Tag Tim Riecker

Familiarizing Elected Officials with their Emergency Management Programs

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Back in October of 2013, in an article in Emergency Management Magazine, David Silverberg discussed the issue of elected officials rarely being educated about emergencies.  Just last month, David Maack published an article in Emergency Management Magazine about how elected officials can prepare for and respond to emergencies.  Silverberg’s article not only identified the issue, but also pointed out strategies used in some places around the country to help orient elected officials to the world of emergency management. 

The premise of both articles is that this familiarization is obviously lacking, and it’s quite imperative that elected officials are familiar with the concepts of emergency management; the hazards, capabilities, and plans of their jurisdiction; gaps and needed improvements; how to support their emergency manager; and state laws governing emergency management where they are.  I’m a firm believer that elected officials do, in fact, need to support their emergency management programs and their emergency manager.  Not only on a day to day basis, but certainly during a disaster.  The emergency manager is a subject matter expert, and while they take direction from the elected official, the elected official needs to take cues from the emergency manager.  The emergency manager needs to be very clear with their boss about what expectations they have, as well.  Maack’s article includes a great list of steps that emergency managers should reference when giving an orientation to their elected officials.  Obviously it all needs to be put in the proper context for each jurisdiction.

Here in New York State, the regional office of the State’s Office of Emergency Management works with the county/local emergency manager to conduct a Public Officials’ Conference.  These sessions, usually conducted in an evening, are intended to not only familiarize elected and appointed officials of a jurisdiction, but to also communicate what is expected of them and to strengthen the role of the emergency manager as a coordinator and subject matter expert.  While there are some usual content areas in these briefings, such as NIMS, a briefing on the local emergency plan, etc., it is flexible based on the needs identified by the emergency manager.  These sessions, through the years of conducting them, are generally very well received.  One of the most important messages is the flow of emergency management.  People need to know how the system works and who is responsible for what. 

Several years back, when teaching an ICS Basic (I-200) course, one of my participants introduced himself as “the town supervisor – you know, the one who would be the incident commander during an incident”.  I made certain, during the course, to point out that elected officials are generally not the incident commander, rather they are the incident commander’s boss.  I then spent some time pointing out what the roles and responsibilities were of this ‘agency administrator’. 

What thoughts do you have on familiarizing elected officials with emergency management?

Infographic on Organizational Continuity

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Great infographic from Entrepreneur.com!

recoverydiva's avatarRecovery Diva

From Entrepreneur.com — Can Your Organization Survive a Natural Disaster; an Infogram re Business Preparedness for Disasters.  You can browse it online or printed it off as a poster, in 6 pages. Apparently the source is Boston University’s School of Management.

This makes a nice companion to the infographic on business continuitythat I cited last fall.

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Are you Planning for All Hazards?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

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While I’m amazed by the number of jurisdictions and businesses that don’t have any emergency plans at all, I’m almost nearly amazed by those who only have isolated, single hazard plans. I’ve seen plenty of entities with only fire plans or flood plans.

How does this happen? Many small towns may ask their local fire chief to write an emergency plan for the town – this plan often times outlines the fire response structure but ignores other hazards. Sometimes this myopic view of planning takes place because of a focus or near panic over one particular hazard. These situations are generally not the fault of the people who wrote them. Just because someone is in public safety doesn’t mean they know every facet of it. Emergency planning is as much of a niche as pump operations in the fire service or special tactics in law enforcement. It requires a certain set of knowledge, skills, and experience to be successful and effective.

While it’s logical that a larger jurisdiction will have a more complex emergency plan than a smaller jurisdiction, there are still foundational elements that are common to all. Perhaps the most critical of these is the necessity to plan for all hazards. All hazards planning, if you’re not familiar with the concept, is a process beginning with the identification of the hazards which can impact a community, the impacts associated with each hazard (also known as vulnerability), and the probability of each hazard impacting the community (also known as risk). This is called a Hazard Vulnerability Analysis (HVA). By rating the vulnerability and risk factors for each hazard, a fairly simple algorithm can be used to provide an overall ranking for each hazard. Additional information, such as the availability of resources to respond to each hazard can be included as well.

