Tag Emergency Management

When in Doubt, Speak from Experience

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Last week I had the pleasure of being invited to speak at a conference on incident management. This two-conference covered a variety of topics ranging from preparedness, response, and recovery; and while there was a lot of discussion on mass shootings, the conference covered all hazards.  There were a number of great presenters providing interesting insight and information.  Of course one of the most interesting and effective ways of learning, in public safety and other industries, is through lessons learned of actual incidents and events.  We had some detailed reviews of various incidents, including the Dallas shooting, the Aurora theater shooting, and the San Bernardino shooting.  These had extraordinary detail and discussion, driven by presenters who worked those incidents.

There was one presenter, however, who enjoyed telling stories of incidents which he had no involvement in.  Generally, most people who do such a thing have the common sense of keeping it to brief illustrative points based on specific factual information.  If someone is taking a scholarly approach, we would see more detail, but based upon their research and interviews.  This particular presenter, we’ll call him Bart (name changed), took neither approach.  He was a retired Sherriff’s deputy from a county in California.  He clearly had enough credentials to get himself invited to things, but if this was his general pattern of presenting, I’m guessing he rarely gets invited back.

Aside from his presentations not at all addressing the topic, he liked to tell stories, speaking at length about incidents and locations he has never been involved in.  He even admitted to not having any involvement, and instead citing ‘something he read’ as his source.  This would be sketchy on the surface, but it was even more frustrating when he told stories of NYC 9/11 and recent events in the National Capital Region with myself and a colleague seated at the front table… myself having worked a variety of aspects of 9/11 and my colleague who presently works in the National Capital Region.

Bart presented twice, once the first day, and again on the second day.  While we casted a couple of corrections his way on the first day, we were mostly shocked that he would venture into such territory, providing information that was at best 80% fact.  During his presentation the second morning, we were much less forgiving.  His continued anecdotes about these areas and incidents were relentless, and his lack of facts in the telling of these stories was simply unprofessional.  We called him out on it several times and it was clear from body language and general lack of interest that the room fully understood what was going on.

My general rule of thumb is to speak from experience.  Don’t tell someone else’s story.  That’s not to say you can’t speak about an incident or event you weren’t involved in, just make sure you stick to the facts and be respectful that you have ventured into someone else’s territory.  If you were involved in an incident, you may be inclined to be a bit more casual about your manner because you lived it, but if you weren’t at the incident, keep it formal, cite your fact, associate it with your point, and move on.  Don’t be Bart.

Needless to say, I had several conversations with the conference organizer, who had no prior experience with Bart and was rather appalled at his presentations.

When in doubt, speak from experience.  Don’t be Bart.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Operational Readiness – What is It?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

A recent project I’ve been working on references ‘operational readiness’ as a key element of the training course.  We all know what operational readiness is, right?  We use the term all the time.  Surely, we must be able to find it defined in some key doctrine of FEMA.  Surprisingly not (and please, don’t call me Shirly).

Ah the internet… you’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Searches for the definition of operational readiness reveal two different concepts.  The first is a corporate perspective on operational readiness, which focuses on an organization’s ability to do what it is supposed to do on a daily basis.  This definition also seems to be adopted by hospitals.  While tangential, the focus on daily operations isn’t really what we are looking at relative to emergency management.  The second is of military derivation.  Drawn akin to combat readiness, the definition speaks to the capability of a unit, system, or equipment to perform the function for which it was designed.  Yes, this gets a lot closer; such as operational readiness of an EOC to perform as intended when it is activated.  I find it interesting, however, that such a simple, yet powerful concept isn’t defined within our own area of practice.

Edit: A few days after publishing this article I did find a definition of operational readiness in the context of emergency management.  The source is Title 6 (Domestic Security) of the US Code § 741 (National Preparedness System).  Title 6 is essentially the codification of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.  The definition provided therein is largely akin to the definition provided previous of  military derivation, but at least we have something linked directly to emergency management.  See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/6.  

