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Williams, G. MIFireE, MIMgt, ChFl,
CIETecRI. Ostrich crisis
management doesn’t work - prepare now! www.fitting-in.com/geoffwilliams.htm |
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By Geoff Williams MIFireE,
MIMgt, ChFl, CIETecRI.
Today there are approximately six
billion humans on this globe. By the year 2020, it is estimated there will be
an increase of an additional one billion people (16.6%). The bulk of this
population increase will be in "third world" countries that, even
today, do not have the resources or skills to care for their current
communities during a disaster. Alas, many are already at the poverty level or
below.
There are constant warnings that
global warming will increase the possibility of natural disasters and no
significant signs of optimism that the situation will radically improve within
the next twenty years.
England boasts one of the worlds
leading institutions for climate modelling namely, the Hadley Centre. Their
predictions for the UK, does not make good reading, e.g. by 2050 they estimate
a 30% increase in Gales and that rainfall will increase by 10%. The UK National Rivers Authority also
predicts that the mean sea level will have risen by a total 20cm over the 1990
levels. At first glance this may not seem much but, when one considers that
this will intensify the frequency of extreme water levels caused by storm
surges, it soon becomes apparent that the so called "Developed World
" is not without its own problems.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once opined
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can
sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
So how can we prepare to handle
this future of change, and be sure we are ready to ‘Manage future Crises both
nationally and internationally?
To quote Lois Clark McCoy,
President of the National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue;
"The posture of an Ostrich
has never proven effective in solving dangerous and complex problems. The
future is like an enormous flood. When faced with it, there are at least two
choices. You can divert the course of the flood--or you can change your
own."
Our Emergency Services mission is
in the process of changing along with our priorities, concerns and challenges.
In simple terms, we need more than ever leaders, who do not view the world
through a straw.
To commence this need for change,
I would suggest that we should exercise even more with other government
agencies, both international, national and local, in order to share training,
guidance, information and leadership.
On it's own however this action
is insufficient and we need a three phase assault if we are to really, to
paraphrase, L. C. Mc Coy, 'divert the
course of the flood'.
I consider that this approach
would also 'change our own course' for the betterment of the victims and
equally our UK based rescue teams.
While many rescue teams have been
waiting for the 'New Messiah' standards to flow from the UN, (INSARAG) system,
others have made 'light years' of progress.
To increase our preparedness in
aspects of technical rescue, a working group should be formed from members of
UKFSSAR and other non-government organisations, e.g. IETRI and the IRC. These should be tasked to create technical
rescue standards, competencies and management systems specifically for the UK
international/national response rescue teams.
These should become an integral
part of evidence within every individual team member's portfolio of competence
and continued professional development.
All reviews should encompass command and control systems, logistic
management, planning, finance and all other administration matters.
New UK standards should take
cognisance of existing standards, e.g. NFPA 1470/1670, IETRI European USAR
Capability Levels 1-4, etc.
These excellent standards need to
be re-designed into the UK response system thus allowing the teams to take
total ownership.
Those who question this course of
action as unnecessary should look at Australia and examine how they adopted the
previously mentioned standards, reshuffled them, and made their own Urban
Search and Rescue Categories (1,2,3). In this one action alone they have united
their teams training and enhanced their own rescue abilities and culture.
Within the USA, under a new law, states that prepare
for natural disasters are being rewarded.
They can get an extra 20 percent in government paid cleanup costs IF
they helped fortify for hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc., which
includes shoring up buildings, constructing roads, and water systems and making
utility infrastructures more survival and enduring. Companies doing cleanup work will get paid faster and have less
paperwork. (The Kiplinger Letter 8
December)
The significance of this law is far more than its
content, as it recognises the seriousness of natural disasters and has used
incentives to motivate corrective action and provide a solution. It is a new concept, a new idea and
innovative in using incentives to solve problems. Most practical disaster
problems can be solved with people, money and material, but the true victory is
achieved by using the mind and that brings us back to ourselves. It is we the rescue service providers who
can make a difference. President
Kennedy once stated that “one man can make a difference, and every man should
try.” I consider this phrase totally
defines the task of the UK rescue services.
The International Emergency
Technical Rescue Institute (http://www.fire.org.uk/ECL/) recommends that we
should attach ourselves at the hip with the newly created technologies that
will assist us in predicting emerging threats and opportunities. Whether you
embrace it or not our business is justifiably going international. During the earthquakes in India, I observed
over the Internet real time destruction in that country. Today, certain previous catastrophe stricken
countries have risen like phoenix from the ashes of destruction. Turkey now has an international rescue
contingent to save lives and for restoration.
Such international missions have immense social impacts and tend to
bring the world closer together, but equally the absence of a nation willing to
offer ‘hands on’ humanitarian aid can have the exact opposite effect.
