This is a three-part question.
Part I
Choose one “Critical Thinking” problem/question(s) from one of the
assigned Introduction to Emergency Management chapters to thoroughly
answer and discuss. Please first repeat the chosen question before answering.
Chapter 3, page 83, " What mitigation measures are best suited to address
hazards faced by your community (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011)?"
The first thing that one must do before one can look at mitigating hazards is to
conduct a hazard identification assessment (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011).
It is hard to mitigate a hazard if the hazard is unknown.
Here is San Angelo Texas we deal with many hazards. Some of these hazards are
natural and some are man-made. On the natural hazard side of the house, we deal
with tornados, flooding, droughts, high winds, dust storms, etc. On the man-made
side of the house we have chemical plants, airport, military base, etc.
Each of these hazards require a different type of mitigation. For example, the
town of San Angelo is surrounded by mountains and these mountains have proven
in the past to help prevent some events as tornados and flooding. The mountain
range surrounding San Angelo somehow seems to divert storms around the area
or causes the most severe storms to dissipate. Because we are in a area that is part
of the tornado alley path, it is amazing that the mountain range seems to act as a
barrier or preventer of tornados. Now we still have tornados, but they are few and
far between.
Being in Texas and in areas that can have sudden rains or little rain, we are
susceptible to flash floods and droughts. The area of San Angelo has attempted to
mitigate the flooding by restructuring its drainage system and redirecting the
water flow to offsite water lines as seen by changes to design and construction
codes concerning mitigation of hazards (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011).
While this system cannot handle massive amounts of water at a given time, over
time, the system allows the water to dissipate and helps the city mitigate the
flooding that can occur with massive rains.
Along with floods, we are currently experiencing a massive drought. With a
drought and the area in which San Angelo is located, Fire is a big hazard that is
currently being mitigated by the city. They are using burn bans, controlled burns,
and code enforcement to help mitigate the chances of fire. They are also using
land-planning mitigation when conducting the controlled burns around the city
(Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011).
One the man-made side of the house, we have several hazards that are mitigated
through the community of San Angelo. The chemical plant produces ammonia for
it business and there are procedures in place in the event of a ammonia leak or
explosion. The local community has a local agreement with the military base to
assist them in the event of a chemical spill. Because the base trains military fire
fighters, they have many of the mitigation and response resources the town cannot
afford. This includes a fire team that is fully hazmat certified. The mitigation used
here in cooperation between the civilian and military agency when it comes to
exercise practice. The base and community practice together to ensure mitigation
and response actions are working as implemented.
We also have a local airport that provides the potential hazard of chemical and
mass destruction. This is because of the size of the airframes that enter the airport
airspace and the fuel barns that hold the fuel for the aircraft.
The airfield has several mitigating factors that help in its implementation of
everyday business. They are located outside of the city residence. This reduces the
potential for damage to community and life in the event of a aircraft crash or
chemical spill. They have built their control towers and structures with enhanced
architecture designs that are able to withstand high winds and tornados rated up to
the F5 scale. The airport is easily accessed from several locations by local
emergency response services in the event of a disaster.
While we have both natural and man-made hazards in San Angelo, the
community has accomplished hazard identification and implemented several
mitigation factors throughout the community to help mitigate the hazard
(Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011). Although these hazards are mitigated to a
point, there will eventually be an event and the mitigation tools in place now will
help to mitigate the damage done when an event does occur.
Part II:
Choose and “fully” answer and “discuss” “one” of the end of chapter “Self-Check
Questions” listed at the end of each Introduction to Emergency Management
chapter. Your single selection can come from any assigned chapter. Please first
identify the chapter the question originated from and repeat the question before
answering.
Chapter 3, page 94, Question 1, " How does the function of mitigation differ
from other emergency management disciplines (Haddow, Bullock, &
Coppola, 2011).
Mitigation is different from other emergency management disciplines in the
aspect of their mission. Mitigation is the practice of implementing procedures that
will mitigate a risk over a long term period verse a short term response as with
other emergency management disciplines (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011).
In the mitigation stage of emergency management, the idea is to prevent the
potential risk of an hazard over a period of time. For example, the enactment of
the National Flood Program was a mitigation implemented by the government to
assist citizens in the event of future floods (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011).
It provides a resources that citizens can use to help themselves mitigate the
damage caused by flooding.
Most other disciplines of emergency management are triggered by the actual
event itself. For example, the Department of Homeland Security was created after
the events of September 11, 2001 (Fisher, Halibozek, & Green, 2008). The initial
purpose of the DHS was to look at not only immediate protection of Americans
and assets but the future mitigation of terrorist events. Most actions of the DHS
have been reactions to events.