If we examine the definitions of each word, there is a bit of redundancy.  One of the definitions of the word operational (an adjective), provided by Merriam-Webster, states ‘ready for or in condition to undertake a desired function’.  A definition provided by the same source for readiness (a noun) states ‘ready for immediate use’.  (weren’t we always taught to not use the word we were defining in the definition?).  Anyhow, this doesn’t seem particularly helpful to us.

Let’s consider what our expectations are of operational readiness in the context of emergency management and homeland security.  Fundamentally (and reinforced by what we covered in the previous paragraph), both words, operational and readiness, imply an ability to perform within defined parameters at any time.  Readiness is often seen as a synonym of preparedness, although I would suggest that in this context, readiness is achieved through preparedness.  If we don’t have each of our POETE elements in order, our state of readiness is likely to be severely diminished.

The context of the term operational readiness generally focuses on a goal we want to achieve and maintain.  We want units, systems, and equipment (reasonably drawn from the militarily-derived definition) to perform in an emergency response to accomplish intended results.  I like to emphasize a difference from the military definition in that last part.  While we have expectations of resources to perform as they were designed to, in emergency management we do on occasion call upon resources (units, systems, and equipment) to perform, not necessarily as they were designed or originally intended, but in creative ways, either pre-planned or ad-hoc.  I think that our definition of operational readiness must leave room for innovation – which is application (and thus readiness) at a higher taxonomy level.

All that aside, I’m not intending to create a definition for the term here, but largely wanted to raise awareness of the lack of a definition within our own area of practice and provide some consideration for what we expect the term to mean through our regular usage.  There is certainly discussion that can be had on measuring operational readiness, which is a separate topic that I’ve largely explored (although not using that particular phrasing) through posts on preparedness and POETE assessments (see the previous link provided).

What thoughts do you have on operational readiness as a term and a concept? Have you come across a definition in emergency management or homeland security doctrine that I might have missed?

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

A New Standard for Emergency Management Programs

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Over two years ago I wrote on the two primary standards for emergency management programs in the United States – the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1600: Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs.  These two standards are voluntary in their adoption and provide common sense guidelines on proven effectiveness and best practices for emergency management programs.  EMAP goes the additional step in offering accreditation for jurisdictions and/or programs based upon compliance with their standards.

Recently, New York’s Governor Cuomo announced what is apparently the nation’s first state-coordinated local emergency management accreditation program.  New York’s program is based upon 21 standards, created and maintained by a committee co-chaired by the NYS Emergency Management Association and the NYS Office of Emergency Management.  The accreditation process identified by NYS’ program guidance is fairly similar to EMAP’s, with application, preparation, a site visit, and committee review.

On the plus side, New York’s system is a further encouragement of the use and application of standards and has enough similarity to EMAP which puts the two accreditations on a close enough path that a jurisdiction can pursue both with little deviation.  The processes of preparation, an on-site review, and final accreditation council review are very similar. Further, agencies accredited through the New York State program are granted the ability to display the accreditation program logo, similar to EMAP, as a matter of pride and recognition.  New York’s system also requires a periodic reaccreditation, which encourages jurisdictions to maintain their accreditation standards.

Where New York’s program differs from EMAP…

  • EMAP accreditation is available to any entity, whereas New York’s appears to be specifically designed for local/county emergency management offices, although it does acknowledge the need for a whole community approach to emergency management
  • EMAP standards identify what components must be in place, not the means and methods used to accomplish those components. This is a significant difference from New York State’s program, which rather heavy handedly dictates means and methods, including mandatory completion of New York State’s emergency management and certification training by key staff, completion of the State’s County Emergency Preparedness Assessment (CEPA) program, and active use of the NY Responds system.  While fundamentally, I agree with promoting these as standards across the state, requiring them for accreditation can lead to a stagnated or stalled program if better training or systems are made available and the standard is not able to be kept current.  Required means and methods also stall innovation, which is another reason by NFPA 1600 and EMAP shy away from this practice.  That said, the aforementioned means and methods are the standard of practice in New York State, so this is a good opportunity to reinforce use of those standards.

