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In developing recommendations
to improve safety management during the response to a major
disaster, the research team initially focused on the three
phases of the safety management cycle. Yet as the research
progressed, we realized that providing better ways for individual
response organizations to gather information, to analyze risk
and make decisions, and to take action would not be enough
to fully address the safety management needs during large-scale
operations.1 Rather, the
complexity and demands of post-disaster environments call
for solutions based on improved coordination among the multiple
organizations that become involved in major disaster response
operations.
Nothing demonstrated this better than the September 11, 2001,
response operations at the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
What we learned from those examples led us to the central
organizational finding of this study: The emergency response
community should put in place structures and preparedness
efforts that will formalize an integrated, incident-wide approach
to
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safety management at major disaster response operations. Just as
a key goal of the ICS is to facilitate integration of many operational
assets as the demands of a response operation increase, mechanisms
must be available to allow safety management efforts to scale up
as well.
Indeed, the solutions to key problems in each functional phase
of the safety management cycle are inherently inter organizational,
relying on multi agency safety efforts:
- Gathering Information
- Required hazard monitoring capabilities may reside in different
response organizations.
- Information on responder accountability, training, equipment,
and health status information must come from many separate
organizations.
- Analyzing Options and Making Decisions
- Technical expertise to assess hazards must frequently be
drawn from multiple responding organizations.
- Effective decision making requires coordination of equipment
and hazard mitigation options brought to the incident by all
responding organizations.
- Taking Action
- Difficulties in uniform safety enforcement can be addressed
only via interagency coordination and agreement.
- Sustainability measures to protect responder health must
be applied across organizational boundaries.
- Management of human and material safety resources must be
coordinated among multiple responding organizations.
Only by building the capability of response units and agencies
to coordinate at the organizational level can they be most prepared
to successfully manage the functional challenges they face.
Developing such an integrated approach requires a transition from
viewing safety management as an activity primarily carried out by
individual organizations alone to understanding it as a multi
agency function within the ICS that can scale up to meet the
needs of complex disaster response operations. This transition must
encompass organizations across the full range of the disaster response
community —all levels of government, nongovernmental groups,
and the private sector. In addition, recognizing the high-pressure
and severely time-constrained post-disaster environment, this functional
approach to safety must facilitate rapid initiation of multi agency
coordination and safety management activities.
Benefits of an Integrated, Incident-Wide
Safety Management Approach
The capability to draw on the safety resources of many organizations
and effectively apply them to safety management for the overall
incident would provide several important opportunities to better
meet the safety needs of all involved responders:
- access to the specialized safety capabilities of multiple organizations
- a strategic approach to safety management
- a mechanism to address inherently multi agency safety issues
- a route to take advantage of diverse response capabilities.
Access to the Specialized Safety Capabilities of Multiple
Organizations
When organizations from different response disciplines come together
at major disaster operations, they bring significantly different
levels of safety management capability. Such differences in expertise
and equipment can result in safety shortfalls when organizations
without necessary expertise or equipment are “on their own”
to manage responder safety. However, when safety management efforts
are coordinated among multiple agencies, such differences represent
an opportunity to draw on organizations’ relative strengths
to bolster protection for responders overall.
Many of the different organizations involved in carrying out response
tasks at an incident scene bring not only operational capabilities,
but safety expertise and resources to the operation. Government
agencies at all levels, nongovernmental organizations, and private-sector
entities with safety-related responsibilities at the scene may bring
additional safety resources and knowledge.2
Examples include
- law enforcement and intelligence expertise on potential threats
and security hazards after terrorist events
- fire department expertise with thermal hazards and hazardous
materials operations
- public health organizations’ capabilities in disease surveillance
and health monitoring
- Departments of Defense and Energy expertise on nuclear, radiological,
and other weapons of mass destruction
- utility, transportation, or construction capabilities in their
areas of specialization and responsibility
- federal, state, local or other organizations’ expertise
to assess hazards and measure environmental and occupational exposures.
It would be impractical for individual organizations to maintain
the equipment and expertise needed to cope with all the hazards
that could arise during a response to a major disaster. An integrated,
incident-wide approach to safety makes better safety management
resources accessible than would be possible for organizations operating
alone.
A Strategic Approach to Safety Management
Just as the Incident Commander needs to take a strategic viewpoint
of a disaster operation, a safety manager must be able to consider
safety needs from an overall, strategic perspective. If the individuals
responsible for managing responder safety are too close to or absorbed
in the details of an operation, it is much less likely that they
will be able to fully understand and address the risks at a complex
disaster scene. This can make it difficult or impossible to make
good safety decisions and meet worker safety needs. Similarly, if
safety managers cannot take a long-term view of safety concerns
—for example, anticipating response safety concerns and projecting
safety requirements —safety management will also suffer.
