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Since our nation’s beginnings,
emergency responders have helped protect the people of the
United States from the effects of natural and manmade disasters.
From the bucket brigades of colonial times to today’s
highly complex, multiagency response community, response workers
have taken action in emergencies to save lives, preserve property,
and protect the public good. The devastating attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001,
cast a powerful new spotlight on the vital role that responders
play in containing and mitigating unexpected crises. Members
of the response community disregarded injuries and fatigue,
and even gave their lives in their effort to reduce the initial
impact of these disasters and bring the situations under control.
The tragic events of September 11 showed that response organizations
are a central component of our homeland security system against
both natural and manmade threats. This renewed reliance on
emergency responders has focused fresh attention on the imperative
to protect these individuals from the hazards inherent in
their work, not just for the good of the community, but of
the nation. While responders should be protected for their
own sakes, their safety is also crucial to the effectiveness
of the response force as a whole. Injuries to individual members
affect their organizations’ ability to perform overall,
both immediately and in the long term. A responder
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injured is not only prevented from assisting in today’s emergency,
but may also be unavailable to respond to an attack tomorrow.
In the military context, this understanding is embodied in the
concepts of force protection and force health protection. In applying
these concepts, the military aims to preserve its force’s
fighting strength by protecting individual servicemen and women
against the threat of enemy action and by taking steps to minimize
the effect of hazards on unit effectiveness, readiness, and morale.
The unprecedented potential for multiple terrorist attacks drives
home the need for comparable thinking in the response community.
Sustainability becomes key: Incidents must be managed with an eye
on ensuring the readiness of response organizations to meet future
challenges.
Major Disasters Present Special Challenges
for Safety Management
Fortunately, disasters of the magnitude of the September 11 events
are rare. Usually emergency responders confront incidents on a comparatively
small scale that can be handled on a local level and pose more limited
safety risks. But a major disaster presents a significant challenge
to a locality, a state, a region, and sometimes even a nation. Responding
to such an incident tests the capacity of responding organizations
and can place large numbers of emergency responders in harm’s
way. Protecting the safety of responders in those situations is
much more difficult.
In contrast to the types of incidents that emergency responders
normally face, major disasters share a number of characteristics
that create unique difficulties for response organizations.1
Large Number of People Affected, Injured, or Killed
While small-scale emergencies involve a few individuals or small
groups of people, major disasters severely affect large numbers
of citizens across communities, cities, or entire regions. The Northridge
earthquake caused more than 60 fatalities and 9,000 injuries and
displaced 17,000 to 18,000 people from their homes [Stratton et
al. 1996]. The attack on the World Trade Center claimed the lives
of more than 2,800 individuals and put many thousands more at risk
[“The Numbers” 2002].
Large Geographic Scale
Most emergency incidents involve only a single building or other
well-defined site. Major disasters, however, often extend over very
large areas. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew left a trail of devastation
that extended over 1,000 square miles [Lewis 1993]. Responders to
the Oklahoma City bombing confronted a rubble pile more than 35
feet deep made up of approximately one-third of the federal building
structure [Oklahoma Department of Civil Emergency Management 2000].
Prolonged Duration
Average emergency response operations are relatively short, lasting
only minutes or hours from first responders’ arrival on scene
to completion of response actions [Study Interviews].2
In contrast, activities in major disasters can stretch into days,
weeks, or even months. Although the total repair and clean up after
Hurricane Andrew lasted much longer, the U.S. military relief operation
lasted for 50 days [Higham and Donnelly 1992]. In New York City
after September 11, 2001, the response was not officially completed
until eight months after the attack [Barry 2002].
Multiple, Highly Varied Hazards
Whereas common emergencies usually present emergency responders
with a limited number of risks, major disasters involve multiple
hazards that can vary widely in nature. The World Trade Center site,
for example, exposed response workers to a complex mixture of physical
and respiratory perils [Lioy and Gochfeld 2002]. Responders to the
Northridge earthquake confronted active fires, collapsing buildings,
and hazardous materials [Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
1994a]. Because of this wide variety, few responders will have experience
with everything they might encounter in the aftermath of a major
disaster.