New York’s new standard provides a solid exploration into the new territory of state-coordinated accreditation.  I’m a big proponent of states’ rights, and firmly believe this to be a good practice, especially when such accreditations reflect the principles of nationally recognized standards such as EMAP and NFPA 1600.  I don’t view New York’s system as being competitive with EMAP, rather it is quite complimentary.  With additional interests in standards, I’m hopeful that all standards will remain contemporary and cutting edge, constantly encouraging excellence and striving for improvements.

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts on state-coordinated accreditation and emergency management standards in general.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Thinking Beyond the Active Shooter

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

While there is obviously a great deal of attention placed on preparing for, preventing, and responding to active shooter events, is that where the focus really needs to be?  Yes, active shooter incidents are devastating, but they aren’t taking into consideration the full potential of we might be facing.  The DHS definition of ‘active shooter’ actually allows room for additional potential, but the term is still misleading and indicates the presence of only one perpetrator.  (DHS definition: “Active shooter is an individual actively engaging in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.”)

First, let’s consider that more than one person could be perpetrating the incident.  Second, let’s consider that the perpetrator/perpetrators might be using something other than or in addition to firearms.  This could include edged weapons, blunt weapons, improvised explosives, or other threats.  Third, let’s consider an increased complexity, including synchronized attacks conducted by one or more independent teams occurring at multiple locations sequentially or in close succession.

To address these potentials, we’ve heard the terms ‘Active Assailant’, which certainly addresses individual(s) using any form of weapon(s) in their attack methodology.  This can also address the more highly complex incident type, which is commonly referred to as a ‘Complex Coordinated Attack’ or ‘Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attack’.  In essence, we are talking about the same conceptual incident, with varying complexity.  But what’s the difference?

The difference is that we should be preparing for a credible worst-case scenario.  While a single shooter is more likely to occur in most places, we’ve seen incidents of knife attacks such as those in recent months in London and Japan.  We’ve also seen motor vehicle attacks in Berlin and Nice.  The Columbine High School attack involved firearms, knives, and improvised explosive devices, although the latter weren’t successfully detonated.  For their own reasons, none of these seem to match up with the impression most have with the term ‘Active Shooter’.  ‘Active Assailant’ might be better a better term generally for these kinds of incidents.   More specifically, by current standards, Columbine would likely meet the definition of ‘Complex Coordinated Attack’.  A complex coordinated attack doesn’t necessarily require a high value target or an international terrorist group to perpetrate.

When a jurisdiction plans for a flood, they generally don’t prepare for a couple of road washouts that might occur with a hard rain storm.  They should be preparing for the sudden destructive power of flash floods and the slower but equally devastating potential of areal flooding.   If the jurisdiction is prepared for the credible worst-case scenario, their preparations should be able to address flooding of a lower magnitude.  I’d argue the same for the range of active assailant incidents.  Active shooter incidents are one specific type of active assailant incident, but are not what our preparedness activities should be focused on, as these kinds of incidents can be much more complex and devastating.  Preparedness efforts should, instead, focus on the complex coordinated attack, which is arguably the most multifaceted and impactful type of this incident.  Preparing for the credible worst-case scenario will help ensure our preparedness across the entire spectrum of this kind of incident.

As always, feedback is appreciated.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Reviewing Health Care and Public Health Capabilities

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

Most in emergency management and homeland security are aware of the National Preparedness Goal’s 32 Core Capabilities, but are you aware of the Health Care and Public Health capabilities promulgated and published by the HHS/ASPR and the CDC?