Obviously there is a lot of context that needs to go into such an assessment, which is best conducted by a planning team to gain the most amount of input. Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101, published by FEMA/DHS, provides much more information on the planning process as a whole. Historical disaster information should be referenced, but not to the extent of outweighing other inputs. Fluctuations over time in population, topography and development, and climate change are all leading to, as the investment world states it, historical information not necessarily being indicative of future performance.

Scientific data should also be examined, such as flood maps and wild fire risk. Communities should be sure to reference information on hazardous materials, which is required reporting by industry per the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986 (also known as SARA Title III). Once you have identified and ranked all the hazards, you know what ones to focus on. Perhaps it is the top 8, or maybe the top 12 that indicate a high enough vulnerability and/or high enough risk to incorporate into your planning efforts. Once these are identified, you continue through the CPG 101 planning process to create a comprehensive plan. A comprehensive plan incorporates all elements needed to address the responses to these incidents. Given that the majority of responses are largely similar, regardless of the hazard, one concept of operations will address this in the plan. Separate plans, written as annexes or appendices, then can be created for hazards with very specific issues, such as a pandemic, or to address specific functions, such as evacuation and sheltering.

Is it possible to anticipate every disaster that could possible impact your community? Can your community possibly predict being trampled by a giant man of marshmallow or having busses tossed aside by fire breathing dinosaurs from Japan? No? Then don’t spend much time on these things. Be realistic. That said, a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP) – which is a plan that considers all hazards, all resources, and the whole community – can even help account for hazards you didn’t identify. Do you think Chelyabinsk, Russia had a plan for meteor strikes? Not likely. However, consider how the components of a CEMP could have addressed critical areas of response: mass casualty, search and rescue, debris management, sheltering.

I recall a number of years ago, prior to the 2013 occurrence in Chelyabinsk, where there was a bit of media frenzy over near earth objects (NEOs) such as meteors. The public information officer (PIO) for the state’s emergency management agency received a call from a media outlet inquiring if the state had a plan for meteor strike. The PIO answered ‘yes’, qualifying that with a statement about the value of comprehensive planning. Was there a specific plan for meteor strikes? No. The likelihood is so slim that it’s not worth putting effort toward (although I’m sure someone has). Does the CEMP cover all the necessary response components? Absolutely.

Author’s note: Unfortunately I don’t recall where I got the picture from, so I’m unable to give proper credit. If anyone knows or claims it, I’ll gladly give credit or pull it down.

 

Emergency Managers as Curators

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

The training and development industry, championed by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), suggested a couple of years ago that trainer are curators of information. This suggestion caught like wildfire in the training and development community. The ASTD compares a trainer to the curator of a museum who organizes and selects specific items or collections for an exhibit; similar to how trainers draw upon knowledge and information, organizing and selecting certain pieces for training purposes. As a trainer myself, I appreciate the meaning of the analogy and considered that the same analogy could certainly be applied to other professions, particularly Emergency Management.

Do we curate in Emergency Management? Emergency Management is certainly a unique profession. It is highly dependent on a broad set of knowledge, much of which is applied to nearly all activities but some applied very specifically. A county emergency manager could be participating in a nuclear power plant exercise one day and giving a presentation on flood preparedness to local communities the next. Both have to do with preparedness, but each require separate and specific applications of technical knowledge. Emergency managers are often jacks of many trades, perhaps specializing in one or two areas, but typically being reasonably well versed in many other topics. In the event that more knowledge is needed, emergency managers know who to reach out to.

Emergency managers coordinate to a higher degree than most other professions – So much so that the profession is actually dependent upon it. No emergency manager in any community can be successful without coordinating with and having cooperation from other community stakeholders. This premise is applied not only to response, but to all phases of emergency management. At present I’m working on a plan for a community that requires some very specific public health expertise. I can write a plan, but the plan won’t have maximum effectiveness without the input of certain subject matter experts.