FEMA is another agency that does not focus on mitigation but on the response
actions needed in a given event. When Hurricane Katrina hit, many people were
looking to FEMA to provide answers for how to stop a future event. People
became upset with FEMA as they learned that FEMA was not mitigating future
events. This is not a surprise because this is not the mission of FEMA. FEMA
focuses on reacting to a event verse mitigating a hazard.
While agencies such as FEMA do provide actions that can seem like mitigation,
they are really only providing resources in response to the event. When people
saw FEMA starting to stockpile trailers after Hurricane Katrina, many people
thought that FEMA was building a resource of trailers as a mitigation for future
hurricanes when in fact, FEMA was only using the trailers as a temporary
resources do to the increased risk of a active hurricane season that was predicted
by the National Hurricane Agency.
Mitigation and emergency management complement each other. They rely on
each other to help an organization or community to prepare for a hazard that turn
into an event. A example is the security proposal that was presented to the Florida
transit administration (Florida Department of Transportation, 2007). This plan
contained mitigating actions for various hazards that the transit community would
face. This plan not only identified various mitigation procedures but it also laid
out the actions that needed to be taken in the event of a crisis. Without mitigation,
the chances for an event are increased because mitigation helps to reduce the risk
over long term verse short term.
Chapter 4, page 130, Question 1. " What kinds of organizations must
consider disaster preparedness (Haddow, Bullock, & Coppola, 2011)?"
Every organization must consider disaster preparedness within their
organizational operations. Disaster preparedness must not only be considered by
senior leadership but by the security community of the organization as well
(Fennelly, 2004). Disaster preparedness can make the difference between life and
death. Consider the following scenario and see how emergency planning and
disaster preparedness is important to all organizations.
It is a nice spring day and you are stuck in the office? There is a slight breeze and
a chance of spring showers. As the day progresses, the storms start to build and
the weather turns from cool and breezy to dark and windy. The temperature drops
suddenly as the winds pick up. The weather service issues a tornado watch for the
local area. Are you ready? What were those procedures we were suppose to
follow? All of these thoughts now cross your mind as the sirens blow and you are
running for cover. Will you survive? Will your coworkers survive?
Emergency planning is the one tool that can help ease the scenario listed above.
As security specialist, establishing emergency plans for various events will be
help your organization survive an ordeal. Emergency planning should cover
procedures from everything from natural disasters, to civil disturbance, to extreme
terrorist scenarios. You need to ensure your emergency plans can handle Level
1,2, or 3 disasters and protect the personnel as well as the assets (Fennelly, 2004).
Being ready for an event is what emergency planning is all about. It is planning
for the event that will happen. We live in a world that even with the best security,
events will occur that can throw a curve to the best security teams. When
designing a emergency plan for your organization, you need to conduct risk
analysis of the potential threats and the probability of their occurrence. This goes
form looking at weather reports for the last five years to conducting a criminal
risk assessment of the local area around the facility.
As you conduct your assessments and risk management, identifying and
prioritizing your events will help in the development of the emergency plan. For
example, if your facility is in the middle of Tornado Alley, one should have
emergency plans for tornado and the various levels of those tornados. Become
familiar with the tornado rating scale and understanding the various amounts of
damage each level a tornado is rated causes. For example, a F1 tornado does
minor damage and operations would be minimally affected whereas a F5 tornado
typically means nothing will be left standing. BY knowing the scales of tornados,
emergency plans can be developed for the event and recovery.
Emergency Plans not only need to have procedures for the event, they need to
have the reconstitution plan. This plan helps the organization recover after an
event. It is often called a recovery plan (Garcia, 2008). After the September 11,
2001 event, nearly 80% of businesses collapsed and never recovered because they
had not accounted for a recovery plan for such an event that occurred (Fisher,
Halibozek, & Green, 2008). They were ill prepared and paid the price. Their
organizations went under.
Emergency plans are only as good as practiced (Fennelly, 2004). An organization
can have the best emergency plans on paper and fail in real life. FEMA was a
good example of an organization that had developed many emergency plans but
never practiced. When Hurricane Katrina, they discovered how their emergency
plans actually failed and the victims were left wondering where was FEMA
(Fisher, Halibozek, & Green, 2008).
Emergency plans need to be practiced and evaluated. This is the only way to
identify deficiencies within the plan and also helps to identify potentially new
problems that may have been overlooked. In the September 11,2001 attack, many
of the lives saved were attributed to emergency plans that had been put into place
and practiced. Even though smoke was in areas, people knew where to go to
attempt to get out. Some of the survivors even attributed their survival to having
practiced evacuation plans on a regular basis prior to the September 11, 2001
event.