Recently updated, the 2017-2022 Health Care Preparedness and Response Capabilities are assembled by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR).  According to ASPR, these capabilities are intended to ‘describe what the health care delivery system must do to effectively prepare for and respond to emergencies that impact the public’s health’.  The health care delivery system includes health care coalitions (HCCs), hospitals, and EMS.  These consist of four capabilities:

  1. Foundation for Health Care and Medical Readiness
  2. Health Care and Medical Response Coordination
  3. Continuity of Health Care Service Delivery
  4. Medical Surge

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (also part of HHS) publishes the Public Health Preparedness Capabilities.  The current version of the Public Health capabilities is dated 2011, with the CDC being anticipated to begin updating the document in late summer of 2017.  The CDC’s Public Health Preparedness Capabilities help to establish standards for state and local public health preparedness through 15 capabilities, which are:

  1. Community Preparedness
  2. Community Recovery
  3. Emergency Operations Coordination
  4. Emergency Public Information and Warning
  5. Fatality Management
  6. Information Sharing
  7. Mass Care
  8. Medical Countermeasure Dispensing
  9. Medical Material Management and Distribution
  10. Medical Surge
  11. Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions
  12. Public Health Laboratory Testing
  13. Public Health Surveillance and Epidemiological Investigation
  14. Responder Safety and Health
  15. Volunteer Management

Similar to the use of the Core Capabilities in emergency management and homeland security broadly, I see the ASPR and CDC sets of capabilities as providing an opportunity to identify capabilities which are functionally focused.  Aside from the three common Core Capabilities (Planning, Public Information and Warning, and Operational Coordination), there is only one public health/health care-specific Core Capability: Public Health, Health Care, and Emergency Medical Services.  It makes sense for these areas to need to further identify and refine their own capabilities.  It might be interesting to see other sub-sets of public safety, such as fire and law enforcement do the same relative to the Core Capabilities they each heavily participate in.  Or it might send us down a rabbit hole we don’t need to jump down…

That said, I always champion opportunities for synergy and streamlining of existing systems and doctrine, and I’m rather disappointed that has not been done.  There is clearly overlap between the ASPR and CDC capabilities as compared to the Core Capabilities; that being apparent in even the titles of some of these capabilities addressing topics such as operational coordination, mass care, and public information and warning.

Corresponding to the recent release of ASPR’s updated Health Care Preparedness and Response Capabilities, I sat through a webinar that reviewed the update.  The webinar gave an opportunity for me to ask if there was any consideration given to structuring these more similarly to the National Preparedness Goal’s Core Capabilities.  In response, ASPR representatives stated they are working with the Emergency Preparedness Grant Coordination Working Group, which consists of ASPR, CDC, Health Resources and Services Administration, DHS/FEMA, US DOT, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  This working group has developed an interim crosswalk, applicable to the current documents, and expected to be updated with the CDC’s update to the Public Health Preparedness Capabilities.  While a crosswalk helps, it still acknowledges that each are operating within their own silos instead of fully coordinating and aligning with the National Preparedness Goal.  The world of preparedness is dynamic and made even more complex when efforts aren’t aligned.

Regardless of the lack of alignment, these are great tools.  Even if you aren’t in public health and health care, you should become familiar with these documents, as they represent important standards in these fields.  Similar to the Core Capabilities, grants and preparedness activities are structured around them.  If you interface with public health and health care, you have even more reason to become familiar with these – as they are likely referenced in multi-agency discussions and you should be aware of the similarities and differences between these and the Core Capabilities.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Preparedness Exercises – The Building Block Concept Can Be Misleading

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

If you’ve been doing emergency management and homeland security exercises for even a little while, you are probably familiar with this graphic.  It’s included in a great many exercise training courses and other materials that talk about the different types of exercises out there.  This graphic looks correct at first glance.  It seems to make sense.  Intuitively, we assume that full-scale exercises are the most complex exercise type and that they test capabilities to the greatest extent.  When we put more thought into that, though, we realize that it can be wrong.

I’m happy to note that the most recent document on the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) (April 2013) does NOT include this graphic.  They include a couple of paragraphs on using a ‘progressive approach’ to a multi-year exercise program, recommending that “each successive exercise building upon the previous one until mastery is achieved” is the path forward.  While I’m not too crazy about this statement, either, it’s not as misleading as the legacy ‘building block’ graphic.