Wide Range of Needed Capabilities
Major disasters require supplementary response capabilities not
routinely maintained by local response organizations.3
Many natural disasters and major terrorist incidents require extensive
rubble removal and management operations that local response organizations
are not equipped to carry out. FEMA-sponsored urban search and rescue
teams were needed to respond to both the Northridge earthquake and
the September 11 attacks. Such requirements frequently turn the
response effort after a major disaster into a multiagency operation
that can span all levels of government, nongovernmental organizations,
and the private sector.4
Influx of Convergent Volunteers and Supplies
In contrast with smaller emergencies generally handled by a local
response organization, major disasters often attract large numbers
of independent, or “convergent,” volunteers. These volunteers
may be members of other response organizations that come to a disaster
site spontaneously or ordinary citizens who come out of a desire
to help [Maniscalco and Christen 2001].5
Likewise, a major disaster also frequently prompts individuals and
organizations to send large quantities of food and other supplies.
Hurricane Andrew was a prominent example, where the influx of people
and supplies was so overwhelming that responders referred to it
as “the disaster after the disaster” [Study Interviews].
Damage to Infrastructures
While localized disasters leave infrastructures vital to effective
emergency response intact, major disasters can damage or destroy
them. Hurricane Andrew severely dam-aged the local transportation
infrastructure, with road signs destroyed and major roads blocked.
The Northridge earthquake caused numerous ruptures in water mains
and citywide power outages.
Direct Effects on Responder Organizations
Unlike routine incidents, major disasters can directly affect the
operational capacity of response organizations. The emergency responders
lost in the World Trade Center collapse are one tragic example.
Another occurred in Hurricane Andrew where the homes of at least
128 police officers were damaged or destroyed. Many of the officers
reported for duty not knowing what had happened to their families
[Taylor 1992].
Responder Safety Management Is Risk Management
The inherently hazardous nature of any emergency situation necessitates
that safety be approached from a risk management perspective. Rather
than eliminating risk altogether, response managers aim to shield
responders from hazards to the greatest extent possible. When making
decisions, the level of risk in any given action should be weighed
against the potential benefit.6
This process of safety management can be broken down into three
central components, as shown in Figure 1.1:7
- gathering information about the nature of the situation, the
responders at the scene, and the hazards involved
- analyzing response options and potential protective measures
and making decisions
- taking action to implement safety decisions, reduce hazards,
or provide health protection to responders.
These three activities take place in a continuous cycle until the
response effort comes to a close.8
As part of this continuous management effort, safety managers constantly
reexamine and evaluate their efforts to protect responders as operations
at an incident scene continue.9
Figure 1.1
Response Safety Management Cycle |
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RAND MG170-1.1 |
In the course of their routine activities, organizations develop
standard approaches for carrying out these functions. But safety
management during the response to a major disaster is a far larger
and more complex undertaking. Safety management practices that are
well developed and effective for standard response activities will
very likely be insufficient. In short, the highly demanding and
unfamiliar environment after a major disaster makes it difficult,
or even impossible, for individual responder organizations to effectively
perform the three functions of the safety management cycle.
Major disasters create substantial hurdles on the organizational
level as well. For example, the multiagency nature of responses
to major disasters makes safety management significantly more complex.
In an effort of this magnitude, where many different organizations
unfamiliar with each other’s operating practices are working
side by side, a new set of secondary hazards can arise from the
response operation itself. These secondary hazards, such as those
generated by fire or law enforcement activities occurring simultaneously
with ongoing construction or utility operations, can pose serious
risks to all involved responders. In addition, the management problems
arising from operations involving many different organizations can
also result in communications failures, logistical problems, and
other conflicts that can directly or indirectly impact responder
safety. These only compound the broad range of primary hazards stemming
directly from the disaster.
The Response Community Recognizes a Pressing
Need for Improved Safety Management
The events of September 11 brought these safety challenges to the
fore with an urgency that the emergency response community, and
the nation, had not known before. As one of many initiatives that
took place in the disaster’s aftermath, the National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) joined with the Science
and Technology Policy Institute (S&TPI), formerly managed by
the RAND Corporation, to organize a conference in New York City
on protecting emergency workers during responses to conventional
and biological terrorist attacks [Jackson et al. 2002]. During the
discussions, participants frequently expressed deep concern over
safety management practices during major crises in general. The
research presented in this report is a direct outgrowth of that
concern.
