EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PLANNING
"Failing to plan is planning to fail" (American proverb)

    Emergency management planning is a broad term that encompasses many principles of emergency, risk, disaster, and hazard management as well as those aspects of civil defense and protection typical of emergency preparedness.  While the terms emergency, disaster, and hazard may be synonymous to some degree (especially emergency and disaster), it is probably important to be somewhat careful with definitions.  To begin with, then, let us ask "What is "emergency?"  The definition of emergency is "an exceptional event that exceeds the capacity of normal resources and organizations to cope."  All emergencies are by definition dangerous, which means that the potential loss of life is involved, so this is why emergency and disaster are quasi-synonymous).  Disaster is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as "a calamitous event causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship," and by Perry (2006:5) as "a failure of the social system to deliver reasonable conditions of life."  Clearly, disaster is somewhat ambiguous, and care must be taken to distinguish it from other states of emergency.  In this regard, Alexander (2002) says there are four levels of EMERGENCY:

• routine dispatch problem-- the most minor of emergencies, involving first responders

• incident -- any emergency a jurisdiction can handle without needing to call in outside help

• disaster -- an incident or catastrophe involving substantial destruction and mass casualty

• national (or international) disaster -- a disaster of substantial magnitude and seriousness

    Besides the problem of overlap between emergency with disaster, there is also the problem of confusing catastrophe with disaster.  The word "catastrophe" has forensic implications since numerous expert witnesses exist who call themselves "catastrophe experts" and newly emerging methods by those experts (e.g., Mudge 2008) tend to focus upon environmental contamination after a disaster.  A true disaster is closer to an emergency than a catastrophe, and Perry (2006) offers the best review of the literature along these lines, paying particular attention to the three definitions which emerged from the work of the Disaster Research Group (a group which existed during the 1950s and 1960s and technically part of a National Academy of Sciences committee known as the National Research Council Disaster Research Group).  The following illustrate those consensus definitions of DISASTER: 

• an interruption of normally effective procedures for reducing certain tensions, together with a dramatic increase in tensions (this definition emphasizes the ideas of social readjustment, negative social consequences, and is at root, the notion that disasters reflect "extreme situations")

• a disruption of the social order, producing physical destruction and death that becomes important because people must cope by departing from the pattern of norm expectations (this definition emphasizes the ideas of negative consequences, but also emphasizes the sociological notion of "norm expectations")

• the loss of life is an important element, but the defining feature is that they make people adopt new behavior patterns (this definition emphasizes socio-psychological notions, and led to more modern sociological notions)

• an event impacting an entire society or some subdivision and including the notion of real impact with threat of impact, with emphasis upon the fact that essential functions of society are prevented [this is the Fritz (1961: 655) definition which is widely cited as the consensus definition among sociology-oriented disaster researchers]

    Over time, small changes crept into the Fritz definition of disaster.  Notions such as nonroutine events, sudden impact, and expectation collapse became commonplace components.  Some sociologists even studied social change (and other sociological phenomena) from a disaster perspective.  Fundamental to the sociological approach is the idea that disasters disrupt routines in social life.  They destabilize social systems.  Some intervention is needed to restore patterns of normal social functioning.  Sociologists often see the study of disaster as the study of social order itself.

    Geographers and geophysical scientists (e.g., Quarantelli 1979) come to the study of disaster in a different way.  Their favorite concept is HAZARD.  A hazard perspective focuses upon understanding the hazard -- the earthquake, tornado, flood, etc.  Although the sociological issues may be important, the real focus needs to be on the processes associated with the target agent.  A disaster occurs, according to this approach, when a hazard agent intersects with a human use system.  This is somewhat different from the classic sociological approach.  Sociology fails, in many ways, to identify the root causes of what it calls disasters.  Not so for a hazards scientist, who is always capable of tracing the originating agent (Quarantelli & Perry 2005).  To some extent, those who study emergencies (e.g. Alexander 2002) have a lot in common with hazard researchers, except that emergency researchers tend to give greater weight to the notion of "vulnerability" which is pretty much the same as the sociological notion of negative consequences.  For an emergency researcher, disasters are important to study because they shed light on patterns of human vulnerability (and resilency).  Disruption is the outcome of vulnerability.     

