeable of all the issues facing an area of practice. It requires not just an advisor, but a team of advisors – practitioners with a range of experience and experiences as well as academics. Emergency management is not only a government activity. Emergency management is not only pulled out of the toolbox when a disaster occurs. Emergency management also has more connections to other program areas than arguably any other practice. There is a lot to see and a lot to contextualize.

So on to our show…

Coronavirus/COVID 19

Obviously, this is THE priority of the incoming administration. I’m not going to go on at length about this since I’m pretty sure we’re all aware of the issues, complexities, etc. What I will encourage here is thinking comprehensively. This is a public health crisis, but the solution is not just in the realm of public health. There needs to be a better recognition of the role of emergency management in addressing problems and being part of the solutions, including vaccine distribution. These kinds of logistics are a big part of what emergency management does, so they don’t need to be recreated. Given the scope of this effort, the private sector will be huge partners in this as well. A national-level effort for after action reviews for the pandemic will also be important. Yes, there are a lot of lessons learned that can be put over the whole nation (and even the world), but there are plenty of other lessons learned that may be more dependent upon geography, population, and operational sector. Not only should everyone be doing an after-action report, but a portal where the data (not just the document) can be entered would help the federal government collect this data, the analysis of which would most assuredly provide valuable insight. Speaking of lessons learned…

Public Health Preparedness

The pandemic has shown what works and what doesn’t work. We need to fix what is broken, boost what works, and not forget to examine the grey areas in between (such as our earlier assumptions on pandemic planning… they weren’t all necessarily wrong, they were just wrong for this pandemic). Public health preparedness needs to be re-prioritized, and the relationship with emergency management strengthened (we tried to do this about 18 years ago but fell well short of where it needed to be). Use what exists – there are public health capabilities which are well defined. Public health coalitions have been developed across the nation. We need to do better at supporting public health in meeting and maintaining needs – this needs to be a structured, deliberate effort. DO NOT just throw money at the problem and hope it will get solved. That’s bullshit governing and a waste of tax dollars.

Climate Change

Speaking of bullshit governing and wasting tax dollars, we need a GOOD strategy to integrate climate change issues across everything we do. No more shotgun approach. No more of ‘well that’s the best we can do’. We need a deliberate, coordinated effort. Anything less is a waste of time, money, and effort. Just as emergency management touches practically all other functions, as does climate change. The federal government must do a better job of forming operational coalitions – that is partnering federal agencies, the private sector, non-profits, and even some select state and local governments into functioning entities. (This should be a standard of practice in emergency management as well). The model I’m speaking of isn’t some think tank, group that meets on occasion, or blue-ribbon panel. I’m talking about something that’s operational, with actual employees (specialists) from agencies with responsibility for addressing areas of the problem given temporary duty assignments to an entity whose existence is to work that problem. This is done through identification of priorities and implementation pathways, utilization and allocation of grant funding, advocacy, torch carrying, interagency coordination, problem solving, etc. Just a few of the entities involved in climate change obviously include FEMA, DOT, HHS, DHS, NWS, and more. The best way to solve this is not just getting everyone on the same page or in the same room, but actually organized, led, and synchronized.

Economic Recovery

Economic recovery is an aspect of emergency management, but I’m no economist, so I’ll address it briefly. The pandemic has hit our economy hard. Yes, I think a lot of it will naturally heal as the pandemic comes to an end, but we also can’t just sit around and wait for that nor can we hope for the best and accept (or not) the outcome we get. Economic recovery needs to be deliberate and structured. And remember, in emergency management we don’t just ‘recover’ – we ‘build back better’. This is an opportunity to integrate resiliency into our economy, governments, businesses, and society as a whole.

Integrated Preparedness

I’ve long been complaining about the stove piped programs we see in emergency management. Perhaps from a program administration perspective, focused activity works, but at the state and local levels, practitioners need to see how these things come together so they can easily link efforts. To do it well requires more than crosswalk developed by some junior consultant. It takes a deliberate effort at the doctrinal level to not only demonstrate, but provide sensible pathways to implementation that show how disparate concepts such as NIMS, HSEEP, the National Preparedness Goal, CPG 101, Community Lifelines, etc. actually come together IN PRACTICE. These are all good things taken individually, yet so many either don’t think to combine them, don’t know how to combine them, or are too intimidated or lack the understanding of the benefits to care.