Similar to trainers, most emergency managers I know have collections of books and reference materials. Many are from courses or seminars they have attended, text books, trade periodicals, and an extensive collection of electronic files. Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS) is an excellent living library of reference materials from contributors all over the nation which I go to often to review best practices.

So what do you think about emergency managers being curators?

Book Review – The Manager’s Guide to Presentations

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 4 Comments

I was recently asked by Impackt Publishing to review one of their newest publications, The Manager’s Guide to Presentations (2014. ISBN-13 978-1783000142. http://www.amazon.com/The-Managers-Guide-Presentations-Lauren/dp/1783000147/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394631990&sr=8-1&keywords=the+managers+guide+to+presentations).  The book was authored by Lauren M. Hug, an attorney who has likely both seen and conducted a number of presentations.  The books is available in both paperback (which I reviewed) and e-book.  Providing full disclosure, I was not compensated for the review, but was provided with a review copy. 

Initially I was a bit skeptical, as the paperback version is only 44 pages.  Tomes of 100s of pages have been published on the topic.  What information worth publishing can be found in only 44 pages?  Surprisingly, quite a bit! 

The target audience for the book is new managers, who often, as I can personally attest, often have little to no experience developing or delivering presentations.  Yet, given their position, are often called upon to give a variety of presentations.  The book is concise, which is perfect for managers with little available time, providing step by step guidance and several job aids to help them identify needs, outline presentation content, and deliver their presentation. 

If you’ve read any of my blog posts in the past on presentations or training, you know I’m big on ensuring an audience focus – they are, after all, the reason why we are doing the presentation in the first place.  Given that, I was initially dismayed that there was little mention of the audience in the early pages of the book.  However, as I progressed through the book, I realized the sense of the author’s approach.  Instead of focusing first on the audience, the author, keeping in mind that HER target audience was new managers, asks these new managers to put the focus on themselves first.  It’s a great reality check for new managers.  The author emphasizes the need for new managers to examine their own preferences, presentation tendencies, fears, and their particular goal for the presentation.  Some of these reflections are longer-term issues which likely don’t need to be examined for each and every presentation, but certainly the question of the new manager’s goal for the presentation is one that should be asked for each presentation given. 

Once the internal reflection is complete, the author directs the new manager toward the needs of the audience.  While she doesn’t spend as much time on audience analysis as I would like, she still hits the highlights.  She also provides a few items of consideration toward the logistical needs and environment of the presentation, with heavy emphasis on knowing the environment you are stepping into and being prepared for it. 

The second chapter focuses on designing the presentation.  I was pleased here to see considerable reference to the audience, their needs, and what the presenter needed them to walk away with.  Job aids prompting the reader to identify the audience appeal, presentation points, and a call to action help focus the neophyte presenter – brief but good points that Nancy Duarte would be proud of.  They finish off the chapter with several points on audience interaction.  I was quite pleased to see this, particularly since many presenters (both new and experienced) have a tendency to simply present rather than engage the audience. 

The third and final chapter focuses on body language and practicing the presentation.  A number of great ideas are given in this chapter, including pre-presentation discussions with stakeholders, when and how to rehearse, and conducting Q&A sessions. 

Overall, the book is quite effective.  It’s short and to the point, which is ideal for managers who have their attention pulled in many directions.  I would feel confident in handing this book off to a new manager and, if they followed the guidance contained therein, they would be successful in their presentation endeavor.  It’s not going to turn anyone into a presentation expert, but that’s not the goal of the book.  It provides great ideas and insight and the job aids are excellent.  Kudos to the author and publisher for identifying a need and providing good, concise information to address it. 

Attacks on Electrical Infrastructure

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

A February 10, 2014 article in Emergency Management Magazine titled Attack on California Electric Grid Called Terrorism brings about some very interesting speculation on an incident that occurred at an electrical substation near San Jose last year.  Unfortunately the article saves some critical information for the end and left me with a poor initial impression (i.e. assuming that the weapons used were assault rifles).  My early impression of the article, particularly having grown up in the country, was that this was the result of ‘Billy-Bob and Joe decided after a bunch of brewskis they were going to shoot up a substation’, as stated by Mark Johnson, recently retired VP of Pacific Gas and Electric. 