For the safety manager of an individual organization, the complexity
and operational demands of a major disaster make it exceedingly
difficult to get this overall perspective or to project future safety
needs. But in the context of an integrated approach, the additional
expertise, capabilities, and resources that can be brought to bear
on safety issues can help build and maintain this more strategic
approach to the incident. By delegating specific tasks—such
as technical monitoring of hazards, equipment logistics, or accounting
for personnel—to the right experts or organizations, safety
managers can focus their attention on building an overall understanding
of the incident safety needs, providing better support to the Incident
Commander on the safety components of operational decisions, and
anticipating safety and health concerns that may arise as the incident
evolves.
A Mechanism to Address Inherently Multi agency Safety Issues
A coordinated safety management effort provides a mechanism for
sharing necessary safety information among response organizations.
This coordination is particularly important to address the possibility
that response activities can produce new and unfamiliar safety hazards
for other responders.3 Similarly,
integrating multi agency activities can improve the effectiveness
of safety measures by allowing better coordination of safety logistics
efforts. Such integration would reduce the chance of duplicative
resource requests from separate organizations, a situation often
observed in major disaster responses, and potentially make it possible
to better allocate safety resources across the response overall.
An integrated approach to safety management can also make it possible
to begin addressing a potentially more serious problem—the
difficulty in uniformly implementing and, if necessary, enforcing
safety policies across the disaster response operation. By bringing
together representatives from relevant organizations, integrating
different organizations’ safety management efforts provides
a route to build consensus on safety policies and procedures among
all response organizations. Such an incident- level consensus would
enable more uniform implementation of safety measures across an
incident, even in the absence of centralized safety enforcement
authority. If incident-wide enforcement measures become necessary
to ensure use of critical safety measures, an integrated approach
provides a way to develop the necessary multi agency commitment
to put them in place.
A Route to Take Advantage of Diverse Response Capabilities
Responders from different disciplines come to an event with unique
types of expertise. In addition, organizations that more frequently
face particular types of disasters —for example, responders
from areas that experience specific natural disasters —develop
expertise in responding to those sorts of incidents. Specialized
expertise may also reside in response organizations from areas with
elevated risk of particular events—such as high-profile cities
at higher risk of terrorist attack—because of increased preparedness
or participation in exercises aimed at those events. Accordingly,
particular response units may be significantly more qualified to
operate safely in particular risk environments.4
An integrated approach to safety management permits decision makers
to draw upon this diversity to ensure that responders are assigned
those tasks they are especially qualified and equipped to perform
safely, lowering the safety risks for other responders.5
Implementing Integrated, Incident-Wide
Safety Management
Responders to recent large-scale disasters have recognized the
need to integrate their efforts in order to address the complex
safety concerns of emergency workers. At both the Pentagon and World
Trade Center, the practical difficulties associated with managing
responder safety led response organizations to implement ad hoc
arrangements to coordinate their safety efforts. Responders at the
World Trade Center, for example, formed a large safety team, held
daily safety-focused meetings, and brought safety experts into incident
command meetings [Study Interviews]. This safety team initially
instituted an accident prevention plan for the site and eventually
developed a comprehensive safety and health management plan with
input from the four primary contractors and 26 federal, state, and
local agencies operating at the Trade Center site [Vincoli et al.
2002, 25].
Although these ad hoc efforts broke important ground by recognizing
the need to implement an integrated, incident-wide approach to safety
management, they also had significant shortcomings. First, because
these expedient arrangements were developed during the course of
the response, they took time to put in place. During the days before
the structures were set up, the safety efforts of responding organizations
had no effective mechanism for integration. In general, depending
on the specific hazards involved in an incident, such delays could
have significant consequences for the safety of responders. Second,
improvised groups also may overlook the involvement of important,
but less obvious, sources of expertise needed for managing responder
safety and health. For example, it was not always fully clear to
responders at the World Trade Center disaster how the participants
in the safety meetings were determined. It sometimes seemed to require
significant “negotiation” to gain access to the meetings
[Study Interviews].
In addition, some responders perceived it as a weakness that these
safety management structures existed outside the formal ICS. Interviewees
indicated that it was not always clear how effectively the deliberations
of the safety committee were connected with the ICS. When safety
is managed by an ad hoc group, one interviewee commented, it is
less clear “how decisions are actually being made,”
and both the perceived validity of the decisions and accountability
of the decision makers can be weakened [Study Interviews].
Although these ad hoc efforts were valuable, they also showed the
very real need for the emergency response community to plan and
practice integration and coordination mechanisms well before a disaster
occurs. Doing so requires a transition from viewing safety management
as a role primarily carried out by organizations individually to
viewing safety as a formalized multi agency function within
the ICS that can scale up to meet the needs of complex disaster
response operations. Toward this end, we present the following recommendations.