Here’s the problem with the graphic – It assumes too much.  While in some instances this graphic can be correct, it shouldn’t be regarded as even occasional guidance.  I’ve witnessed, managed, designed, evaluated, or otherwise participated in a number of workshops, tabletops, drill, and functional exercises that are far more complex than some full-scale exercises I’ve likewise been involved in.  Similarly, I can attest to some ‘lower level’ exercises testing capabilities to a greater extent than the ‘higher level’ exercises.  The hierarchal structure is simply misleading.  The problem this can create is people being dismissive of the relevance, necessity, and value of conducting exercises other than functional and full-scale.

Making a training comparison, exercise types don’t really stick to a scaled taxonomy.  (Check out this article for a small introduction to Bloom’s Taxonomy which is used in instructional design.) While we can state that an awareness level course is more about knowing and understanding, and an operations-level course is more about applying, we can’t say the same for exercises as a spectrum generalization.  Consider that seminars are certainly geared toward orienting people with information, while workshops, on the other hand, require creation of a product, by definition.  Tabletop exercises can (and should) be incredibly in-depth, analyzing plans and policy, while drills are more about application.

So what exercise type should you choose?  It goes back to the foundations of exercise design – consider your objectives, then consider what exercise type best fits what was identified that you want to accomplish.  Reflecting, now, back on the progressive approach mentioned in the HSEEP document, it’s true that you probably don’t want to jump into a full-scale right away.  That has less to do with the perceived complexity of the exercise and more to do with how plans are properly tested – which is the main reason why we exercise.  First, we need to talk through aspects of our plans, policies, and procedures.  We need to make sure that our foundational assumptions are sound and that broader decisions and actions are in line with the documents created.  This is typically the reasoning behind conducting a table top exercise before any type of operations-based exercise.  Once we have established that the foundational premise and supporting policies of the plan is sound, then it can make sense to progress to a selection of operations-based exercises to test various tactile aspects of the plan and associated procedures.

That said, some procedures are so tactile that really the only way to test them is through an operations-based exercise.  Perhaps they are first built in a workshop-type of environment, then go straight to a drill for testing.  That might be all that’s needed.  Yes, they could be further integrated into a functional or full-scale later, if you choose to integrate them into other activities.

The bottom line here is that while the building-block approach to exercises makes sense at a glance, it is really quite more complex than the graphic eludes to.  Yes, it still has some relevance, but it should not be viewed as the rule.  Just as in training and emergency response, objectives drive everything in exercises.

© 2017 – Timothy M Riecker

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

 

In a POETE State of Mind

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

One of the searches that has most often brought people to my blog over the last couple of years has been POETE.  In case you forgot, POETE stands for Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising.  If you conduct an internet search for POETE, there are very few relevant results.  Along with a few of my blog posts, there are a couple of articles published by others, and a few FEMA documents that include obscure references to POETE.  Sadly, there is nothing available that provides (official) guidance, much less doctrine.

Why is it that such a great tool has so few tangible references?  Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to that.  I hope that will soon change.

POETE was most widely indoctrinated several years ago as an analysis step within the State Preparedness Reports (SPRs), which are annual submissions completed by every state, UASI (Urban Area Security Initiative-funded program), and territory.  Note: The SPR templates and guidance are generally not publicly posted, as they are sent directly to the points of contact for each jurisdiction – thus they generally don’t come up in internet search results.

The SPR is a step beyond the THIRA (Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis), which is a very in-depth hazard analysis.  The SPR examines each jurisdiction’s level of preparedness for hazards, referencing the 32 Core Capabilities.  Each Core Capability is then analyzed through the lens of POETE.

As a conceptual example, let’s use the Operational Communications Core Capability.  The POETE analysis will examine the jurisdiction’s preparedness by examining:

  • Planning (are plans adequate? Have they been tested?  What improvements need to be made?);
  • Organizing (are there organizational barriers to success? What human operational communications resources are available?  Are there gaps?  Have teams been exercised? What improvements need to be made?);
  • Equipment (does the jurisdiction have equipment necessary for operational communications? What needs are there relative to the resource management cycle?);
  • Training (what training has been provided? What training gaps exist?  When/how will they be addressed?);
  • Exercises (what exercises have been conducted that include the operational communications Core Capability? What were the findings of the AAR/IPs?  What future exercises are scheduled that include this Core Capability?).