HSEEP has done away with the training and exercise planning workshop (TEPW) and introduced the integrated preparedness planning workshop (IPPW), which we hope would contribute to actual integrated preparedness, but how many know about this? How many actually care? How many know how to do it? Let’s face it… most used the TEPW solely to put exercises on a calendar. That’s all. The training aspect was largely ignored. Is the mention of an IPP in updated HSEEP doctrine alone going to get people to talk even more broadly about preparedness? Nope. If exercises aren’t part of someone’s responsibility (or if they don’t have the time or inclination to do them) they aren’t going to read the updated HSEEP doctrine. Even if they do, will they catch this pretty important change? Possibly not. FEMA held webinars on the IPP concept. These webinars communicated very little, and reinforced that integrated preparedness is an HSEEP concept rather than an EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT concept. You can’t bury something that is so broad reaching into such focused doctrine. Integrated preparedness needs to have its own doctrine and have its own effort – and with the understanding that most mid to large sized emergency management agencies have different parts of the organization responsible for each area of preparedness. If the feds don’t give it the attention it deserves, most state and local governments certainly won’t. We do have a National Integration Center, don’t we? Hmmmm….

Hazard Mitigation Programs, Grants, and Tools

Similar to the matter of integrated preparedness, we really need to do better at hazard mitigation. Hazard mitigation planning has turned into a bureaucratic mess, with jurisdictions spending a lot of money on plans every five years that they rarely reference, much less put into deliberate action. We need to do better.

Standards for hazard mitigation planning also need to be expanded. Rarely is an ‘all hazard’ hazard mitigation plan actually ‘all hazard’. Do they address cyber security? Active shooter/hostile event incidents? Most do not. We also need to see better and more consistent integration of societal data into hazard mitigation planning. There is usually heavy analysis of risk, but not vulnerability in these types of plans. Things like community vulnerability indices give a better perspective on the fragility of our populations. Without doing so, we really aren’t considering the whole community.

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So, these are my top six priorities as I see them. Each of these has lasting impact coupled with a more timely urgency. Certainly, there are other things that can be viewed as priorities, but if the list is exhaustive, it pretty much loses the concept of being priority. These are the primary emergency management efforts I would build an administration around. Obviously other activities must continue, but these form the areas of emphasis.  

In re-reading my post, I realized there is a word I used an awful lot… deliberate. I’m guessing it wasn’t accidental, more an influence of my sub-conscious emphasizing well planned and established activities instead of the hap-hazard and half-hearted efforts we often see. There is no sense in showing up to only play part of the game. We need to see it through to the end. That’s how we make a difference.

What thoughts do you have on emergency management priorities for the incoming administration?

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®

Different Perspectives on Disaster Recovery

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

It seems a lot of the things we have been dealing with relative to the Coronavirus pandemic have brought us a different perspective, or at least have revealed a perspective that public health and emergency management have been concerned about for a while.  The pandemic given us a more accurate perspective on the impacts of a truly major public health event and the things we need to do to manage it.  We also find ourselves looking ahead to recovery and needing to view that through a different lens as well. 

Most disaster recovery, and in fact the way the Stafford Act is written, reflects physical damage from disasters such as floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes.  We are dealing with debris, damaged infrastructure, displaced masses, and the like.  The pandemic is something completely different.  While we may see shades of some more traditional recovery activity, recovery from the pandemic is giving us a very different way of seeing things. 

Before we get into the details, one of the biggest factors in all this is trying to determine where recovery fits in.  It’s long been a conundrum for people who want to make emergency management an exact science to be able to stick a pin in the exact spot where response ends and recovery begins.  Not only does the lack of that delineation persist for the pandemic, it’s exacerbated.  But that’s not all.  While some recovery activity has already started (more about that in a bit), the big push may not be able to start until society can at least begin to intermingle (though likely with some continued precautions).  Further, true recovery arguably can’t take place until we have a vaccine.  Until we reach that point, recovery efforts are likely to have a stutter, as we start, then have to stop or at least slow down when infection rates increase again, then resume once they subside.  This is simply not a formula we are used to working by. 

I suppose the best way to examine this is to look at it through the Recovery Mission Area Core Capabilities:

  • Planning
  • Operational Coordination
  • Public Information and Warning
  • Infrastructure Systems
  • Economic Recovery
  • Health and Social Services
  • Housing
  • Natural and Cultural Resources

Planning, Operational Coordination, and Public Information and Warning – I’m initially lumping these three together as they are the ‘common’ Core Capabilities and we generally see these in recovery having eventually transitioned over from the response focus.  The challenge with the pandemic is that we see the overlap of response and recovery, in some circumstances, more than we are used to compared to other disasters.  Also, a lot of the recovery we currently see is coming in the form of direct services from the Federal government, with little to no connection to state or local governments.  This is heavily emphasized in matters of Economic Recovery (more on this later).  The overall sense I’m getting is that the fundamentals of these three common Core Capabilities haven’t substantially changed (obviously some of the tasks have), though the experience different jurisdictions are having varies.  Consider that most jurisdictions aren’t used to dealing with prolonged incidents such as this.  In fact, many jurisdictions have decided to no longer operate EOCs (hopefully these were virtual!) as the impacts within their jurisdictions have been minimal and what problems do exist are largely being addressed by an emergency manager supported by a multi-agency coordination group.  Other jurisdictions, obviously, are being hit much harder and their management of this incident has continued to grow as they address the myriad issues that rise up and prepare for what they expect to see next.  There are some of the differences in Operational Coordination. 