Recommendation 7.1—Build an Integrated Safety Function into
the Incident Command System
To ensure that safety management is closely linked to overall incident
management, an organizational structure must be defined within the
ICS for an integrated safety management effort. In the standard
ICS, the ISO is part of the Command Staff (see Figure
3.2). No information collected for this study suggested a compelling
rationale to position a multi agency safety function differently.
But we recommend that safety management be approached not as a staff
position but as a scalable multi agency function. In fact,
a precedent exists for just such an integrated function on the management
staff. The ICS includes a Public Information Officer supporting
the Incident Commander for information dissemination [FEMA 1998].
In recognition of the need for coordinated release of information
at large-scale, multi agency incidents, this role can be upgraded
to a Joint Information Center (JIC) that integrates the public information
staffs and efforts of all involved agencies [U.S. National Response
Team, not dated]. Replacing the single ISO with an integrated, incident-wide
safety function is analogous to replacing a single Public Information
Officer with the JIC.
Disaster response operations often involve multiple levels of response
management, including government emergency management organizations
at the local, state, or federal level. Development of an integrated
approach to safety management must therefore also address the potential
safety roles for these different management levels. These additional
levels of response management often do not take a direct role in
safety management [Study Interviews; Study Workshop]. Because of
their overarching viewpoint and inherently multi agency approach,
however, they could be uniquely positioned to make significant contributions
to an incident-wide approach to responder safety. Specifically,
responders suggested that emergency operations centers or the command
centers established by federal response agencies during major responses
could take on management and coordination of broader, overarching
safety issues thereby shifting some safety demands from incident
scene safety managers.6
To organize the diverse safety resources and responders coming
to a disaster scene, an internal organization must be defined for
the integrated safety function. The ICS overall is divided into
four sections (see Figure 3.1): Operations,
Logistics, Planning, and Administration/Finance. This division,
and the additional structures defined within each section, allows
incoming resources to “plug into” the appropriate part
of the operational effort. The integrated safety function needs
a similar internal structure to organize safety assets drawn from
multiple organizations.
Elements of this internal structure should be common for all disasters.
For example, it is reasonable to assume that an integrated safety
function would need a hazard monitoring sub function to organize
all the resources and responders involved in assessment activities.
Other common sub functions could include the following: personnel
accountability, safety equipment logistics (in coordination with
the ICS Logistics section), safety planning and forecasting (in
coordination with the ICS Planning section), and responder medical
care/health maintenance [see Morris 2001].7
Within these sub functions, specific roles and tasks will vary among
different types of disasters. For example, protecting responders
after a large-scale structural collapse will likely require significant
monitoring for airborne hazards; safety management after a major
flood may require greater attention to waterborne contaminants.
However, starting from a common organizational template will facilitate
efforts to accommodate disaster-specific differences in safety needs.8
Such organizational templates are especially critical since the
earliest stages of most disaster response operations will be handled
predominantly at the local level.
For safety management to function well later in the response, local
responders must put structures in place that can scale up as the
number of responding organizations increases. How successful they
are in beginning an effective, integrated safety management effort
will significantly influence the potential success of safety management
for the entire incident.
Recommendation 7.2—As Part of Preparedness Efforts, Coordinate
Plans for Implementing Safety Management
Beyond necessary management structures, effectively carrying out
integrated safety management requires multi agency preparedness
efforts to define how responder safety needs will be addressed in
the difficult and high-pressure conditions after a major disaster.
Successfully putting into practice an integrated approach to incident
safety management requires
- defining requirements for, and sources of, safety assets and
expertise
- ensuring that reinforcing safety assets will be able to “plug
into” an integrated effort
- defining management and coordination processes.
Defining Requirements for, and Sources of, Safety Assets
and Expertise.
Planning efforts must identify the safety capabilities, technical
expertise, and other resources needed to perform the necessary roles
and tasks for effective safety management. Defining these needs
before the event occurs is particularly important because after
a disaster, any confusion about what resources are needed and where
to obtain them can significantly delay implementation of safety
management and hinder responder protection.