BEYOND DEFINITIONAL DEBATES     

    What one thinks are the "right" definitions may depend upon one's disciplinary background as well as where one sits.  It is relevant here to mention that there is a bit of a difference between who is an emergency planner and who is an emergency manager. A planner should ideally be someone well adept and knowledgeable of theories, logistics, and interagency coordination at all levels, while someone who is a manager should ideally be a calm, cool, collected leader who can effectively implement the plan as laid out prior to the incident, but who is also able to improvise using the resources at hand when the situation necessitates deviation from that plan.  Emergency planning can be done by more than one individual because no one person can think of all the “what-ifs” on their own.  Emergency managing can also be done by more than one individual, but it is probably best accomplished by one individual.  Good emergency managers seek to reduce improvisation to the absolute minimum necessary, and good emergency planners tend to be persons with years of education, experience and training.  Modern hazard and disaster management, typically associated with the emergency preparedness field, as that field has evolved from its civil defense days to an all-hazards approach, has certain personnel demands.  There is a progressive upgrading of qualifications to become a manager or director in all emergency-related fields.  However, it can be argued that true planners are somewhat different.      

    Most directors of state emergency management agencies hold appointed, political positions. In far more than half of all 50 states, they are appointed directly by the governor, and in a dozen or so other states, appointment is by a state cabinet-level official.  Only in about a half-dozen states does the director of emergency management hold a merit-based, civil service position.  Since 9/11, some states have made their emergency management director the single point of contact for homeland security in that state, but the vast majority of states have seen fit to create a whole new bureaucracy -- one consisting of not only directors, but commissioners, deputies, superintendents, and/or secretaries of homeland security.  The average state emergency management director is a 55 year old man who holds at least a Bachelor's degree and makes $75,000 per year, is appointed by the governor and reports to the adjutant general, has been in the position an average of 4 years, and supervises an average of 3 presidential and 5 gubernatorial disaster declarations per year. On average, the disaster budget for each state is about $53 million (some states have upwards of $637 million), and the number of employees averages 62 (with some states having upwards of 512 employees). [Source: NEMAweb document library, 2003 data survey; graphics on this page also from NEMAWeb]

    There are four (4) phases of Comprehensive Emergency Management (CEM) which make up the foundation for the all-hazards approach to emergency management.  Those four phases are: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.  They are so much a staple in the field that they deserve listing by bullet point as well as by diagram:

• Mitigation includes efforts to prevent man-made or natural disasters by the assessment of threats to a community. These assessments include the likelihood of an attack or disaster taking place

• Preparedness includes the planning, resource allocation, and training of individuals. This phase also has disaster response exercises which help people practice what to do if a disaster occurs

• Response includes public donations, incident management, coordination, search and rescue operations, damage assessments, and handling of fatalities

• Recovery involves clean, the reinstitution of public services, the rebuilding of public infrastructure, and all that is necessary to help restore civic life, including disaster assistance and crisis counseling

RISK ANALYSIS

    The first step in any emergency or disaster planning is to identify the risks.  Risks are not the same as perils, which are a cause of risk; and neither should risk be confused with hazard, which is a contributing factor to peril (Broder 1999).  Almost anything can be a hazard (an oily rag for example), and any sort of life-threatening disaster can be a peril (e.g., a fire, earthquake, or flood), but "risk" technically refers to something that can be measured and always involves a loss or decrease in value of some assets.  Risk is almost always best defined in some cost-benefit fashion, as the less rational alternative is emotional decision making based on fear, intuition, and extraordinary expense to foolishly guarantee 100% "freedom from risk" (Sunstein 2004).  Examples of risk, to name a few that Ropiek & Gray (2002) focus on, include: pesticide poisoning, ozone depletion, hazardous waste, auto accidents, death by firearms, the dangers of genetically modified food, weapons of mass destruction, radiation exposure, obesity, and sexually transmitted diseases.  Note how in each case, the risk usually involves something you have to do (eradicate pests) which is the benefit, and something you wish didn't have to accompany the benefit (the cost, or poisoning of crops).  Two other terms also need defining: threat -- which is anything adversely affecting an asset (and threats can be natural, accidental, or intentional); and vulnerability -- which is any weakness or flaw than can conceivably be exploited by a threat.  Threat assessment is usually the first step in the overall risk assessment process, and threat assessment is normally concerned with the credibility and/or non-randomness of the threat.  The next step is usually vulnerability assessment, which normally ranks the expected losses from impact.  The next step of risk analysis usually integrates these impact or loss ratings with vulnerability ratings to produce a matrix for the cost benefit evaluation of various countermeasures.  Risk assessment methodology is commonly used in building design as well as homeland security and general services administration.   