Along with answering a few questions on each element, jurisdictions are asked to rate their status for each POETE element for each Core Capability.  If they look at their reports submitted historically, they can see the measure of progress (or lack thereof) with each.  They also have a tracking of identified action items to help them improve their measure of preparedness.

While this analysis can be quite tedious, it’s extremely insightful and informative.  Often, stakeholders have conceptual ideas about the state of preparedness for each Core Capability, but absent conducting this type of in-depth analysis, they rarely see the details, much less have them written down.  Documenting these helps with recognition, awareness, tasking, tracking, and accountability.  It’s a valuable activity that I would encourage all jurisdictions and organizations to conduct.

What else can POETE be applied to?  In the past few years, POETE is being included in DHS preparedness grants.  They often want applicants to identify key tasks within the POETE structure, and awardees to chart progress along the same lines.

I’ve advocated in the past to use the POETE structure in improvement plans, which are a step beyond after action reports from exercises, events, and even incidents.  Having key activities identified across each POETE element for the Core Capabilities analyzed is extremely helpful, and ensures that issues are being identified comprehensively.

Using the POETE concept across all preparedness efforts helps to tie them together.  By documenting each element for each Core Capability, you will have full visibility and reference to your current status and what needs to be improved upon.  It helps drive accountability, a comprehensive approach, and reduces duplication of efforts – especially in larger organizations.  While implementing such a program will take some investment up front to begin to identify, organize, and chart progress and establish an organizational system to do so, I feel it’s an investment that will pay off.

I’m hopeful that the use of POETE continues to see adoption across all of emergency management and homeland security, and that it is further reinforced as a standard through DHS, FEMA, NFPA, and other organizations which hold sway for settings standards and/or requirements.

How does your organization, agency, or jurisdiction use POETE?

© 2017 – Timothy M Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Incident Evaluation

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 4 Comments

I’ve written at length about the importance of quality evaluation of exercises.  Essentially, if we don’t evaluate exercises, and do it well, the benefits of the exercises are quite limited.  Generally, we don’t see a benefit to incidents.  By their very nature, incidents threaten and impact life, property, and environment – things we don’t view as being beneficial.  However, benefits are often a product of opportunity; and we absolutely should take the opportunity to evaluate our responses.

Many incidents do get evaluated, but through research after the fact.  We retrace our steps, review incident documents (such as incident action plans), interview personnel, and examine dispatch logs.  These efforts usually paint a decent picture of intent and result (things that are often different), but often miss the delta – the difference between the two – as well as other nuances.  When we evaluate an exercise, we do so in real time.  Th evaluation effort is best done with preparation.  Our evaluation plans, methodologies, and personnel are identified in the design phase of the exercise.  Just as we develop emergency operations plans and train personnel to respond, we can develop incident evaluation plans and train personnel to evaluate incident responses.

Understandably, a hurdle we might have is the availability of personnel to dedicate solely to evaluation, especially on larger incidents – but don’t be afraid of asking for mutual aid just to support incident evaluation (just be sure to include them in your preparedness efforts).  Just as regional exercise teams should be developed to provide cooperative efforts in exercise design, conduct, and evaluation; incident evaluation teams should be developed regionally.  To me, it makes sense for many of these personnel to be the same, as they are already familiar with how to evaluate and write up evaluations.

In exercises, we often use Exercise Evaluation Guides (EEGs) to help focus our evaluation efforts.  These are developed based upon identified Core Capabilities and objectives, which are determined early in the exercise design process.  While we don’t know the specific objectives we might use in an incident, we can identify these in general, based upon past experiences and our preparedness efforts for future incidents.  Similarly, our emergency planning efforts should be based around certain Core Capabilities, which can help inform our incident evaluation preparedness efforts.  Job aids similar to EEGs, let’s call them incident evaluation guides (IAGs), can be drafted to prepare for incident evaluation, with adjustments made as necessary when an incident occurs.