Necessary safety resources and expertise will clearly differ among
disaster types. For example, although experts on radiation effects
and specific protective equipment would be important after a radiological
event, a tornado response would require significantly different
knowledge and supplies. Determining the likely safety needs for
particular disaster types is clearly a critical part of multi agency
planning at all levels of government.9
Beyond such disaster-specific requirements, study discussions did
highlight several specialties that could be broadly valuable for
a range of different disasters. Public health is one discipline
cited as particularly useful and often not well connected to response
management [Study Workshop]. Responders also said that medical expertise
is often disconnected from safety decision making [Study Workshop].10
In addition to identifying necessary safety assets, study discussions
also indicated that better mechanisms are needed to enable responders
to call on these outside sources. Among operational responders at
the state and local levels, this problem was generally framed in
terms of not knowing “who to call” to gain access to
particular types of capabilities or resources for different disaster
events.11
To the extent possible, the agencies that will provide particular
capabilities and carry out specific safety management tasks should
be defined in multi agency preparedness planning. During project
interviews, for example, responders pointed out that confusion over
what organization was responsible for which tasks risks duplication
of effort while other safety needs go unmet. Such “prescripted”
mission assignments can speed response and also minimize the effect
of damage to communications or other infrastructures on responding
to the disaster.12
Once necessary safety capabilities and designated sources have
been defined, this information needs to be captured in checklists,
flowcharts, contact lists, and decision aids to assist responders
in implementing safety management after a disaster. A common understanding
of safety needs and where to obtain them is a prerequisite for integrating
safety efforts. Such shared management tools that help build this
common understanding across response organizations at all levels
of government could be especially valuable. In addition, such tools
help ensure that all responders have rapid access to the information
they need to effectively initiate safety management after an event
occurs.13
Ensuring That Reinforcing Safety Assets Will Be Able to
“Plug into” an Integrated Effort.
In preparing for integrated safety management, response organizations
must take steps to ensure that external organizations have a safety
management structure to “plug into” when they arrive
on scene. If such a structure is not in place when other response
organizations become involved, they may initiate their own strategies
for safety management and, having done so, become more difficult
to integrate into a coordinated effort.
At the beginning of a disaster response operation, local agencies
initiate safety management based on their standard operating procedures.
Just as a decision must be made to scale up the ICS—as it
becomes clear that larger numbers of resources or multiple organizations
are needed for a major incident—a decision must also be made
on when to expand safety management. The decision making criteria
and process for scaling up the safety management function must be
included in preparedness activities to ensure a smooth transition
to an integrated management approach.14
It is also necessary for external organizations to come to the
scene prepared to “plug into” an integrated safety function.
Participating groups must have appropriately trained individuals
as part of their response to contribute to safety management. Depending
on the role of the organization within the safety function, the
characteristics of that individual or those individuals might differ.
Participants in study discussions indicated that some responding
organizations do not include designated “safety representatives”
in their planning, making it much more difficult to connect them
to safety management [Study Interviews; Study Workshop].15
Defining Management and Coordination Processes.
Making the right connections between first responders and external
safety resources is an important initial strategy for safety management
coordination. However, the nature of disaster situations makes it
impossible to plan for every eventuality. As a response operation
continues, management processes must be in place to bring the right
technical expertise into decision making, ensure that the practical
needs of all involved responders are included in risk management,
allow reallocation of safety tasks to address changing circumstances
or improve effectiveness, and allow effective implementation or
enforcement of safety policies. For the operational components of
a disaster response, this dynamic coordination among different response
organizations is a primary role of the Incident Commander.16
A similar coordinating authority structure within the safety function
is needed for effective integrated safety management.
Preparedness efforts must include development of management processes
that can effectively link the efforts of multiple safety-relevant
organizations during response operations. For example, there currently
is no consensus in the response community regarding the best means
for safety decision making in multi agency response operations or
how issues such as safety enforcement should be addressed for complex
disaster scenes.17 It is clear,
however, that the high-pressure and time limited environment that
exists after a disaster is not amenable to addressing such difficult
issues.18 As a result, these
questions should be included in planning efforts so that consensus
can be built on appropriate ways to address these problems.
There is a range of potential organizational structures that could
be used to manage an integrated, multi agency safety function. Although
not comprehensive, three examples are illustrative of the variety
of options that exist: (1) augmenting the capabilities of the Incident
Safety Officer within the ICS, (2) broadly inclusive safety management
based on the approach developed in the September 11, 2001, responses,
and (3) safety management based on the concept of Unified Command
in operational response management.
Current strategies to address safety needs during major incidents
build on safety management processes developed for routine emergency
response. Within the context of the ICS, these strategies provide
ways to augment the capabilities of an Incident Safety Officer to
address larger incident scenes and more complex problems. These
strategies include providing the Incident Safety Officer with assistants19
and creating a “Safety” section within the Incident
Command Staff to more significantly increase the response resources
devoted to safety.20 Each
of these approaches increases the resources and expertise dedicated
to safety activities at large-scale operations. In addition, by
preserving a centralized authority for safety (either the Incident
Safety Officer or the head of the Safety section), decision making
is simplified.
