Functional Capability Analysis
To ensure adequate
emergency preparedness, emergency managers should analyze their emergency
response organization’s capability to perform its basic emergency response
functions. Historically, these functions have been categorized as agent
generated and response generated demands (Quarantelli, 1981a). The agent
generated demands arise from the specific mechanisms by which a hazard agent
causes casualties and damage, whereas response generated demands arise from
organizing and implementing the emergency response. Lindell and Perry (1992,
1996b) elaborated Quarantelli’s typology by drawing on federal emergency
planning guidance (National Response Team, 1987; US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission/Federal Emergency Management Agency, 1980) to define four basic
emergency response functions. These are emergency assessment, hazard
operations, and population protection (which are agent generated demands) and
incident management (which encompasses the response generated demands). Emergency assessment consists of those
diagnoses of past and present conditions and prognoses of future conditions
that guide the emergency response. Hazard
operations refers to expedient hazard mitigation actions that emergency
personnel take to limit the magnitude or duration of disaster impact (e.g.,
sandbagging a flooding river or patching a leaking railroad tank car). Population protection refers to
actions—such as sheltering in-place, evacuation, and mass immunization—that
protect people from hazard agents. Incident
management consists of the activities by which the human and physical
resources used to respond to the emergency are mobilized and directed to
accomplish the goals of the emergency response organization. The operational
aspects of implementing these functions will be addressed in more detail in the
next chapter, but rest of this section will address the actions that must be
taken to prepare to implement them. These preparedness actions involve
analyzing the disaster demands to identify the personnel, procedures,
facilities, equipment, materials, and supplies the emergency response
organization will need.
Emergency Assessment
Preparedness for emergency assessment requires the
emergency response organization to detect
and classify an environmental threat. Some natural hazards—such as many
flash floods and earthquakes—are detected and classified by local agencies.
Other natural hazards—such as hurricanes, tornadoes, major floods, and
tsunamis—are detected and classified by federal agencies. Moreover, incidents
at fixed site facilities are usually detected and classified by plant
personnel, whereas transportation incidents are detected by carrier personnel,
local emergency responders (e.g., police and fire), and sometimes by passers-by.
The local emergency manager should review the
community HVA to identify all hazards to which the community is exposed in
order to determine how detection is likely to be achieved and transmitted to
the appropriate authorities. Locally detected hazards require the emergency
manager to ensure the necessary detection systems (e.g., stream and rain gauges
for flash floods) are established and maintained. For hazards detected by other
sources, the emergency manager must ensure that a report of hazard detection
can be called in to a community warning point that is staffed around the clock,
usually the jurisdiction’s dispatch center.
Another important aspect of emergency assessment is hazard monitoring, which requires continuous
awareness of the current status of the hazard agent as well as projections of
its future status. The technology for performing hazard monitoring varies by
hazard agent. In many cases, continuing information about the hazard agent is
provided by the same source as the one that provided the initial hazard
detection. For example, the National
Hurricane Center
provides hurricane updates every six hours (or more frequently, if needed).
Similarly, plant personnel should provide continuing information about a
hazardous materials release.
Environmental
monitoring
is also needed when the geographical areas at risk are determined by
atmospheric processes. As noted in Chapter 5, toxic chemicals, radiological
materials, and volcanic ash are carried downwind, so changes in wind direction,
wind speed, and atmospheric stability must be monitored to determine if the
area at risk will change over time. Thus, procedures must be established and
equipment acquired to obtain current weather information and forecasts of future
weather conditions. Environmental monitoring is also needed for hazmat spills
into waterways because, for example, the speed and direction of ocean currents
determine which sections of shoreline will be affected.
Moreover, damage
assessment is needed to identify the boundaries of the risk area and
initiate the process of requesting a Presidential Disaster Declaration. Here
also, personnel, procedures, and equipment must be designated to perform this
function. Finally, population monitoring
and assessment is needed to identify the size of the population at risk if
the number of people in the risk area varies over time (e.g., tourists present
in the summer but not in the winter). This requires emergency managers to
maintain calendars of major events, such as festivals and athletic contests,
that bring large numbers of people into their jurisdictions. It also
necessitates working with schools, hospitals, and nursing home administrators
to monitor the progress of special facility evacuations and with traffic
engineers to monitor evacuation routes for risk area residents.
Hazard Operations
Preparedness actions for hazard operations vary
significantly from one hazard agent to another. In some cases, hazard
operations require equipment that is normally available within the community.
For example, preparedness for structural fires, conflagrations, and wildfires
mostly requires equipment that local fire departments use in routine methods of
hazard source control. However, some
hazard agents require special preparation. For example, chemical incidents
might require special foams to suppress vapor generation. Area protection works are another type of
hazard operations that is best illustrated by elevating levees during floods.
The large number of sandbags needed for such operations also requires advance
preparation. Moreover, some hazard agents such as earthquakes require special
preparation for postimpact operations to implement building construction practices and contents protection practices. For example, heavy construction
equipment is needed to stabilize buildings, extricate victims, and protect
building contents from further damage.
Population Protection
Preparedness for population protection sometimes
requires emergency managers to develop procedures for protective action selection. For some hazard agents, there is only
one recommended protective action. People threatened by tornadoes or volcanic
ashfall should shelter in-place whereas those threatened by lava flows, inland
floods, storm surges, and tsunamis should evacuate. In other cases, such as
toxic chemical and radiological releases, the appropriate protective action
depends on the situation (Lindell & Perry, 1992; Sorensen, Shumpert &
Vogt, 2004). Consequently, communities exposed to such hazards should develop
procedures for protective action selection in advance.
Similarly, emergency managers should devise procedures
for warning the risk area population
for each of the different hazards identified in the community HVA. In slow
onset incidents, such as main stem floods, there is likely to be adequate time
for mechanisms such as face-to-face warnings. However, rapid onset incidents
such as toxic chemical releases might require the acquisition of siren systems.
Emergency managers should also prepare for search
and rescue by considering whether special training and equipment is needed
for swiftwater rescue from floods, heavy rescue from buildings collapsed by
earthquakes, and other specialized circumstances. Impact zone access control/security, hazard exposure control, and emergency medical care require special
protective equipment for emergency responders in CBR hazards so emergency
managers should prepare for these hazards as well.
Incident Management
Because incident management activities are directed
toward the response generated demands of an incident, preparedness for this
function varies relatively little from one hazard agent to another. Agency notification and mobilization
requires the acquisition of equipment such as pagers and the development of
procedures such as the designation of watch officers to ensure that key
personnel are notified rapidly. Mobilization
of emergency facilities and equipment is achieved by acquiring critical
documents (e.g., maps, plans, and procedures) and storing these in close proximity
to the room that will be activated as the EOC (if the jurisdiction does not
have a permanent installation). Communication
and documentation are supported by the acquisition of radios, telephone
systems, and personal computers as well as the establishment of procedures for
message routing and recording. Emergency managers prepare for many of the
emergency response organization’s specific activities such as analysis/planning, internal direction and control, logistics, finance/administration,
and external coordination by
identifying the ways in which personnel will perform tasks or have reporting
relationships that differ from the ones they encounter in normal conditions.
The emergency manager can work with personnel assigned to the emergency
response organization to devise organization charts, task checklists, telephone
lists, and other job performance aids that will assist them in their emergency
duties. Preparedness for public
information can be facilitated by identifying a joint information center (JIC),
providing extra phone lines for media personnel, and developing basic
background information about the jurisdiction, its hazards, and the emergency
response organization.
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