Looking a little closer at Planning, this should still be taking place regardless of the volume of work your jurisdiction is experiencing, and even if your jurisdiction doesn’t have a public health department.  There is a lot of planning that still needs to take place to account for recovery, continuity of operations, and contingencies.  This one really permeates the other Core Capabilities the most. 

Lastly within this group, Public Information and Warning.  Absent jurisdictions that are used to dealing with more prolonged responses and recovery, most haven’t had to address a need for persistent public messaging.  While a lot of it is echoing guidance coming from certain authorities like the CDC or state health departments, more localized matters still need to be addressed in terms of what local services are or are not available (or how they now need to be accessed), providing information on planned events, and addressing rumors and mis-information. 

Infrastructure Systems – Restoration of infrastructure is often a big emphasis in most disasters.  Roads, bridges, water and waste water systems, electricity, and other systems are often damaged or destroyed as the result of the disaster of the day.  In the matter of the pandemic, generally the most impact we see in these systems is delays in maintenance because of some decreased capacity among those that are responsible for them.  Perhaps the one significant exception, through from a very different perspective, is internet services.  While internet services weren’t damaged by the pandemic, they were heavily impacted with many organizations directing staff to work from home.  College students are now engaged in classes from home instead of the campus.  Families and friends are connecting more often via video calling. Even on-line gaming has seen a surge with people spending more time at home.  All this changed the dynamic of internet use.  Most businesses are provided with dedicated lines by internet service providers, designed to handle the concentrated surge of internet use demanded by a facility or collection of facilities.  Much of that use has dwindled, shifting to a drastic increase on residential services.  We also see increased demands on either end of this, with attention being drawn to entire areas that have no internet service as well as the need for increased server capacity of companies that host video calling and gaming platforms.  Even organizations and their employees have had to scramble to ensure that employees (and students) have internet access at home, the hardware required to access the internet, and the ability to connect to the organization’s servers and services. 

Another interesting perspective on infrastructure, however, comes from the emphasis on essential services and essential employees that we hear of every day.  While definitions of this have existed for some time, in this disaster alone we have seen that definition change a few times as we realize the connectivity between certain services and organizations.  Some important lessons to be documented and applied to future planning efforts. 

Economic Recovery – For as much as Infrastructure Systems (largely) haven’t been impacted, Economic Recovery has needed to be significantly re-imagined.  With businesses being forced to close and employees being furloughed or laid off, the global economy has taken a significant hit.  This is certainly a prime example, perhaps our first, of how deep a disaster of a global scale can cut us.  As a result, many nations around the planet have been pushing out some sort of economic stimulus, helping those that are unemployed as well as those businesses that are still open yet struggling with decreases in revenue.  The economic hit from the pandemic will take years to recover from and will require some very different ways of solving the problem.  Governments have only so much money to give.  Many jurisdictions are also examining the association between infrastructure and economic recovery in a different light, especially as thought is being put into when and how to re-open our communities and economies. 

As a related side note, we were recently awarded a contract to provide guidance on the reopening of transportation and transit in major cities.  Continued preventative measures as well as human behaviors are going to apply some interesting demands on urban planning, prompting cities to respond appropriately to these changes if they want to see businesses rebound, or even thrive as we move further into recovery. 

Health and Social Services – Rarely does public health lead the way through a major disaster.  Though we realize that just with other disasters where we might like to think that people are in charge, the disaster itself still remains in the driver’s seat and we are really just along for the ride, trying to address problems the best we can. Our health system is stretched, yet we see an interesting irony of hospitals laying off staff, as elective surgeries and other non-emergency services are presently suspended.   Obviously public health will continue to lead the way through our recovery.  Even with others seemingly in charge of other recovery functions, it is public health markers which will become the decision points that dictate our overall recovery.  On the social services side of this Core Capability, we also see a change in dynamics.  While the pandemic doesn’t have the physical impacts of a more traditional disaster, we are also seeing fewer people being displaced overall due to emergency legal protections being put in place to prevent evictions and utility service disconnections from lack of payment.  That said, we are still seeing traditional social service issues related to food, medicine, and mental health exacerbated due to the pandemic, the economic impact from the pandemic, and the mental stresses imposed by the pandemic as a whole, as well as social distancing, deaths, and other factors.  While many social services have traditionally been very hands-on and face-to-face, many of these services have moved to remote models, though others, by necessity, are still physically operating.  Social services recovery, linked to economic recovery as well as psychological matters like PTSD, will persist long after the pandemic.  Recovery plans must be re-imagined to address this.  Public health recovery, similarly, will last long after the pandemic as we need to take an honest look at the gaps in our system and work to address them. 