The focus of these approaches is not multi agency coordination,
however. In literature sources on emergency incident safety and
in project discussions, it was suggested that drawing assistant
Incident Safety Officers from different response organizations could
provide some multi agency involvement in safety management.21
Assuming that all response organizations with relevant safety expertise
and resources are amenable to this model—responders acting
as assistants to a central ISO or Safety section manager from one
organization—this approach could be successful.
Taking the safety committees formed during the September 11, 2001,
responses as an example, a second, more inclusive model for integrated
safety management could be utilized where a larger number of organizations
are directly involved in discussion and decision making During project
interviews, a significant number of responders were positive about
the way these safety committees linked a wide variety of organizations.
Because of the lack of clear management and authority relationships,
however, others indicated that they did not allow rapid decision
making and were not sufficient to coordinate the safety activities
of the involved organizations.
A third option identified during the study draws on the ICS concept
of Unified Command as a model for safety management.22
In a Unified Command, organizations with legal or jurisdictional
responsibilities for an incident form a management team to allocate
resources and make decisions for the incident. A safety analogue
of a Unified Command team could bring a more limited number of organizations
with particular safety responsibilities or critical knowledge into
decision making Like an operational Unified Command, other safety-related
organizations would provide support to the unified safety team.
Such a structure could be useful for integration if multiple organizations
have specific statutory or other responsibilities for safety issues
during disaster response.
When considering models for an integrated safety effort, it is
clear that there are decision making and managements trade-offs
as the number of participants in the effort increases. Because of
the time and effort that can be required to develop consensus among
large groups, direct involvement of too many individuals
in management decision making could reduce the ability of the safety
function to act decisively in rapidly evolving response conditions.
The need to involve specialized organizational expertise in management
must therefore be weighed against the increased complexity of making
decisions among larger numbers of individuals.
The exact structure for an integrated safety management function
remains to be determined during implementation efforts. It is clear
that the legal responsibilities of different organizations may affect
the permissibility of various management options. For example, some
approaches may not be consistent with the legal or operational requirements
of environmental, regulatory, or other agencies at the local, state,
or federal level. Furthermore, because of the responsibilities and
legal requirements that all organizations have for protecting their
members and because of differences among jurisdictions or geographic
areas, some centralized models of safety management may be problematic
for individual responding organizations. These potential legal and
practical constraints suggest that pilot testing of candidate safety
management models is needed to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses
for different operational situations and local circumstances.
Recommendation 7.3—Develop a Group of Highly Trained Safety
Managers to Facilitate Coordination at Major Incidents
Although integrated safety management focuses on multi agency cooperation,
effective organizational integration often requires key individuals
to initiate and oversee the required coordination. One key role
of an effective Incident Commander is serving as a bridge among
separate organizations. We found that safety managers serving a
similar role are needed to initiate and support multi agency coordination.
We have labeled these individuals “disaster safety managers.”
Because of the significant interagency component of disaster safety
management, it is rare for individuals to gain the necessary “crosscutting”
management and subject matter expertise in the course of their routine
experience [Study Interviews]. Safety specialists from the fire
service, law enforcement, or health organizations are knowledgeable
about the safety needs of their own organizations; however, they
generally do not develop the needed understanding of the safety
requirements of other response disciplines or the management skills
needed for very large multi agency operations.23
Although the specifics could vary based on individuals’ backgrounds,
disaster safety managers need to possess expertise in a range of
areas, including
- significant expertise in coordinating multi agency operations
- general knowledge of likely and potential hazards across a range
of contingencies and responder types
- information on safety resources and their availability
- hazard assessment
- decision support
- human resources and equipment for safety
- understanding of the processes and requirements to call on external
capabilities
- knowledge of relevant decision making criteria for managing
responder safety
- experience operating within Incident Command Systems.
By possessing a broad-based understanding of disaster situations,
these managers not only would have a working knowledge of the safety
issues involved in most incidents, but would also know when supplementary
technical expertise was required. Perhaps most important, placing
an individual with significant multi agency coordination expertise
in the Safety function is critical to promote coordination and integration
of the safety-related efforts of all organizations involved in a
response.
To ensure that disaster safety managers possess all the necessary
expertise included above, curricula need to be developed addressing
the specific skills and knowledge necessary for managers to carry
out their roles. Drawing on the example of the wildland fire community,
multiple levels of qualifications for safety managers might be devised,
recognizing that different levels of knowledge and experience are
needed for incidents of increasing size [Study Workshop; National
Wildfire Coordinating Group 2000]. Because the disaster safety manager
must serve the needs of all the responders involved in an incident,
the contents of the curricula must be developed and validated with
input from organizations across the responder community. Similarly,
participation in joint exercises is important for these individuals
to build their management and coordination expertise.