Evaluating an incident, in practice, is rather similar to how we would evaluate an exercise, which is why the training for these activities is relatively portable.  Evaluation efforts should avoid evaluating individuals, instead focusing on the evaluation of functions and processes.  Don’t reinvent the wheel – evaluate based upon documented (hopefully!) plans and procedures and use the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) standards to guide your process. Incident evaluation must be managed to ensure that evaluation gaps are minimized and that evaluation progresses as it should.  Observations should be recorded and, just as we would for an exercise, prepared for and eventually recorded in an after action report (AAR).

I favor honest after action reports.  I’ve seen plenty of after action reports pull punches, not wanting the document to reflect poorly on people.  Candidly, this is bullshit.  I’ve also heard many legal councils advise against the publication of an after action report at all. Similarly, this is bullshit.  If our actions and the need to sustain or improve certain actions or preparations is not properly recorded, necessary changes are much less likely to happen.  If an AAR isn’t developed, a corrective action plan certainly won’t be – which gives us no trackable means of managing our improvements and disavows our intent to do so.

As a profession, public safety must always strive to improve.  We have plenty of opportunity to assess our performance, not just through exercises, which are valuable, but also through the rigors of incident responses.  Prepare for incident evaluation and identify triggers in your emergency plans for when evaluation will be employed, how, and who is involved.  Begin evaluation as early as possible in an incident – there are plenty of lessons learned in the early, and often most critical moments of our incident response.  Finally, be sure to document lessons learned in an AAR, which will contribute to your overall continuous improvement strategy.

How does your agency accomplish incident evaluation?  If you don’t, why?

Need help with the evaluation of incidents?  We are happy to help!

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

ICS and the Human Factor

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

A number of my articles have mentioned the unpredictable human factor in executing emergency plans and managing incidents, particularly for complex incidents.  We can build great plans and have a great management system to facilitate the incident management process, but the human factor – that largely intangible level of unpredictability of human behavior – can steer even the best emergency plan astray or derail an incident management process.

An article published in the Domestic Preparedness Journal yesterday, written by Eric McNulty, reflects on this.  Mr. McNulty cites several human factors which have relevance within incident management and encourages leaders to understand these factors within themselves and others to bring about more effective leadership.  The introductory paragraph of his article suggests the need for integrating behavior training into ICS training to ‘improve performance and outcomes’.  Given the impact of behavior factors on how we respond, this is a concept I can certainly endorse for a much-needed rewrite of the ICS curriculum.

I’ve heavily referenced Chief Cynthia Renaud’s paper, The Missing Piece of NIMS: Teaching Incident Commanders How to Function in The Edge of Chaos, in the past and continue to hold her piece relevant, especially in this discussion.  Chief Renaud’s suggestions draw lines parallel to behavioral factors, which suggest to me that we certainly need to integrate leadership training into ICS training.  The current ICS 200 course attempts to do so, but the content simply panders to the topic and doesn’t address it seriously enough.  We need to go beyond the leadership basics and explore leadership training done around the world to see what is the most effective.

Incident management is life and death – not a pick-up game of stick ball.  Let’s start taking it more seriously and prepare people better for this responsibility.

© 2016 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC – Your Partner in Preparedness

Do We Need Different Systems for Catastrophic Incidents?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

We’ve long heard, albeit in small pockets, people proclaiming that emergency management and public safety need different systems for larger incidents vs smaller incidents.  For years, the Incident Command System (ICS) fought that stigma, with many saying that ICS is only used for hazardous materials incidents (specifically because of OSHA requirements) or for large incidents that required such a high degree of organization.  Following the release of HSPD-5 and the resultant requirements for everyone to use the National Incident Management System (NIMS), we finally seemed to transcend that mentality – although we are still seeing people apply ICS poorly, and often with the thought that it will all work out fine when a large incident occurs.