    Since risks vary from location to location, it is important to customize planning and preparedness for each location.  There is no one-size-fits-all emergency plan for all locations (Schneid & Collins 2000).  In the process of identifying all the risks, a disaster planner should engage in worst-case scenario assessments based on various what-if questions.  There are no rules of thumb for how "in depth" these kind of assessments ought to be, but a general guideline is to keep in mind the realistic chances of prevention and other protective efforts.  Certain standard hazards exist which can serve as starting points in any risk analysis.  David Alexander (2002) distinguishes between three types of hazards: natural, technological, and social.

• Natural disasters are naturally occurring, and examples are earthquake, volcanic eruption, hurricane, tornado, ice storm, flood, flashflood, landslide, wildfire, insect infestation, and disease outbreaks. These kinds of disasters may be further subclassified as meterological, oceanographic (tsunami or sea storm), hydrological, or biological events.

• Technological disasters are those associated with technological advances, and examples are explosives, unexploded ordnance, toxic spills, emissions of radio-isotopes, and transportation accidents. Other examples include: hazmat incidents involving carcinogens, mutagens, or heavy metals; dangerous processes such as structural failure of devices and machines or installations and plants, such as bridges, dams, mines, power plants, pipelines, high rise buildings, vehicles, and trains

• Social disasters are incidents primarily involving social unrest, and examples are hijacking, riots, demonstrations, crowd rushes, and stampedes, although terrorist incidents as well as bombings, shootings, and hostage taking tend to be classified in this category

EMERGENCY PLANNING

    The basic elements of an emergency plan are:

• Context – legislative framework, participating organizations

• Scenarios – hazard, vulnerability, risk, and impact

• Emergency needs – search and rescue, medical care, public safety, food and shelter, damage prevention and limitation

• Available resources (structure, items, competencies) – manpower (personnel), equipment, vehicles, and buildings and facilities

• Resource utilization – application of resources to problems posed by scenario, dissemination of plan, and testing, revising and use of plan

SPECIALIZED DISASTER PLANNING

EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTERS

    An Emergency Operations Center (EOC) should be a well thought out and well equipped room or building.  Many emergency managers do not fully understand the structure and functions of an EOC in an era of terrorism where the need for communication (with both the public and political leaders) is crucial (Perry 2003).  For example, in the case of a bioterrorism incident, the EOC would have to integrate politics and law for such matters as quarantine, inoculation, forced evacuation, and other matters affecting citizens' rights.  Also, in disasters of great magnitude, a great many multiple jurisdictional personnel are operating in the same jurisdiction at the same time.  HAZMAT teams and special rescue teams typically come with their own command.  Medical teams typically come with their own legal authority.  The problem of "who's in charge" is usually resolved through the principle of elected official control whereby the highest-ranking elected official in the local jurisdiction is in charge (Perry 2003).

    An EOC should have the following characteristics:

• Site location: The EOC needs to occupy a location well connected in terms of telecommunications, roads, and possibly rail or air terminals. The site should, as far as possible, be safe from hazards (e.g. it should not he floodable or located on unstable ground) and the building should be resistant to wind damage, water infiltration, earthquake shaking, or whatever the plan deals with in terms of hazards. It is wise to place the EOC close to critical emergency facilities, such as a fire station or ambulance depot. Location close to a railway line or main highway may facilitate access and the offloading of equipment. Although most communication will be by radio or telephone, face-to-face consultation may still he a necessary way of clarifying difficult problems. The EOC should be well signposted and identified by large signs on its principal facades. However, it should not be easily accessible to casual visitors.

• Communications: The EOC should he adequately supplied with telephone, fax, Internet, and radio transmitter equipment and connections. The level of investment in these will obviously depend on available funds, the size of the emergency services to he directed, and the extent and population size of the area to he covered. It is as well to have sonic redundancy (i.e. duplication) in communications, especially in terms of having different means of sending the same messages: damage or overloading can render some channels useless in emergencies, especially public telephone services.

• Other equipment and facilities: The EOC will require various other facilities, according to the scale of operation. These include computing equipment and software, including computer display equipment for large-scale communal display of data and maps, a GIS for the analysis of local site conditions, and emergency management and communications programs. Television and radio receivers provide news media treatment of evolving disasters., as often the general public will be managed on the basis of what messages have been broadcast, and it will be necessary to monitor both these and the public’s reactions to them. Well equipped EOC have stocks of food and drink, limited cooking and sleeping facilities, and supplies of tools and protective clothing. These are not to the benefit of victims or emergency workers, but are intended to help guarantee the EOC a level of autonomy when disaster strikes and work shifts are greatly prolonged. Finally, it is useful to have plenty of parking space in the vicinity of the EOC so that emergency vehicles and supplies can he assembled there during exercises and real disasters.