Within the responder community, there are strong precedents for
maintaining specialized resources that can be called upon to assist
during incidents that go beyond local capabilities. In the responses
studied for this work, the roles of US&R Task Forces, Forest
Service Incident Management Teams, and specialized medical teams
were highlighted [Study Interviews; Study Workshop]. Members of
such a national body of disaster safety managers could similarly
be drawn from experienced and senior personnel identified across
the emergency response community (e.g., emergency management, fire
service, law enforcement, public health, public works, state or
federal response organizations, and others). Individuals serving
as part of this group could remain in their existing response organizations
but would be provided with necessary training and support to participate
in major disaster exercises.24
Ideally, part-time salary support would also be provided to allow
these safety managers to carry out ongoing planning and coordination
activities among response organizations in their regions that go
beyond their duties in their home organizations.
To ensure that one or more of these individuals could arrive rapidly
at any major disaster, a small number of safety managers could be
trained in each state. In the event of a major incident, individuals
could be deployed to provide assistance based on their proximity
and familiarity with the affected jurisdictions as well as their
expertise in the particular types of hazards that are present. Depending
on the specific situation and the wishes of the local response organizations
involved in the disaster, these individuals could either adopt a
leading or core supporting role for safety management when they
arrive at the incident.
Although the information developed in this study indicated the
need for a group of highly capable disaster safety managers, it
did not address the mechanics of how such a resource should be put
in place. While some federally managed assets such as US&R and
Incident Management Teams could be a model for such a resource,
it does not necessarily follow that such a group would be built
by the federal government. Indeed, mechanisms could be devised at
the state, regional, or national level.25
It is also straightforward to envision models by which response
community organizations—through standard-setting and coordinated-implementation
activities —could contribute to putting the necessary capabilities
in place. However, because of the need for uniformity in these managers’
capabilities and expertise, if this group is not built in a centralized
way, any separate efforts will have to be well coordinated.
Recommendation 7.4—Improve Joint Exercises and Training by
Incorporating Realistic Safety and Health Issues
It is broadly accepted in the emergency response community that,
to be effective at an incident, organizations must train and exercise
their capabilities in preparation. However, responders indicated
that, because of the operational focus of most training and disaster
response exercises, safety management is seldom sufficiently addressed
during these activities. In many, safety concerns are included as
a “footnote” to the operational focus of the exercise.
Other exercises also tend to simplify the safety and health problems
for decision makers by deliberately or inadvertently alerting the
participants in advance to the types of disaster problems they will
be facing. This is in marked contrast to real disasters where the
first critical safety concern is determining the nature of the event
and the hazards involved. In addition, bringing together multiple
organizations for a tabletop or field exercise is not an easy task,
particularly if different jurisdictions and various levels of government
are involved. These difficulties may result in safety-relevant organizations
not being included in these activities.
Taking a more realistic approach to how safety and health issues
are addressed in multi agency exercises could have substantial benefits.
Multi agency or “joint exercises” are an important way
of educating responders, both managers and rank-and file personnel,
on what is necessary to effectively manage safety during large-scale
responses.26 Other benefits
arising from joint activities include building personal relationships
among responders from different organizations and the opportunity
to identify unexpected shortfalls in coordination processes.27
Achieving these benefits requires that exercises be held frequently
enough to maintain relationships and incorporate changes in response
processes or systems. Such activities also provide the opportunity
to identify best practices in responder safety and health or for
undertaking pilot tests on new concepts, procedures, and technologies.
Exercises can also play an important role in educating officials
from outside the responder community about the realities and requirements
for effective and safe disaster response.
Recommendation 7.5—Develop a Common Terminology for Disaster
Safety and Health Issues and Processes for Use During Response Operations
In order for different organizations to communicate, they need
a common vocabulary. The need for such a common terminology was,
in fact, a key driver for developing the ICS itself.28
“Common terminology is essential in joint operations by diverse
users of such critical elements as: organizational functions; resource
identification, classification, and allocation; and facilities”
[FEMA 1987]. Even if the technical and organizational systems needed
to support interagency communication function perfectly, in the
absence of a common terminology, effective communication
may still not occur.
Similarly, responders indicated that common definitions and terminology
for safety and health management is needed for more effective interagency
safety cooperation.29 Differences
in how key tasks are labeled, the absence of precise definitions
for safety terms, or the use of different terminologies and nomenclature
by responders from different agencies or different technical disciplines
all impede integrated management.30
Summary
The complexity of disaster situations makes it difficult to fully
address responder safety needs simply by bolstering individual response
organizations’ capabilities to gather information, assess
risk, and implement safety decisions. However, the safety capabilities
available across a variety of responder organizations present a
significant opportunity for improving safety management on an incident-wide
level. Effective integration among responding organizations can
allow better application of specialized expertise and capabilities
to safety problems, help preserve a strategic approach to safety
management, provide a mechanism to address inherently multi agency
safety issues, and more fully address the differences in capability
among response organizations.