Housing – As mentioned earlier, there are few displacements (that should be) happening as a result of the pandemic.  Houses haven’t been destroyed as a direct result of the pandemic. Though how long will landlords be able to reasonably wait for back rents to be paid to them?  While those that own large apartment complexes may be able to absorb these losses, landlords with small properties will not.  They are small businesses, with bills to pay and mouths to feed.  While it’s great for tenants to get a reprieve, this also has impacts.  Local economies will likely need to figure out how to address this. 

Natural and Cultural Resources – Similar to infrastructure and housing, our natural resources have seen, overall, limited impact from the pandemic.  In fact, by many reports, many of our natural resources have seen marked and measurable improvement due to decreases in pollution and other impacts of ‘normal’ human activity.  Many cultural resources, on the other hand, have been impacted. I speak not of historical sites, which are often considered in the reconstruction activities associated with disaster recovery, but of museums and performance centers.  Museums, as with any other organization, rely on income to survive.  Many are non-profits, and generally put revenue into improving the facility and its collections, leaving not much of a ‘rainy day’ fund.  Similarly, collections haven’t been damaged, as they might have in another disaster, so there is no insurance claim to cover losses.  Similarly, performance centers, such as the 1930s era theater where I perform improv, haven’t seen revenue in weeks.  Here, we blur the lines between a different perspective on cultural preservation with economic recovery.  Another challenge local economies will have. 

So where does this leave us?  Clearly we are seeing different perspectives of each of these Core Capabilities, requiring us to approach them in ways different than we have in the past.  While the easy solution to many of them is money, an economy globally impacted has little funding to adequately do so.  We also see the interconnectivity of these Core Capabilities.  For many, there is reliance on others to make progress before another can see tangible improvement.  That said, planning is still the crux of it all. We must make deliberate planning efforts to address each of these.  Sure, we can reference current plans, but I argue that most current plans are inadequate, as the problems and the resultant solutions were not anticipated to look like this.  Planning also needs to occur at all levels, and there absolutely must be an emphasis on the first step of the CPG 101 planning process… Form a Team.  Our recovery from a global, national, and community level requires people working together.  We see now, more than ever, how interconnected things are.  This is no time to be insular.  We must consider all stakeholders, including citizens, organizations, and businesses, as part of our planning teams.  And by the way, we’re already behind. 

A couple more items before I close this rather long post.  First of all, consideration should be given to Continuity being added to the Core Capabilities.  Perhaps as a common Core Capability, but at least as one that is included in more than one mission area.  It’s a specific effort that, yes, does include planning (as should any other Core Capability), but has a very specific function and implementations. 

Second (and lastly), you absolutely must be capturing and documenting lessons learned (strengths and areas for improvement).  In fact, don’t wait to hotwash.  If you haven’t already, do one now.  You will do another later.  And likely one or more after that.  The duration of this disaster, and the different focal points and phases of it will constantly shift our attention and cause people to forget what they have learned.  Lessons learned must be captured in phases, allowing us to focus on sets of activities.  Be sure to document your lessons learned, share them far and wide, and set a timeline for implementing improvements.  There is so much to learn from this disaster, but it’s a waste if we ignore it or expect someone else to tell us what to do.   

I hope I delivered in this piece, highlighting the different perspectives of disaster recovery we are dealing with.  Are all disaster recovery activities fully turned on their heads?  Of course not.  We are still able to apply the standards we have been for decades, though some of them do need to be looked at and approached from a different perspective.  I’m very interested in feedback and thoughts. 

Stay safe. 

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Public-Private Partnerships Should be a Two-Way Relationship

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Public-private partnerships are not a new concept to emergency management.  There are municipalities, regional areas, and states that have formed committees and strategized how the private sector can provide support during a disaster.  Certainly we have seen a lot of support, on both a large scale and locally, from the ‘big box’ stores, such as Wal-Mart, Lowes, and Home Depot.  Tide’s Loads of Hope program, something so simple but extraordinarily impactful, provides a means for disaster victims to have clean clothing.  Insurance companies have established a response capability to expedite their assessments and services to their clients.  Private sector partners know that these things are not just good public relations, but that they have a means of supporting communities that government and relief organizations may not.

There is another aspect to public-private partnerships that doesn’t seem to be widely addressed, and that’s the community business.  How can they help the community in a disaster?  First, business continuity is essential, since they may also be impacted by the disaster.  Small businesses don’t have the level of capability to leverage that large companies do.  Yes, the SBA can help them with long-term recovery, but the ability of some small businesses to get back to operations quickly can directly help a community recover.  I work with a lot of small communities, many of them serviced by small shops and independent grocers.  There are no big box stores for many, many miles.  For grocers, power outages result in spoiled food.  Road closures result in crippling supply chain problems.  While we’d like all businesses to have mitigation measures and preparedness for disasters, many small businesses simply don’t have the capitol to invest in things like generators and they obviously can’t control road closures.

