The Reality of a Disaster

As we discuss the various ways to manage disasters I think we sometimes loose sight just how overwhelming and confusing one can be in it's initial stages. In an Emergency Operations Center your communication systems are your only direct line to the reality outside that building. So the radio traffic and other forms of communication are your only tool to begin to understand the scope and severity of what your community faces. To try and put together a coherent picture of that reality just from communications traffic is daunting but when it is the scope and size of the Joplin tornado it is overwhelming.

The link is a recording to the Emergency Services radio traffic as the tornado approaches and afterward. It is a unique learning tool for anyone who job is to man an EOC. It is not is real time but the myriad of different reports and messages gives a window into the confusion and at times the desperation of those men and women out on the streets.

This would be an excellent class for any EOC staff. Just play the recording and then discuss what they heard. The various disciplines would be hearing the radio traffic through their own filters and would have different and unique takes on the traffic. It is worth the 36:14 minutes to listen and get some idea of what a disaster sounds like.

The following are a few of the discussion points you could use for training that are heard on the recording. Some of the incidents mentioned, multiple hazardous materials incidents, multiple mass causality sites, multiple people trapped, own personnel trapped, multiple deaths at multiple sites, Joplin radio system down, hospital being evacuated, multiple mutual aid units responding, multiple requests for mutual aid and much more.

Joplin Emergency Service Radio Traffic 5/22/11

Are we planning too much?

The emphasis placed on planning by emergency management today is misplaced. Too much time and effort is put into plans that go unused when a disaster strikes. They go unused not because they are bad plans or the effort put into them was not sufficient. They go unused because they rarely match the realities on the ground after the event and the personnel responsible for implementing that plan cannot improvise to make the plan fit the reality.

The military has a saying "no plan survives first contact with the enemy." I could not agree more and came up with my own saying when I was an emergency manager on the line. No plan survives the first rain bands of a hurricane. Plans are based on a ground truth that changes almost daily in every community. When it come to execute them little is relevant. Try writing a plan for the Joplin tornado where it leveled one third of the community knocked out a fire station, the waste water treatment plant and the drinking water treatment plant. Set those priorities before it happened. It is next to impossible.

The emphasis instead should be on team building and training the Emergency Operations Center staff. If they can be trained to be able to make decisions under the pressure of too little information, not enough resources and not enough time to gather all of the facts then a community can begin to feel as if they are prepared.

Training the men and women who ordinarily do not face such decisions will better prepare a community than any plan. Most of those who man the EOC do not come from emergency response agencies or operational departments like public works. Instead they are used to careful and consensus building non-emergency decision making. They must be prepared to shift to crisis decision making or no matter how good the plan is it will not be effective. They must be prepared to go through the plan and if they must start at G instead of A because everything in between does not make sense then the plan might be useful.

It is the people who will make the difference not the plan. Train the people to make crisis decisions and any plan can be made to work.