Ad hoc efforts at integrated safety management were implemented
during the World Trade Center and the Pentagon response operations
on September 11, 2001. Although supporting the concept of integrated
safety management, ad hoc structures have significant shortcomings
that reduce their effectiveness for protecting responder safety.
As a result, a range of preparedness and implementation efforts
are needed to formalize this approach to safety management and more
effectively link it to disaster incident management systems.
1 In principle, all shortfalls in disaster safety management
could be addressed at the individual organization level. However,
preparing every response organization for the full range
of potential disaster safety problems would be, at best, a challenging
and resource intensive strategy. To adequately address all
potential safety shortfalls would require significant augmentation
of all organizations’ information-gathering capacity, decision
making and assessment expertise, and implementation capability—much
of which would not be beneficial for their routine response activities.
2 Some of these organizations may have statutory requirements
to respond to the incident or specific responsibilities related
to responder protection.
3 For example, when ongoing firefighting operations
are occurring side by side with construction or demolition work,
each activity could adversely affect the safety of the other responders.
4 Examples of such responders include members of FEMA-sponsored
Urban Search and Rescue teams operating in collapsed structure environments,
trained hazardous materials responders countering spills of such
substances, or police tactical teams facing situations with particularly
high potential for violence.
5 For example, if a disaster response required helicopter
operations, it would be critical to select an appropriate pilot
for the conditions. For operations during severe weather and high
winds, calling on a Coast Guard pilot experienced in rescue operations
would be appropriate. For a situation requiring a more tactical
approach in urban terrain, a pilot from the local police force might
be a better choice [Study Interview].
6 There are also technological reasons these additional
management levels could make significant safety contributions. For
example, the fact that some of these management organizations work
from fixed-site emergency operations centers enables them to have
information management and resource coordination systems in place
that would be difficult, if not impossible, to build at an incident
scene.
7 It should be noted that any organizational structure
within a safety management function should not duplicate efforts
taking place in other parts of the ICS.
8 Analogous templates have been produced to support
use of the ICS at a range of different types of incidents. For each
incident, model command structures with their component sub functions
are provided as starting points for rapidly putting an ICS in place
when an incident occurs. A variety of examples can be found in the
U.S. Coast Guard Incident Management Handbook [USCG 2001].
9 The safety assets that may be needed could clearly
differ markedly based on local situations. For example, a tornado
in a rural environment could result in very different hazards and
responder safety needs than a similar event in an industrialized
area.
10 In the traditional incident management structure,
medical support to responders is placed within the Logistics section
(see Figure 3.1) [FEMA 1998]. As
a result, without a specific effort by Incident Commanders to draw
on their expertise, medical experts will not necessarily have the
opportunity to contribute to safety decision making Several interviewees
cited this as a particular problem during the responses to the anthrax
incidents [Study Interviews]. Integration of a medical doctor into
the safety function would be similar to the military practice of
having a “staff surgeon” as an element of the Command
Staff of major units [Department of the Army 1997].
11 To ensure that responders know “who to call”
during an event, planning efforts should identify safety-relevant
capabilities that are available locally. This planning should include
the private sector and other nontraditional response groups. In
addition, safety management resources that are available from state,
regional, or national response organizations should be identified.
12 However, the unpredictability of disaster situations
makes it impossible to plan for every eventuality. Such agreements
will likely have to be adjusted for particular events to ensure
that unforeseen safety needs can be addressed. As a result, decision
making mechanisms also need to be defined to allow safety management
to better adapt to evolving disaster situations.
13 The need for better safety management tools—planning
checklists for particular types of events, issues that should be
addressed and hazards assessed early in a response, etc.—was
highlighted independently of the need for better multi agency coordination
and integration at these events.
14 It should be noted that any effort at integrated
safety management depends on first responding organizations initiating
safety activities in a way that can scale up as the response evolves.
Especially during the early phases of response activities, the demands
of a disaster can pull responders away from safety responsibilities
and involve them in operational action [Study Interviews]. If this
occurs, safety management does not take place. In addition to hindering
initial safety efforts, later organizations will have no way to
connect with the management structure —to “plug into”—when
they arrive at the scene.
15 Not all organizations involved at a disaster scene
need to have a representative directly participating in an integrated
safety function. Only representatives from organizations with necessary
safety expertise or capabilities need to be directly involved to
allow coordination of their activities. The identity of these organizations
will likely differ in different regions, as well as from disaster
to disaster. Organizations that need to receive only the “output”
from the safety function must be sufficiently connected to get the
required information, but they will not necessarily require a dedicated
representative.