What’s to be done?  Local municipalities absolutely need to bring these small business owners to the table, establish relationships, identify their needs, and consider identifying them as part of the community’s critical infrastructure.  The resilience of small grocers, lumber companies, and other purveyors is essential to the resilience and recovery of so many small towns.  The impacts are easy to see… if a store can keep running, they are not only providing essential goods and services to the community, they are also supporting the economy by keeping their employees working. What do they need?  Things like power and access, obviously, but tangential things like the availability of child care is huge.  Following disasters schools usually close and often become community shelters. Many parents work when their kids are in school.  If school is closed, they need access to child care.

How far can government go in supporting the private sector?  Many governments tend to avoid supporting the private sector as if it were some kind of disease.  It took many months to convince FEMA in the aftermath of Sandy to make dredging of private marinas eligible for disaster cost recovery.  These marinas (mostly small businesses themselves) support capabilities of fire and police watercraft, recreation (which has economic impact), and a significant fishing and crabbing industry, which is the livelihood of many off and on shore.  Obviously, FEMA needs to maintain accountability of funds and ensure they are being spent appropriately, but a big part of this was resistance to the idea of government providing direct support to the private sector.

While I agree that there are many nuances to this situation, it seems that in many cases the impact of small, local businesses in short-term recovery are disregarded, especially by state and federal governments, and that there exists a one-way door for business participation, where in this ‘partnership’ they are asked to provide goods and services, but how is government contributing to that partnership?  With the big box stores and other large companies, local governments certainly help with some permit expediting and perhaps physical space to set up and access to utilities, there is typically not much support required beyond that.  Small businesses may need more direct support to recover.  They may need help clearing their private access road or parking lot.  They may need the public road they are located on to be cleared for traffic sooner.  They may need a generator that can power their building.  They may need quantities of potable water brought on-site.  Their employees may need child care or public transportation.  These are things they either can’t immediately afford or simply don’t have access to. Local government may have better access to these resources, though, and with the justification of these small businesses providing essential goods and services to the community, the choice is easy.

Does this open government to potential criticism?  Absolutely.  Some business owners may claim discriminatory practices of government supporting some businesses and not others.  Some tax payers may even complain about the use of tax dollars in such a fashion.  While people may always complain, legal consequences and public relations problems should certainly be mitigated.  The road to addressing this is preparedness.  Engage your local attorney and the legal council for the state’s emergency management agency.  Municipal laws and state laws regarding authorities that can be enacted during a state of emergency need to be explored to not only make sure that local government has the legal ability to provide this support, but the conditions and procedures required for doing so.  The legal sources and procedures and standards for providing this support should be documented and made part of the local emergency plan. The municipality should have a criteria for determining what types of businesses could be included in such direct support (what is regarded as the municipality’s privately owned critical infrastructure?), and even outline requirements for those businesses, such as having a business continuity plan, implementing certain resiliency measures, or participating in coordination activities prior to a disaster.  Memoranda of understanding may be required, or other legal tools to identify the terms and conditions of support.

While this type of support from government to the private sector isn’t common, there are some municipalities who do it well.  I’m certainly interested in hearing what you’ve implemented and what best practices you’ve identified.

© 2020 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®℠

The Multi-Agency Resource Center

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

A disaster doesn’t end when the lights and sirens go away.  Communities are left dealing with clean up and rebuilding for weeks, months, or even years.  But we aren’t yet talking about recovery.  We are still talking about addressing early impacts of a disaster that have real implications on people’s lives and stability immediately following a disaster.

When a disaster is federally declared FEMA may open a Disaster Recovery Center in or near an impacted community.  These centers are helpful in getting survivors registered with FEMA and other agencies which might be able to provide some assistance, depending on the type of declaration in place and the specific impacts suffered by individuals and businesses.  While these centers do often integrate state agencies and non-governmental organizations, their primary purpose is to facilitate federal support, and, given the time that can pass before a federal declaration is in place, these centers may not open for days or even weeks following a disaster.  Clearly a gap exists.

Enter the concept of the Multi-Agency Resource Center (MARC).  MARC is a more global term, similar to emergency operations center (EOC), which encompasses a variety of facilities which different but related functions, based upon the agencies involved and the needs of communities.  MARCs aren’t anything new, but they are under-utilized.  Recent work with a client has brought the concept back to the forefront of my mind, thinking that planning for a MARC should be included as an annex to a great many emergency operations plans.

In searching Multi-Agency Resource Center, there are a number of references you will come across on the internet.  Fundamentally, a MARC is a facility established in a community in the aftermath of a disaster through which services are made available to individuals and businesses seeking assistance.  Absent a federal declaration, assistance can come from local, county, and state agencies, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  Of course, don’t count out the private sector, as they may be willing and able to provide material resources and volunteers as well.  Also, consider that even if a presidential disaster declaration isn’t in place, some agencies, such as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) can declare disasters independently and would likely be willing to send a representative to a MARC, if established.