• Media-briefing facilities: The EOC should have a conference room where information can he given to journalists, and interviews conducted for radio and television. This room will require audiovisual equipment and other appropriate aids, such as a lectern and a backdrop with the agency’s logo on it. Office space for reporters and communications facilities for the media may also be provided in some of the larger EOCs.

• Instructional facilities: Some EOCs have lecture halls with blackboards, slide projectors, and overhead projectors. This means that they can be used for training sessions, seminars and planning meetings. At the least it is helpful to have a small committee room in which heads of emergency services, scientists, and political and community leaders can get together and confer on tactics as conditions change during emergencies.

    In addition, Quarantelli (1979) outlined six (6) primary functions of an EOC: coordination, policy making, operations, information gathering, public information, and visitor hosting.  (1) Coordination is essentially the function of making sure that each of the responder organizations is aware of the others' missions, responsibilities, and areas of operation.  (2) The policy making function involves obtaining consensus among elected and administrative leaders on such matters as evacuations, quarantines, medical treatments, and so on.  (3) The operations function is a matter of managing demand for services, as such demand changes from needs at the time of initial impact (such as rescue and evacuation) to needs at later times (such as concern over the safety of drinking water).  (4) Information gathering involves the continual monitoring of damage assessment.  (5) With regard to the public information function, there are usually two "publics" in a disaster -- the general public and the public-at-risk.  It is a good idea, if possible, to let outsiders know where their friends and family are relative to impact, which reduces the need to telephone or visit the site.  With radiological incidents, technical information needs to be given out to assure which publics are at risk and which are not, as large number of persons are likely to define themselves in danger when they are not.  (6) Finally, the visitor hosting function is performed for government VIP's and elected officials who arrive on site, and sometimes, the number of visitors can be overwhelming without a plan to absorb these numbers.

SPECIAL MEDICAL EMERGENCIES

     A medical emergency has three (3) phases.  (1) The first is that of impact, when medical facilities are damaged and some medical personnel may be lost. (2) The second is that of emergency and isolation, in which initial medical relief is administered solely by available local resources and manpower. (3) The third is stabilization and recovery which involves medical care of injured people; the recovery and disposal of the dead, the monitoring and control of communicable diseases, the care and health maintenance of displaced populations and special care for infants, the handicapped, the sick and the elderly.  Triage classifies injuries in terms of what benefit a patient can be expected to receive from immediate or short-term treatment, not the severity of the injuries. Triage is carried out in two stages: at the scène of disaster to determine who receives priority medical attention in the field and is first to be transported to hospital and at the medical center’s receiving bay to determine who is first to be treated.

    The correct response to the threat of disease epidemics is to establish an epidemiological surveillance system. Its successful implementation requires prior planning. The first stage is to designate epidemiologists for the task. Next, a list of diseases and conditions to be monitored should be drawn up in relation to health risks associated with particular scenarios. These fall into the following categories:

    A. clinically confirmed cases of certain diseases
    B. suspected clinical syndromes, requiring laboratory work to confirm the presence of the disease
    C. groups of symptoms requiring diagnosis
    D. physical trauma resulting from injury
    E. general medicine

    When bioterrorism strikes, the epidemiological observation system should move into action within 24 hours of impact. There are three (3) parts to the process: (1) data collection and interpretation, (2) medical investigation of apparent outbreaks, and (3) prophylaxis of confirmed emergencies. 

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

    One of the key principles of emergency management is interoperability.  Broadly defined, it refers the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together; i.e., inter-operate.  First responders at all levels of government and across all disciplines need to be able to communicate during wide-scale emergencies.  It would be difficult to do that if different agencies operated with incompatible hardware and incongruent radio frequencies.  In policing, the incompatibility problem has existed mainly in the form of computer-aided dispatch systems (CAD) and records management systems (RMS) which has largely created sets of "information islands" which agencies have tried to overcome with inefficient, stop-gap methods such as software patches and plugs.  Total interoperability remains elusive.  The lack of interoperability was evident during the 9/11 attacks and again during the Hurricane Katrina disaster.  To correct this problem, DHS has since 2007 pursued a "systems of systems" (think tank) approach via their SAFECOM program, and in August, 2008 released the National Emergency Communications Plan (pdf) which goes beyond the need for equipment upgrades by providing strategic guidance for the human element.  The plan sets goals of near-total (75-90%) interoperability in terms of response times; i.e., one-hour response times for routine events by 2010; and three-hour response times for significant events by 2013.

EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE NEWS MEDIA

    The news media’s interest, or lack of interest, in a disaster can have the effect of turning relief on or off like a tap, according to the public motivation to contribute to appeals for donations. To know how to integrate the mass media into a disaster plan, it is first necessary to understand their role in disasters.

    Generally, the media want to convey accurate information to the public. Collaboration between the media and the authorities can help stop rumors, dispel myths, avoid confusion, inform and educate the public, and convey official information efficiently to general recipients. They can be persuaded to promote mitigation and public education efforts. The public- information component of the emergency plan should include some or all of the following:

    A. an explanation of who is responsible for generating and distributing official information in the local area
    B. how the release of public information and access to it will be organized
    C. guidelines and checklists for dealing with the media
    D. forms and logs for record keeping
    E. pre-scripted pro forma for media releases and emergency public- information messages
    F. the PIO (Public Information Officer) should maintain updated rapport with media contacts and journalists

INTERNET RESOURCES
All Hands Community
Career Prospects in Emergency Services Management
Center for State Homeland Security (NEMA-AGAUS-Mitretek)
Developing the Emergency Response Plan
DHS Office for Domestic Preparedness
DisasterHelp.gov
Disaster Preparedness & Emergency Response Association (DERA)
Disaster Research Center (Delaware)
Emergency Information Infrastructure Partnership Forum
International Association of Emergency Planners (IAEM)
Journal of Homeland Security & Emergency Management
National Emergency Management Association (NEMA)
North Carolina Division of Emergency Management
The Disaster Center
The International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS)

PRINTED RESOURCES
Alexander, D. (2002). Principles of emergency planning and management. NY: Oxford Univ. Press.
Alexander, D. (2002). "From civil defense to civil protection and back again." Disaster prevention and management 11(3): 209-213.
Broder, J. (1999). Risk analysis and the security survey. NY: Butterworth Heinemann. [sample excerpt]
Brunacini, A. (2002). Fire command, 2e. Quincy, MA: National Fire Protection Association.
Bullock, J., Haddow, G., Coppola, D., Ergin, E., Westerman, L. & Yeletaysi, S. (2005). Introduction to homeland security. Boston: Elsevier.
Burgess, A. (2003). Cellular phones, public fears, and a culture of precaution. NY: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Fritz, C. (1961). "Disasters." Pp. 651-694 in R. Merton & R. Nisbet (eds.) Contemporary social problems. Riverside, CA: Univ. of CA Press.
Gordon, J. (2002). Comprehensive emergency management for local governments. NY: Rothstein Associates.
Greene, R. (2002). Confronting catastrophe: A GIS handbook. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.
Haddow, G. & Bullock, J. (2003). Introduction to emergency management. Boston: Elsevier.
Klinenberg, E. (2003). Heat wave: A social autopsy of disaster in chicago. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Mudge, S. (2008). Methods in environmental forensics. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Nudell, M. & Antokol, N. (1988). The handbook for effective emergency management. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Perry, R. (1985). Comprehensive emergency management. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Perry, R. (1995). "The structure and function of community emergency operations centres." Disaster prevention and management 4(5): 37-41.
Perry, R. (2003). "Emergency operations centres in an era of terrorism." Journal of contingencies and crisis management 11(4): 151-159.
Perry, R. (2006). "What is a disaster?" Pp. 1-15 in H. Rodriguez, E. Quarantelli & R. Dynes (eds.) Handbook of disaster research. NY: Springer.
Posner, R. (2004). Catastrophe: risk and response. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Quarantelli, E. (1979). Studies in disaster response and planning. Newark: Univ. of Delaware Disaster Research Center.
Quarantelli, E. & Perry, R. (Eds.) (2005). What is a disaster: New answers to old questions. Philadelphia: Xlibris.
Ropeik, D. & Gray, G. (2002). Risk: A practical guide for deciding what's really safe and what's really dangerous in the world around you. NY: Houghton Mifflin.
Schneid, T. & Collins, L. (2000). Disaster management and preparedness. Chelsea, MI: Lewis Publishers. [sample excerpt]
Sunstein, C. (2004). Risk and reason: Safety, law, and the environment. NY: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Tierney, K., Lindell, M. & Perry, R. (2001). Facing the unexpected. Washington DC: Joseph Henry Press.
Toigo, J. (2003). Disaster recovery planning: Preparing for the unthinkable. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wallace, M. & Webber, L. (2004). Disaster recovery handbook. NY: AMACOM.

Last updated: Aug 02, 2008
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