Emergency plans are essential in protecting the organization just as much as any
security plan. Emergencies will happen and business must be prepared. If plans
are written and filed without being practiced, the organization and security team is
looking for problems.
Think about this. If I wanted into your secure building and I knew you never
practiced fire evacuations, could you spot me accessing your building after I
initiated the fire alarm and mingled with the mass evacuating crowd of panicked
employees?
Part III
Choose one end of chapter “Important Term” to define “and” explain. In
addition, include an example or illustration with your definition and
explanation.
Chapter 4, page 130 "Full-Scale Exercise"
The nice thing about exercises is that they are scalable. An exercise only needs to
be created and practiced to a level that meets the intent of the event. As a member
of the base Exercise Evaluation Team, I have been part of many variations of
exercises. I have been in drills through full-scale exercises. Full-Scale exercises
are not only the most intense exercises, but the most realistic.
Full-Scale exercises are typically scenario based and will challenge any and all of
a community's emergency services in full operation (Haddow, Bullock, &
Coppola, 2011). This means that there will be live actors, full scale damage, realtime responses, and in many cases real time responses from all of your emergency
agencies.
In a full-scale exercise, a by-stander may actually think that the event is real and
react accordingly. As I stated earlier being on an EET Team, I get to run and
practice these types of scenarios and they do get very real very quickly. In a
recent scenario, we had aircraft with chemicals crash into the local area and
disperse its chemical. For this exercise, we used a real aircraft, smoke generators,
ground burst simulators, actors, decon units, etc. Nothing was simulated. At the
onslaught of the incident, the police and first responders responded on scene and
proceeded as if the events were real. They were in full protective suits because of
the unknown chemicals. The incident commander established and activated all
agencies that would be needed to handle the real event.
We had a medical team that used professional theatrical makeup to dress the
wounds and cuts of the victims. My daughter was part of the exercise and the
glass that was sprouting from her arm was pretty realistic. It was so realistic, that
after her part and she was released, she happen to walk into a store downtown to
get a drink and people thought that she was really hurt until they got up close and
saw the makeup.
It is during full-scale exercises that many of a organizations procedures, agencies,
and leadership are tested. Full-scale exercise will really demonstrate how well
your emergency management plan works and how well your employees will react
to the incident. If they have not practiced their procedures, they will be caught off
guard and a full-scale exercise can really show emergency managers were
weaknesses are within their organizations exist.
As I sated earlier, all services are commonly used and exercised. In the exercise
that my daughter was a victim, they actual scenario was tested in conjunction
with downtown agencies. The pilot of the aircraft (another volunteer) was not
only treated but airlifted out of the area in the local life flight helicopter service.
This allowed the helicopter service to practice their procedures for airlifting
victims out of different landscapes and scenarios.
All of the victims were also gross deconed by the local fire department and
processed through various clean zones until sent to the hospital. The victims are
used to tasks the medical community to check out their procedures. It also allows
other agencies, such as funeral directors, finance, and other agencies to practice
their operational plans in the event of death and injuries to personnel.
while full-scale exercises can expose weaknesses in the organizations overall
emergency operations, they are expensive to operate in cost, manning, and time.
A typical full-scale exercise for us entails well over 300+ personnel, ties up
resources, and often runs into hours and days. All of these factors must be
considered by the organization when conducting a full-scale exercise.
Because of the expense, we often use smaller more targeted exercises to test
specific areas. Once those areas are tested, we then plan out the full-scale exercise
to evaluate the whole organization and its procedures and processes to ensure the
problems identified and corrected within the smaller exercises are truly fixed and
implemented. Full-scale exercises are exercises that should really enhance the
motto "train as you fight, fight as you train".
References:
Fennelly, L. J. (2004). Handbook of Loss Prevention and Crime Prevention (4th
ed.). Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
Fisher, R. J., Halibozek, E., & Green, G. (2008). Introduction to Security (8th
Ed.). Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Florida Department of Transportation. (2007, 4 18). Safety and Security
management Plan (SSMP) for the Central Florida Commuter Rail transit.
Retrieved 11 02, 2011, from http://www.sunrail.com:
http://www.sunrail.com/Documents/228.pdf
Haddow, G. D., Bullock, J. A., & Coppola, D. P. (2011). Introduction to
Emergency Management (4th Ed.). Burlington, MA: ButterworthHeinemann.