Since the mid-2000s, coupled with the push for ‘catastrophic planning’, I’ve been hearing people proclaiming that catastrophic incidents require different systems – be it for planning or management.  Recently, I’m hearing this mentioned again.  Yet, interestingly enough, none of the arguments identify specifically what it is about our current systems of preparedness or incident management that fail at the sight of a catastrophic incident.

While I’m a critic of various aspects of our current systems, I’m a believer in them overall.  Do we need a new system of planning?  No, we just need to do it better.  When we plan for a catastrophic level event, we must consider that NOTHING will work in the aftermath of such an incident.  I’m shocked that some people are still counting on the existence and functionality of critical infrastructure following a catastrophic event.  No roads, no communications, no life lines.  These surprised disclosures are revealed in the After Action Reports (AARs) of incidents and exercises that test catastrophic incidents, such as the recent Cascadia Rising exercise.

Fundamentally, are these losses all that different than what we experience in smaller disasters?  Not so much.  Smaller disasters still take out our roads and disable our communications systems – but such disasters are small enough that we can work around these issues.  So how is it a surprise that a large hurricane or earthquake will do even more damage?  It really shouldn’t be.  It’s essentially a matter of scale.

That said, I certainly acknowledge the difficulties that come with the combined impacts of a catastrophic disaster, coupled with the sheer magnitude of it all.  There are challenges offered that we don’t normally see, but a new system of planning is not the answer.  The current frameworks and standards, such as CPG-101 and NFPA 1600 are absolutely substantial.  The processes are not flawed.  The issue is a human one.  We can’t blame the standards.  We can’t blame the plans.  The responsibility lies with the people at the table crafting the plan.  The responsibility lies with them to fully understand the hazards and the potential impacts of those hazards.  Conducting a hazard analysis is the first step for a planning team to accomplish, and I think this is often taken for granted.  While the traditional hazard analysis has value, the current standard is the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA).  It is an exhausting and detailed process, but it is highly effective, with engaged teams, to reveal the nature and impacts of disasters that can impact a community.  Without a solid and realistic understanding of hazards, including those that can attain catastrophic levels, WE WILL FAIL.  It’s that simple.

As we progress through the planning process and identify strategies to accomplish objectives, alternate strategies must be developed to address full failures of infrastructure and lack of resources.  Assumptions are often made in plans that we will be able to apply the resources we have to fix problems; and if those resources are exhausted, we will ask for more, which will magically appear, thus solving our problems.  Yes, this works most of the time, but in a catastrophic incident, this is pure bullshit.  This assumption needs to be taken off the table when catastrophic incidents are concerned.  The scarcity of resources is an immediate factor that we need to address along with acknowledging that a severely damaged infrastructure forces us out of many of the technological and logistical comforts we have become accustomed to.  It doesn’t require a new system of planning – just a realistic mentality.

This all logically ties to our incident management system – ICS.  ICS is fully able to accommodate a catastrophic-level incident.  The difficulties we face are with how we apply it (another human factor) and integration of multiple ICS organizations and other incident management entities, such as EOCs.  The tenant in ICS is that one incident gets one incident command system structure.  This is obviously not a geo-political or practical reality for a catastrophic incident that can have a large footprint.  This, however, doesn’t mean that we throw ICS out the window.  This is a reality that we deal with even on smaller disasters, where different jurisdictions, agencies, organizations, and levels of government all have their own management system established during a disaster.  Through implementations such as unified command, multi-agency coordination, agency representatives and liaison officers, and good lines of communication we are able to make effective coordination happen.  (Side note: this is absolutely something I think we need to plan for and tighten up conceptually.  It’s often pulled together a bit too ad-hoc for my comfort).

While some time and effort needs to be applied to develop some solid solutions to the issues that exist, I’m confident that we DO NOT need to create alternate preparedness or response systems for addressing catastrophic incidents – we simply need to apply what we have better and with a more realistic perspective.  The answers won’t come easy and the solutions might be less than ideal, but that’s the nature of a catastrophic event.  We can’t expect it to be easy or convenient.

© 2016 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

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