Certainly, a MARC is convenient, as it offers ‘one stop shopping’ for those seeking assistance, rather than having to contact a multitude of agencies and organizations.  Better yet, it brings the agencies and organizations to the people, who, in all likelihood, aren’t aware are the vast amount of resources and services available to them.

What can be provided at a MARC?  In actuality, anything.  It can be co-located with a commodity point of distribution (CPOD), providing tarps, water, and other items to people.  Muck out kits and respiratory protection may be provided.  Guidance on removing water or mold, or on safe operations of generators can be obtained.  Perhaps people are displaced and need temporary housing, or have a question about the safety of their homes or businesses.  People may need food, unemployment assistance, legal aid, or disability services.  Even mental health and spiritual counseling can be offered at a MARC.  If the disaster involved a lot of green debris, the MARC could be a great location to offer a class on safe chain saw operation, in the hopes of decreasing injuries from the inevitable activity of community members.

As with any activity, a MARC should be planned.  Follow the tried and true planning process in CPG 101 and pull together a team of stakeholder agencies and organizations to discuss what assistance might be provided, how it would be organized, and ideal locations to host it.  There is some great information available from the National Mass Care Strategy.  Of course, once you have a plan in place, don’t forget to train and exercise!

I’ve worked in a variety of MARC-type facilities, but one in particular stands out in my career.  Following the Haiti earthquake in early 2010, NYC Mayor Bloomberg and NYS Governor Paterson created a Haitian Earthquake Family Resource center in Brooklyn, which has the largest Haitian population outside of Haiti itself.  There were quite a number of members of the NYC Haitian community who were directly impacted by this disaster so many miles away, with family members missing or killed, the loss of income coming from family members in Haiti, and services related to these issues.  Through this this facility, we coordinated the efforts of a number of local, state, and federal agencies, as well as NGOs.  Services included interpreters, legal information, grief counseling, and facilitated access to certain US and Haitian offices to obtain information and support.  This was a unique and meaningful application of the MARC to meet an identified need.

Has your jurisdiction ever used a MARC?  Do you have a plan in place?

© 2019 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC®℠

 

Preparedness: Integrating Community Lifeline Considerations

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

Much of preparedness is about getting us ready to conduct situational assessment and prioritization of actions.  We train people and develop resources, such as drones, field-deployed apps, and geographic information systems (GIS) to support situational assessment.  The information we obtain from these assessments help in the development and maintenance of situational awareness and, when shared across disciplines, agencies, and jurisdictions, a common operating picture.  Based upon this information, leaders at all levels make decisions.  These decisions often involve the prioritization of our response and recovery actions.  Ideally, we should have plans in place that establish standards for how we collect, analyze, and share information, and also to support the decision making we must do in prioritizing our actions.  Exercises, of course, help us to validate those plans and practice associated tasks.

One significant hurdle for us is how overwhelming disasters can be.  With just slight increases in the complexity of a disaster, we experience factors such as large geography, extensive damages, high numbers of lives at risk, hazardous materials, and others.  Certainly, we know from Incident Command System training that our broad priorities are life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation – but with all that’s happening, where do we start?

One thing that can help us both assessment and prioritization are community lifelines.  From FEMA: “Community lifelines reframe incident information to provide decision-makers with impact statements and root causes.”  By changing how we frame our data collection, analysis, thinking, and decision-making, we can maximize the effectiveness of our efforts.  This shouldn’t necessitate a change in our processes, but we should incorporate community lifelines into our preparedness activities.

The community lifelines, as identified by FEMA, are:

  • Safety and Security
  • Food, Water, and Sheltering
  • Health and Medical
  • Energy
  • Communications
  • Transportation
  • Hazardous Materials

If this is your first time looking at community lifelines, they certainly shouldn’t be so foreign to you.  In many ways, these are identified components of our critical infrastructure.  By focusing our attention on this list of items, we can affect a more concerted response and recovery.

FEMA guidance goes on to identify essential elements of information (EEI) we should be examining for each community lifeline.  For example, the lifeline of Health and Medical includes the EEIs of:

  • Medical Care
  • Patient Movement
  • Public Health
  • Fatality Management
  • Health Care Supply Chain

Of course, you can dig even deeper when analyzing any of these EEIs to identify the status and root cause of failure, which will then support the prioritization of actions to address the identified failures.  First we seek to stabilize, then restore.  For example, within just the EEI of Fatality Management, you can examine components such as:

  • Mortuary and post-mortuary services
  • Transportation, storage, and disposal resources
  • Body recovery and processing
  • Family assistance

The organization of situation reports, particularly those shared with the media, public, and other external partners might benefit from being organized by community lifelines.  These are concepts that are generally tangible to many people, and highlight many of the top factors we examine in emergency management.