In the following pages, we offer recommendations that response
organizations can put in place at both the functional and organizational
levels to improve safety management in future response operations.
In accordance with an all-hazards perspective, we consider the full
range of natural and manmade disasters to ensure that the approach
we suggest is flexible and comprehensive.
Tomorrow’s Success Depends on Today’s Preparations
The emotionally charged, chaotic environment in the immediate aftermath
of a major disaster is not the time to start working on procedures
or guidelines to improve responder safety. Strategic planning and
management well before the event, along with standardized systems
and procedures, are key. Preparedness is the crux of effectiveness.
The distinctive characteristics of major disasters make the case
for preparedness especially strong. The multiple hazards inherent
in situations of this magnitude call for a flexibility from the
response community that can only come through preplanning. That
major disasters take so many different forms underscores this point.
The response community will inevitably be called upon to carry out
substantially different activities—that pose highly varied
hazards—as different crises arise. Effective safety management
requires having the capabilities and resources in place to deal
with this variety.
In addition, because major disasters are rare and the safety risks
responders face may be unprecedented, response organizations get
little to no practice managing them. In this context, scenario-based
planning and training assume added value. Similarly, it is also
important to build safety management practices that can meet the
needs of disasters into organizations’ standard operating
procedures to the extent possible. While use of safety management
practices during smaller-scale events will never be directly analogous
to applying them in disasters, the experience will nonetheless make
it more likely they can be effectively applied when they are needed
most. Although no disaster situation is entirely predictable, the
more prepared safety managers are to deal with expected hazards,
the more attention and energy they will be able to devote to handling
unanticipated issues as they arise.
Finally, the fact that major disasters demand a multiagency response
operation makes a common understanding of the needs of different
organizations—and the parts different response organizations
can play in safety management—a precondition for successfully
protecting responders. The recommendations we present in this report
focus on the changes organizations can begin making today—both
individually and collaboratively—to lay the groundwork for
better serving responders’ safety needs and managing multiagency
safety efforts in the future.
Organization of the Report
Chapter Two describes study methodology. Chapter Three explains
disaster management and safety within disaster management systems.
Chapters Four to Six discuss the study’s functional safety
management recommendations in detail, organized according to the
decisionmaking cycle described above. Chapter Seven presents the
central organizational finding of the study—that providing
effective safety management during major disaster response requires
an integrated, multiagency and multiorganizational approach. Chapter
Eight discusses preparedness and presents suggestions for the way
forward. Appendixes A and B include a list of the interviewees and
the workshop participants, as well as the workshop agenda.
1 For a comprehensive list of potential disasters,
see NFPA, 2000b.
2 All citations of “Study Interviews” are
to not-for-attribution interviews held with members of the response
community between November 2002 and March 2003.
3 See Auf der Heide, 1989, p. 34, for further discussion.
4 Throughout the text, we adopt the term “multiagency”
to describe disaster response operations. This term is intended
to convey the involvement of not just many government agencies but
nongovernmental and private organizations as well.
5 Operating outside of the established command or management
structure, generally termed “freelancing,” is widely
criticized in the responder community.
6 See NFPA, 2000a, for a more detailed discussion of
risk management.
7 Command of any incident “is essentially about
information: getting it, judging its value, processing it into useful
form, acting on it, and sharing it with others, so it percolates
throughout the whole command structure” [Smitherman 2000].
This statement applies equally to safety management specifically
and forms the basis of our model.
8 This type of basic model is similar to many other
decisionmaking models in the safety [NFPA 2000a], military [Rielage
2001], and other contexts.
9 It should be noted that the safety management process
described here focuses on the activities of response safety managers
during response operations. Although the cyclic nature of the safety
management process shown above does point out that safety efforts
must be constantly evaluated during an incident, there is also a
learning process that must occur after an incident is concluded
to improve preparedness for future incidents.
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