Toward the end of the article, the author identifies information associated to the shooting of the transformers, including the removal of 75 lb manhole covers and the cutting of fiber optic lines.  With this and other information revealed in the article, it seems likely this was more than Billy-Bob and Joe.  It’s suggested by the author that this activity could have been a ‘dress rehearsal’ for terrorists.  While I’m no terrorism expert, I offer that it’s not likely to involve any major entities such as Al-Qaeda, who are, unfortunately, must more clandestine than this – just look at how long it took us to find Bin Laden.  My guess is that this was perpetrated by a local, semi-organized, domestic group.  They did some research, but were clearly sloppy and ultimately unsuccessful, if, in fact, their goal was to cause an outage.  Nonetheless, an act such as this should certainly be categorized as terrorism, despite the origin of the perpetrators and their cause. 

This scenario, however, provides some important food for thought.  I’ve posted previously on the vulnerability of our electrical system to both intentional acts as well as natural disasters.  There are some efforts under way to increase the redundancies of our system and to create micro-grids, which would isolate impacts, which are great mitigation strategies.  The occurrence of this intentional act should bring strong consideration to prevention and protection activities to heighten security and resiliency of this infrastructure.  We need to call on our law makers to work with emergency managers, regulators, and the industry itself to require a multi-faceted approach to include protection, prevention, and mitigation efforts. 

Progress with FAA with UAVs

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Tuesday morning I attended a panel discussion hosted by the Greater Utica Chamber of Commerce focused on providing information to areas businesses about the FAA‘s selection of the former Griffiss Air Base/Oneida County Airport as one of six sites in the nation to test integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into commercial airspace.  The presentations were excellent, with efforts centered around the NUAIR Alliance, a conglomerate of public, private, and educational entities working toward testing airspace integration technologies and protocols, as well as various uses and applications of UAVs, including those for agriculture, commercial enterprise, and public safety. 

Interestingly enough, as mentioned by the panelists, UAVs, or drones as they are often referred, have been in regular use in other nations for years.  Japan, for example, has been using UAVs for agricultural applications such as spraying crops, for the last 10 years.  France, too, has been using UAVs for various purposes.  Here in the US, we largely face matters of regulation as the barrier to utilizing UAVs for non-military applications.  The FAA, who would enact these regulations, is largely looking at matters of safety related to the integration of UAVs into commercial airspace.  Researching these matters and making recommendations to the FAA through real life application is the goal of NUAIR.  Amongst the partners of the NUAIR Alliance are private firms who wish to use UAV technology for agricultural and commercial applications.  These companies, smartly, are now in on the ground floor of this technology in the United States.

With most drones being relatively inexpensive, this technology is accessible for both small farmers and large companies.  Amazon, the online retain giant, has already expressed interest in using UAVs to deliver packages.  As for public safety applications (I’ve written before about this), the possibilities are practically endless.  Those who have privacy concerns have little ground for blocking development of these life saving tools.  Current privacy laws, up to and including the US Constitution, already address these concerns and provide the foundation for UAV applications in law enforcement.  The new Fox show, Almost Human, which is set in the future, brilliantly displays heavy use of drones to track suspects and serve other law enforcement purposes which are better served with smaller, more agile UAVs rather than the piloted helicopters we use today.  These are faster to deploy and minimize human risk.  Thus far, the show has not displayed any use of UAVs with the capability to use lethal force.  Law enforcement aside, there are numerous other public safety applications.  A recent article about massive boulders crushing a farm house in Italy displayed images and video, reportedly taken by UAVs.  Consider similar technology leveraged for a missing person search or to gather information on the extent of a wild fire or damages from a tornado. 

The future of UAVs is exciting and I’m thrilled for the test grounds to be practically in my own back yard.  I’m looking forward to the first UAV sighting near my property as the NUAIR partners conduct tests.  Technology certainly is exciting!