16 Depending on the particular disaster, such management
roles could be carried out by the on-scene Incident Commander; by
individuals in the local, state, or federal emergency management/operations
center; or both. For this discussion, no distinction is made between
these different levels of management.
17 It should be noted that the focus on incident-wide
approaches to safety management in this chapter is not intended
to minimize the importance of actions taken at the individual, unit,
or organization level for protecting responders during response
operations. In the case of safety enforcement, for example, any
incident-wide consensus on appropriate safety measures and the need
to enforce them will be largely implemented by the actions of organizations
to inform their members and ensure that they comply.
18 This need for community consensus on organizational
structures and processes also applies to the operational components
of response. For example, in a study of a major flood response operation
in Arizona, this factor was highlighted as the key driver for the
area’s improved response effectiveness [McHugh 1995].
19 The primary rationale behind the addition of assistant
safety officers is to provide the ISO greater capability to monitor,
assess, and manage a more demanding incident scene. “Complex
incidents or those that cover a large geographic area may require
the appointment of Assistant Safety Officers” [NFSIMC 2000,
63]. For incidents that involve unfamiliar hazards, such as the
presence of hazardous materials or other unusual threats, “additional
safety officers may be needed [to] . . . provide an increased level
of competency for the Incident Safety Officer” [Kipp and Loflin
1996, 202].
20 The other strategy that has been explored for particularly
demanding incidents is creating a Safety section and, as a result,
significantly augmenting the manpower devoted to responder safety
concerns. The Safety section is staffed by a number of responders
to make it possible to monitor and manage safety in multiple areas
of a complex incident. It also provides a management structure to
coordinate their efforts. By increasing the resources devoted to
safety, this strategy provides a way to gather better and more complete
safety information, carry out more rigorous risk assessment, and
provide more effective implementation [Brunacini 2002; Morris 2001].
21 This model of a central safety officer supported
by assistants from other responding agencies is also suggested in
Chatfield and Robertson, 1997.
22 One responder involved at the Pentagon even referred
to their safety coordination effort as “a Unified Command
of safety officers” [Jackson et al. 2002, 46].
23 For example, although the training programs that
currently exist for fire service Incident Safety Officers were cited
as positive by many study discussion participants, they also indicated
that the programs were “not enough” to prepare individuals
to manage safety at incidents of this size [Study Interviews, Study
Workshop].
24 The group of trained safety managers could play a
significant role in improving safety management in routine response
and in bolstering the treatment of safety in disaster preparedness
activities. Preparedness roles could include participating in designing,
arranging, and monitoring the results of multi agency exercises
that practice and evaluate safety and health concepts. In addition,
this continuing involvement of the disaster safety managers in both
day-to-day safety issues and preparedness activities would help
maintain their expertise and skills until they were needed.
25 For response activities more generally, examples
of assistance arrangements and compacts can be found at the local,
multi county, state, regional, and federal levels.
26 Because of the size and diversity of the U.S. responder
community, it is difficult to provide sufficient opportunities for
exercise participation for all responders. As a result, other strategies
for broadly disseminating needed safety and health information should
also be pursued. For example, volunteer responder units located
in rural areas will typically have far less resources available
for travel, training programs, and acquiring specialized educational
materials compared with their career responder counterparts in more
populated areas. In addition, both volunteers and career responders
benefit from having more flexible mechanisms to work training into
their schedules. Although such materials are not equivalent to operational
and classroom training, they can play an important role in providing
needed safety and health information.
27 Because it is important to build relationships between
representatives from safety-relevant organizations and operational
responders, some exercises must include both types of organizations.
“Safety focused” exercises, concentrating on safety
managers and organizations that provide critical safety assets to
response operations, could also be valuable to address technical
safety issues and bolster coordination among the safety specialists
within the response community.
28 Common terminologies were highlighted as key for
the ability of groups of responders from different areas to work
effectively together. For example, in managing urban search and
rescue operations, FEMA US&R and FEMA Incident Support Teams
(teams that support US&R operations by assisting in operational
coordination, logistics, and management) may be drawn from different
areas of the country. The fact that both teams have common training
and use common terminologies supports their working to respond together
in rescue operations [Study Interview].
29 Standardization in a wide range of areas can facilitate
integration of multi agency efforts.
30 Problems cited in study interviews or at the workshop
included (1) different topics being considered “safety”
versus “health” issues by different agencies, thereby
affecting how they were managed; (2) differences in what was meant
by particular terms by different organizations, e.g., “responder
rest and rehabilitation”; and (3) use of different technical
terms in hazard monitoring processes and results, causing confusion
among agencies.
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