Tag Timothy Riecker

Emergency Preparedness for Persons with Disabilities

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

My post is in reference to an article in Emergency Management Magazine (found here:http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Emergency-Planning-Disabled-Uphill-Battle.html).  The author’s article brings up several pertinent points around preparedness planning for persons with disabilities.  This, like darn near everything in emergency management, requires a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary approach.  We also need to be very certain to not lump all persons with disabilities into one category.  There are various levels of function that people may have.  Many people live with disabilities every day and are highly functioning, requiring little or no help.  Others may require daily or constant assistance from family, friends, or other care takers, including medical professionals.  Some folks are dependent upon medications or medical equipment (insulin dependant diabetics, those requiring dialysis, or home oxygen), while some have mobility impairments.  Some may have cognitive disabilities such as autism, Down’s Syndrome, or a traumatic brain injury.  Some persons may have several disabilities which need to be considered.  A community’s planning efforts must incorporate the full spectrum of needs.

Following our emergency planning steps, we can easily pull together the people and information we need.  First, form a planning group.  Emergency management, local health department, and local organizations that advocate for persons with disabilities, such as the Arc, associations for the blind and hearing impaired, diabetes association, MDA, UCP, etc.  These are all important stakeholders as they serve and advocate for our disabled populations on a daily basis.  You should probably know your community’s hazards, but we should analyze how they can impact persons with disabilities.  We have to define what needs exist that we need to address.  We can even consider mitigation measures, such as obtaining strobe light alerting for those with hearing impairments.

Help your community keep its finger on the pulse of the needs of persons with disabilities by forming a special needs registry.  Those utilized now are web-based and help first responders and emergency management identify, plan for, and address the changing needs in the community.  Having current information such as names, addresses, and type and severity of disability are extremely important.  Planning for notification, evacuation, transportation, and sheltering are often times the most challenging.  Expand your planning group when these challenges come up.  Include utility companies (who will prioritize power restoration to those who are dependent for medical reasons), local and regional transportation authorities, and those agencies and resources who will staff special needs shelters.

Remember, most persons with disabilities are not an idol portion of our population.  They are highly functioning and can help, needing only the right accommodations to do so.  Also, be sure to promote special needs preparedness.  FEMA, the American Red Cross, and others have excellent resources for this.  Your local association for the blind and visually impaired can help you obtain materials in large print or braille.  The National Organization on Disability is also a great resource (nod.org).  Don’t leave anyone behind!

Using Layered Exercises to Add Value to an Exercise Initiative

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Over the last several years, I have had the opportunity, and the pleasure, to lead and participate in some very significant exercises. For some of these larger exercises (mostly functional) we were more interested in testing objectives associated with activities which would occur 72 or 96 hours into the incident (i.e. well after the initial response phase). I’ve made the mistake of scripting (assuming) what would be accomplished in those first few operational periods in an effort to set up the players sufficiently for play starting a few days into the incident. Despite my experience, the input of others, and some dedicated writing it would be rather heavily criticized (i.e. “We would never do that!”). The end result was not only some disgruntled participants, but also skewed results. What we needed was the players to write that part of the exercise for us.

So that’s exactly what they did – or rather, they told us what to write. We accomplished this by conducting a table top exercise with the agencies who would be most heavily involved in the response for those first several operational periods. Through careful structure and injects we were able to walk away with the data we needed to create an Incident Action Plan and a detailed briefing which could be provided to the players for the functional component of the exercise. We had to allow ourselves a few weeks between the TTX and the FE to create a detailed and workable IAP (all based on the actions of the agencies at the TTX) along with the supporting information and materials they needed to help get up to speed – this document we called a ‘Ground Truth’. This methodology resulted in a far better functional exercise, allowed us to bring in first responder agencies for the table top exercise (who where actually happy getting to discuss a response beyond the first operational period), and got us a lot of bang for our buck.

The planning of these types of undertakings is a bit more complicated than just planning one exercise. First of all, you truly are planning two exercises at the same time. While obviously the functional exercise is the most complex, don’t leave planning for the TTX until the last minute as so much actually hinges on the outcome of the TTX. That said, there is still plenty of work that can be done to prepare for the fuctional exercise before the TTX occurs. Much of the MSEL can be developed, but it will need some tweaking based on the information that comes out of the TTX. Be sure to have plenty of evaluators and note takers (I know – this isn’t an official HSEEP function) on hand at the TTX to capture their discussion and actions.

I’ve led a few ‘layered’ exercises such as this and will be evaluating another at the end of this month. I’d encourage you to consider the potential value in this approach for your next exercise.

Telephonic Alert Systems Not the Only Solution

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Recently, Emergency Management Magazine posted an article on failures of telephonic alert notifications (http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Do-Alert-Notifications-Fail-Expectations.html).  The article certainly exposes some of the limitations of these systems as well as the reasons why these limitations exist.  One significant reason is that these systems typically require cell phone users to subscribe (yep… one more thing we need to ask the public to do in an effort for them to be responsible for their own well-being).  Those of you reading this who are in Emergency Management know that it’s very difficult to motivate the general public to do these types of things.  Yes, subscription can be circumvented by forced cell bursts, whereas public safety pushes messages out to all cell users within the range of a given tower(s).  This, though, by FCC regulation, is only to be done in the event of extreme emergency.

So what do we do?  First, we need to continue marketing these alerting programs.  The Feds have put one together they are hoping to implement nationally, many states have them, some cities have them, college campuses have them, even some businesses have them.  They have a huge value – particularly the ones that are customizable by the end-user and multi-modal (voice, text, e-mail, fax, etc.).  Just an hour and a half ago I received an alert by text and e-mail about a magnitude 2.5 earthquake in Canada on the Quebec-Ontario border.  Likewise, I receive them about local road closures and severe weather.  I market our local alert system as much as possible – I’ve even obtained hundreds of flyers from the state’s emergency management agency on the program so I can distribute them when I have speaking engagements and attend community events.  The technology is wonderful and it will continue evolving – both from the programming side that initiates the alert as well as the ability of our infrastructure to handle mass notifications.

The article, however, seems to not mention the integration of other modes of communication to the public.  This is absolutely vital!  You can never rely on only one mode.  Certainly EAS, pushed through radio and TV, is extremely valuable and effective.  But we also need to consider using sirens and even personnel driving through neighborhoods in vehicles providing information by way of loud-speaker.  There is always a chance that you won’t reach someone, but you have to cover as many modes as practical given the importance of the information that must get out.

Fusion Centers & The Art of Intel

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

The 2-1-1 Advantage During Disasters

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

The Human Factor

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

Every Business Should Have a Plan to Stay in Business

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

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

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

Let’s look at some numbers:

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

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

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

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

TR