Back in March of this year, FEMA released the Community Lifelines Implementation Toolkit, which provides some great information on the lifelines and some information on how to integrate them into your preparedness.  These can go a long way, but I’d also like to see some more direct application as an addendum to CPG-101 to demonstrate how community lifelines can be integrated into planning.  Further, while I understanding that FEMA is using the community lifeline concept for its own assessments and reporting, the community aspect of these should be better emphasized, and as such identifying some of the very FEMA- and IMAT-centric materials on this page as being mostly for federal application.

Has your jurisdiction already integrated community lifelines into your preparedness?  What best practices have you identified?

© 2019 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC℠®

FEMA’s 2017 Hurricane Season AAR

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

A few days ago, FEMA published its after action report (AAR) for the 2017 hurricane season.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that last year was nothing short of devastating.  The major hurricane activity revolved around Hurricane Harvey (Texas), Hurricane Irma (Caribbean/South Atlantic coast), and Hurricane Maria (Caribbean), but domestic response efforts were also significantly dedicated to a rough season of wildfires in California.  While each of these major disasters was bad enough on its own, the overlap of incident operations between them is what was most crippling to the federal response.  Along with these major incidents were the multitude of typical localized incidents that local, state, and some federal resources manage throughout the year.  2017 was a bad year for disasters.  I don’t think any nation could have supported disaster response as well as the US did.

No response is ever perfect, however, and there were certainly plenty of issues associated with last year’s hurricane responses. Politicians and media outlets made issues in Texas and Puerto Rico very apparent.  While some of these issues may rest on the shoulders of FEMA and other federal agencies, state and local governments hold the major responsibility for them.

This FEMA AAR contains good information, perspective, and reflections.  There are a lot of successes and failures to address.  While I’m not going to write a review of the entire document, which you can read for yourself, but I will discuss a few big-picture items and highlight a few specifics.

First, is the overall organization of the document.  The document is organized through reflection across each of five ‘focus areas’.  I’m not sure why this was the chosen approach.  The doctrinal approach should be a reflection on Core Capabilities, as outlined in the National Preparedness Goal.  Some of these focus areas seem to easily align with a Core Capability, such as ‘Sustained Whole Community Logistics Operations’, which gives me reason to wonder why Core Capabilities were not referenced.  While we use Core Capabilities as a standard in exercises, the purpose for them being part of the National Preparedness Goal is so that we have a standard of reference throughout all preparedness activities.  Any AAR – incident, event, or exercise – should bring us back to preparedness activities.

The second issue I have with the document is the focus.  While it’s understood that this is FEMA’s AAR, not a wholistic federal government AAR, it’s almost too FEMA-centric.  The essence of emergency management is that emergency management agencies are coordination bodies, as such, most of their work gets accomplished through coordinating with other agencies.  While it’s true that FEMA certainly has a significant work force and resources, the AAR seems to stop at the inside threshold of FEMA headquarters, without taking the additional step to acknowledge follow-on actions from a FEMA-rooted issue that may involve other agencies.

Among the positive takeaways were some of the planning assumptions outlined in the report.  There is a short list of planning assumptions on page 9, for example, that provide some encouraging comparisons between planning assumptions and reality.  This is a great reminder for local and state plans to not only include numbers and percentages in their planning assumptions, which will directly lead to identifying capability and resource gaps, but to also reality check those numbers after incidents.

Page 10 of the repost highlights the success of FEMA’s Crisis Action Planning groups.  These groups identified future issues and developed strategies to address these issues.  This is actually an adaptation of an underutilized function within the ICS Planning Section to examine potential medium and long-term issues.

Pages 11 and 12 highlight how Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) data from states and UASIs can inform response.  It’s encouraging to see preparedness data directly inform response.  I hope this is something that will continue to evolve.

Pages 22 and 23 discuss the staffing issues FEMA had with massive overlapping deployments.  Along with their regular full time workforce, FEMA also deployed a huge volume of their cadre personnel.  They also tapped into a pilot program called State Supplemental Staffing.  While there were some administrative and bureaucratic difficulties, it seems to have been considerably successful.

Overall, this is a good document citing realistic observations and recommendations.  While the document is FEMA-centric, the way of FEMA is the way of emergency management in the US, so it’s always worth keeping an eye on what they are doing, as many of their activities have reach to state and local governments we as other federal agencies.

What important concepts jumped out at you?

© 2018 Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC™

Congressional Primer on Responding to Major Disasters and Emergencies

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

I believe the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which is a research arm of the Library of Congress, publishes an updated version of this document for each Congress.  While the primary audience is Congressional representatives, it provides a good overview of disaster response fundamentals and the relationship between the federal and state/territorial/tribal governments which can be a good reference for many, including practitioners, students, state and local officials, and members of the media.