EMS Under Fire?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

First off, I’d like to give a greeting to all of you.  I’ve been absent from blogging for quite a few months now.  I spent much of last year working in New Jersey as part of a team managing waterway debris removal as the result of Hurricane Sandy.  It was a great experience and often challenging – but I had an opportunity to work with some outstanding people and do some good for the people of New Jersey.  I’m sure in future posts I’ll reflect on some lessons learned from that assignment. 

Since my return I’ve been spending time with family and getting my own business back up and running.  I’ve also re-started the pursuit of my graduate degree.  With all the writing I’ve been doing, I’ve found it challenging to get back into blogging, but have thought about it often.

Earlier this evening I had some inspiration in reading the most recent (January/February 2014) edition of Emergency Management Magazine, in which Jim McKay’s Point of View article (which I could not locate online) spoke about ‘Medics entering the warm zone’ during mass shootings.  This is a topic I’ve had some mixed feelings over for the last couple of months. 

While I understand the urgency to enter the area and save lives – which is the main goal of public safety – we’ve always been taught to do so SAFELY.  This new concept of EMS personnel entering a non-secure active shooter environment is in serious conflict with what we’ve been taught about responder safety.  Are we being too hasty? 

Most times I’ve seen this new concept referenced, it is noted that the medics are outfitted with ballistic vests and helmets and escorted by law enforcement.  A great idea – but is this equipment being made readily available to EMS?  Not to the folks I’ve been speaking to.  Most law enforcement don’t regularly travel with riot gear, aside from their ballistic vests which they usually wear when on duty.  Additionally, are there law enforcement resources available to escort medics so early on in a mass shooting incident?  Often times not.  It seems this concept is not well thought out. 

What about training?  Tactical medic classes have been available for the last few decades, but most medics are not trained as such.  I’ve heard of no movement in EMS training to include information on how to make entry into an unsecured shooting incident, or in law enforcement training regarding providing escort duty to unarmed EMS personnel.  In fact one of the only ‘doctrinal’ references comes from the US Fire Administration, although it doesn’t provide much information.  This entire concept, to be effective, efficient, and safe needs to be prepared for – planning, training, and exercises. 

I’m not alone among my EMS colleagues having experienced looking down the barrel of a shotgun when responding to a call.  It must be considered that responding to an active shooter is NOT that.  It’s much more serious.  I understand that this idea can save lives – but what happens when the first medic loses their life after making entry?  Let’s start with that thought in crafting this new approach.  A dead responder can’t save any lives. 

Alan Weiss’ Weekly Morning Memo

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From Dr. Weiss’ weekly e-mail to members…

This week’s focus point: The Boston tragedy demonstrated more than anything the basic goodness in people. Strangers helped others without hesitation. The requests of the authorities were accepted without whining or demands for exceptions. The capacity that we all possess to support, assist, and help others is extraordinary. Sometimes it takes trauma to highlight it, but the potential is there every day. It may be appropriate this week to think about donating time or money to a charity, coaching someone who needs help, or even giving someone a break trying to turn across traffic. We shouldn’t need catastrophe to bring out our true character.

Some great words to consider.

To my readers – sorry for my absence these last few weeks – I’ve been (and continue to be) on a disaster deployment. More to come!

Disaster Brokers

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

A brilliant and insightful blog post! A must read.

chrisrecovers's avatarRecovers

BCLC’s Richard Crespin writes about challenges in post-disaster corporate giving and local organizational efforts. Read the original article here. 

In eighth grade I had to pick an independent study project. It was the ’80s, the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, and it was cool to emulate Family Ties’ Alex P. Keaton (ok, maybe not cool, but cool enough for me), so I picked investing. This was before online brokers, before E-Trade, even before the Internet, so my dad took me down to the local Sears. That’s right. Sears. For some reason Sears had decided to offer financial services, so the local office of Dean Witter was squeezed between the lay-away desk and the lawn mowers.

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As I sat there, a kindly man in shirtsleeves and a tie explained capital markets. Brokers like him earned their money by knowing who wanted something (the buyer) and who had it (the seller). He served not only…

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