We should not spend finance that
we do not have to build a communications infrastructure when one already
exists, and that is becoming ubiquitous; to underwrite global rescue missions
and tackles the omnipresent terrorist threat.
The Internet can be further exploited to serve our purposes, ever increasingly
tactically.
I believe the British are amongst
the best problem solving people on this planet and eventually those made
responsible for ensuring we are at the forefront of community rescue, must
realise this. We need to ensure they
support our scientific and technological organisations in designing systems
that will help alleviate future tragedies.
A new concept on how we can
improve management of an emergency disaster situation has been designed to
specifically utilise the Internet.
The title of this innovative
software is 'Executive Command Level' more commonly referred to as -'ECL'.
Primarily ECL is a critical
crisis management tool that is used before,
during and after an emergency has occurred. The software also incorporates its own command
training tools.
This first 'Net' version is
designed for urban destruction and collapse incidents.
It is definitely not
another style of Incident Management System (ICS), quite the contrary, it was
specifically designed to interface and enhance ALL types of existing incident
management systems both physical and IT based.
ECL systems will soon be
available to emergency services and the general public by simply downloading it
FREELY from the net.
The system is designed upon a
radical new management theory that analyses actual emergency situations and
offers solutions built upon generic, inherent occurrences. This methodology is
titled 'Analytical Bridge Management' (ABM).
ABM was designed over 5 years and
takes a completely different paradigm to traditional emergency management
situations. It works by examining
'events' that interfere with the smooth running of an incident and transforms
them in such a manner that it increases the efficiency of management and most
importantly, any rescue operations.
Over two thousand global collapse
incidents were analysed to identify the generic events that kept on
re-appearing at some stage during an incident.
These were then further analysed to find the types of hindrance they
caused the incident management teams. It soon became apparent that the same
issues were always present, therefore, the task of finding how these could be
best (with hindsight) managed was the next stage of finding a solution. Once a
solution had been found it was then further re-analysed to ensure it helped the
actual front line rescue teams. By
using the ABM methodology, what was simple, plain information, now became
transformed into expert, intelligence based solutions. These solutions are now
held within the ECL critical crisis tool.
Incident Command Managers
generally underestimate how these 'events' and the people that are linked to
them, can severely disrupt and hinder incident management teams if, they are
not properly dealt with at a very early stage.
Current incident management teams deal with the majority of these
occurrences as they arise and never systematically analyse how they hinder -or-
deviate teams from their primary objectives.
Within this version, these events
are termed-"External Disruption Factors.'
Each external disruption factor
is called a ‘Unit’: One such unit is:
"Agencies and people who are deemed to have a vested interest in some form with the incident."
Therefore this Unit is titled:
This single unit comprises many
different elements, examples within this specific unit are:
·
· Property
Owners
·
· Equipment
and Consumable Providers
·
· Plant
Providers
·
· Transport
Service Providers
·
· Product
Discrediting
·
· Process
Discrediting
·
· Educationalists
·
· Associations
and Institutions
·
· Internal
Competitors, (Professional Rivalry)
·
· Research
Opportunists
·
· Planners
Within this specific unit ECL can
now predict the following accuracy:
·
· What
initial inquiries people with Vested Interests will make and how to gather
appropriate information in anticipation
·
· What
happens if particular Buildings/Structures are involved and how to deal with
them, e.g. diagrammatic forms of shoring, dangers, hazards, etc.
·
· What
happens if specific groups of people are involved. This includes religious
issues politicians, diplomats, etc. and
how to deal with them
·
· How
to deal with a building/structure that has a Transport induced collapse, e.g.
Air, Rail, and Road.
·
· How
to deal with issues if terrorism is suspected as the cause of the structural
collapse.
·
· What
happens if Chemical, Nuclear, Biological and Incendiary devices are involved
and how to deal with them.
·
· Environmental
and Conservation issues involving a building/structural collapse
·
· Utilisation
of Volunteers during collapse incidents, etc.
·
Although not exhaustive, the
above is an example of the types of instant intelligence based solutions ECL
offers incident managers.
The site where ECL will soon be available is titled: www. Global Crisis Center.Com
These initial fields of expertise include amongst others:
·
·
All areas of Technical Rescue
·
·
Online Training Facilities for all
types of Emergency Crisis Situations
·
·
Fire Suppression and Fire Safety
·
·
Law Enforcement Agencies
·
·
Aviation Safety
·
·
Marine Safety
·
·
All the Latest relevant
Emergency News
·
·
Current UK, Australian and US
Legislation References, etc.
·
·
Emergency Planning and Operational
Crisis Command
·
·
Military and Intelligence Agencies
·
·
Community Group Safety
The second phase is to provide access to ECL to all of the different emergency associations
that link into the Global Crisis Center.Com