Give it a look and pass it on to others.

https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=804217

– TR

FEMA Request for Staff

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 3 Comments

From FEMA…

As you are all very much aware, our Nation has sustained severe flooding and damage as a result of Hurricane Harvey, and we are anticipating major impacts from Hurricanes Irma and possibly Jose. This is the peak of the hurricane season and it is far from over; to this end, we are reaching out to you to help in response and recovery efforts.  FEMA is looking to recruit personnel, with an expected deployment of 30 days, in the following areas:

Program Area: Skillset Required

Individual Assistance: Survivor outreach and communication, case management

Logistics: Load and unload trucks; coordinate and deliver resources; track inventory

IT: Establish connectivity for facilities; install, track, and manage equipment; configure communications equipment

Disaster Survivor Assistance: Engage directly with survivors; demonstrate understanding of available programs; case management

Hazard Mitigation: Floodplain management, mitigation strategies for the built environment, flood insurance, FEMA’s grant programs and authorities

Disaster Emergency Communications: Set up, operation, and shut down of communications vehicles; installation of voice and data cables; knowledge of radio protocols

External Affairs: Communications, Congressional and intergovernmental affairs, media analysis, media relations, tribal affairs, private sector relations

Environmental and Historic Preservation: Knowledge of environmental, historic, and floodplain management processes and regulations

Human Resources: Human resources specialists and managers

Finance: Travel arrangements and budget controls

Acquisitions: Contracting officers, purchasing specialists, and procurement specialists

If you are available to serve in one or more of these areas, please send your résumé to FEMA-CAREERS@fema.dhs.gov, and please put “Higher Ed” in the subject line.  Feel free to also share this request throughout your networks.  This is a great opportunity to serve the Nation and support our survivors in this time of need.

Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guidance

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

So much of preparedness focuses on the Response mission area, which is necessary, given the need to protect life and property in the immediate aftermath of a disaster; but we should never leave disaster recovery by the way side.  I’ve blogged in the past about the significant lack of Recovery mission area exercises we typically see, but we shouldn’t forget that the foundation of preparedness is planning.  How does your pre-disaster recovery plan look?

If jurisdictions have a pre-disaster recovery plan at all (and I mean beyond two paragraphs in their comprehensive emergency management plan), it’s typically focused on debris management.  This isn’t without good cause.  Debris management is incredibly complex, has a lot of benchmarks to follow in terms of best practices, and must include all of FEMA’s requirements, which largely stem from lessons learned in debris management.  Having a debris management plan in place can also qualify a jurisdiction to receive a higher percentage of reimbursement.  That said, debris management isn’t the only aspect of recovery that must be planned for.

FEMA recently released the Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for State Governments (November 2016).  I’ll admit, the first thing I looked for in the document were references to CPG-101, which is FEMA’s established standard for planning.  I was thrilled to find that it’s not only mentioned, but much of the document is based upon CPG-101.  Found in the document’s early narrative are topics such as the importance of aligning disaster recovery with hazard mitigation, as well as aligning disaster recovery with response.  These are two important factors which make disaster recovery even more complex, as disaster recovery is clearly not only an end state itself, but also a bridge between response and mitigation.

The document also outlines the differences and similarities between pre-disaster recovery planning and post-disaster recovery planning.  Another important distinction.  Many give the excuse of not having a vigorous pre-disaster recovery plan because there are too many unknown variables to anticipate and plan for.  I usually throw my bullshit flag on this statement.  While there is some truth to the statement, it’s also a convenient excuse.  For the same reasons why we create emergency operations plans before a disaster ever strikes, we must develop recovery plans before a disaster strikes.  While there are unknowns, there are also many solid assumptions we can make for the foundation of our planning.  We can identify key activities, assign responsibility, and work toward identifying gaps and building capability and capacity.  Once a disaster does occur, we then pull people out of the response to begin drawing up more specific plans for disaster recovery, hopefully capitalizing on our pre-disaster planning efforts.

Much of the document is a breakdown of CPG-101 planning steps in the context of disaster recovery.  They give some great examples and references throughout the document.  From my quick review, this is a pretty solid document.  While the intended audience is state government, I see easy applicability of this document to most, if not all, local governments – so long as it’s approached with a scaled perspective.

I’m very pleased that FEMA continues to tie preparedness standards together, doing away with decades long practices of response-oriented preparedness tasks being handled one way, while the tasks of other mission areas are handled very differently.  Across the whole spectrum of preparedness, in consideration of every mission area and each of the POETE elements, we need to start identifying critical intersections which will help us capitalize on efforts.  We need to do away with the isolation and siloing of these, and begin working more collaboratively.  From this, we will see greater success.

Consume and ponder.  Feedback is always appreciated.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC