The Noggin Blog

In emergency management, we define risks as events that if they were to materialise would hinder public safety, maybe even lead to loss of life and property. That’s why the emergency preparedness risk assessment tool serves to identify these potential hazards, then figure out what’s likeliest to happen if the hazard did occur.

However, as risks increase, public safety organisations run up against their (individual) capacity limits. Working together is the only solution. But herein lies a key challenge with our existing emergency preparedness risk management models. 

It is springtime in the western United States and a drought emergency has been declared across most of the state of California. The short-term implication is that the state’s already high risk of wildfires is certain to increase. Of course, the western United States isn’t the only region experiencing these severe weather patterns. What hazard reduction management strategies can organisations in climate-impacted regions implement to prepare?

From the available data, civil unrest is on the rise. Key assets are increasingly becoming popular targets. Often for logistical, legal, or even symbolic reasons, the assets themselves can’t be closed to the public entirely. What, then, are planners to do, to ensure emergency lifecycle preparedness throughout a civil unrest incident? 

The goal of emergency planning is to build a robust emergency response capability before a disaster even happens. However, disasters have a way of going against plan. That’s when organisations have to scramble and build out incident plans. Of course, the incident planning process isn’t without its own challenges. One of the biggest is incident assessment. 

Emergency managers are well acquainted with the after action review, a qualitative evaluation of actions taken to respond to a given emergency. A staple of the recovery process, the after action review provides the best means of identifying best practices, gaps, and lessons learned, so as to respond better next time.

However, the COVID-19 crisis was a shock to the system. Normal processes were upended; plans turned out to be inadequate. How to do better next time? 

The emergency threat has grown like never before. Natural disasters alone have increased ten-fold since the 1960s.

Add in an unprecedented pandemic, and these figures only up the ante on the need for not just any emergency management platform but the right emergency management platform. What capabilities matter in this age of disasters? 

From tornadoes to floods to explosions, emergency agencies bring experts together in emergency operations centers (EOCs) to manage and coordinate operations. Before the pandemic, they did so largely in person. The risk (and reality) of infection, however, has forced EOCs to go virtual – out of necessity.  

Makeshift affairs, many of these virtual emergency operations centers (VEOC) are virtual in name only. How, then, to get the most out of your VEOC?

In this age of increasing emergency threats, informal volunteer emergency workers often provide critical first responder help, usually search and rescue, first aid, damage, and need assessment.

But because they tend to lack pre-established relationships with emergency managers, informal volunteers can also pose operational risks. Dispatchers, for one, can’t verify training or credentials, so they are unable to accurately match volunteer skills with service areas. And that’s not the only management challenge relief organisations face. What are they?

With the double-whammy of COVID-19 and a hyper-active weather season, volunteer disaster relief agencies already have enough on their plate. But the rapid increase in the number and severity of disasters is causing a worrying new phenomenon in volunteer management.

That trend is disaster fatigue. What is it, and how to plan for it this coming severe weather season?

Mere days into the hurricane season, the Atlantic basin is already experiencing its third named storm. Meanwhile, China, faced with flooding in its south and east, is upping flood defense emergency response to level III. Western Australia, for its part, is less than a month removed from a “once-in-a-decade storm,” so dubbed by the state’s acting commissioner of Fire and Emergency Services.

In the past, emergency management agencies and other organizations might have become accustomed to bleak forecasts of powerful hurricane seasons – like the one they received this year. They’ve never, however, had to prepare for an “above-normal” storm season while simultaneously fighting a “once-in-a-generation pathogen.” How can they beef up critical infrastructure resilience to respond to multiple events at once?

We’ve all seen the stories. The rapid spread of the coronavirus has caused demand spikes for personal protective equipment (PPE), with healthcare workers in areas hardest hit by the spread of the virus reporting alarming shortages of PPE like masks, gowns, and shields.

At this point, the majority of people who get COVID-19 only experience mild symptoms. But one in six become seriously ill, according to the World Health Organization. Throughout the entirety of the crisis, those numbers have carried serious implications for the healthcare COVID-19 response, as the resultant severe disease has caused hospitalization, even admission to an intensive care unit for weekslong stints.

The Incident Command System sprung out of a fire suppression event in the 1970s. But it didn’t take too long for non-fire organizations to begin using the system, as well.

The question is now as emergency response agencies mobilize against the COVID-19 pandemic, can ICS be relevant to their efforts?

Physical EOCs (Emergency Operations Centers) have proliferated in recent years. And it’s easy to see why. Physical EOCs help teams, individual organizations, and multiple agencies working in concert mobilize people and equipment for incident responses lasting the entirety of an emergency.

The risk of the novel coronavirus to global supply chains is significant, experts say. And it’s easy to see why. For one, there is no historical precedent for the potential impact of the coronavirus on increasingly complex, global supply chains.

As of mid-February, over 64,000 cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been reported, with wartime measures increasingly becoming the norm throughout mainland China. The reach of the coronavirus, however, is global. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already declared a public health emergency of international concern.

Disaster relief agencies might be heartened by the volunteer recruitment spikes they experience during moments of crisis, like the rolling bushfire disasters. But according to the data, those spikes are temporary. In other words, organizations relying on long-term resource gains from reliable volunteers will probably have to look elsewhere. Where to? The answer might surprise you. 

IRAP enables Australian government agencies and bodies to store and run highly sensitive data at the Protected security level.

--

According to CNBC reporting, the average number of yearly billion-dollar disasters totalled 15 events from 2016 to 2018. The average yearly total for the previous 38 years: 6.2 events. And this year’s disaster season, with its deadly storms, heatwaves, and, of course, wildfires, is all but certainly trending in the wrong direction.

No doubt about it, volunteer disaster and emergency response agencies have seen enormous strides in emergency management software systems and incident management technology. But have those gains kept up with the unprecedented rise in natural disasters and other emergencies?

Emergency managers out there, do you have just one pick for an emergency management conference to attend this year? Then, I’d strongly suggest attending the 2019 IAEM 67th Annual Conference & EMEX – Honor the Past, Treasure the Present and Shape the Future.

For some time now, the research points up clear challenges in interagency response to large-scale emergencies, citing delays in getting assistance and rescue underway, delays in decision making, and lack of clarity in command and control structures, etc. The key question is why, what factors explain the situation on the ground.

Been involved in large-scale disaster response? Then, you know all about the unique challenges of interagency operations, from delays in getting assistance and rescue underway to lack of clarity in command and control structures once on the ground, plus variable decision making throughout.

As many of you know, we decided, after a short sabbatical, to revive our User Conference initiative, so as to share best practices in safety and security management that we’ve learned over time, best practices which have also informed the development of our next-generation product, Noggin 2.0.

During an incident, emergency managers need to deploy materials, supplies, technologies, and people to the emergency site as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, getting resources to the right place at the right time is only half the battle.

Australasia’s largest, most comprehensive emergency management conference and exhibition, AFAC19, is right around the corner, hosted by the likes of Country Fire Authority, Emergency Management Victoria, Forest Fire Management Victoria – Department of Environment Land Water and Planning, Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board, Parks Victoria, and Victoria State Emergency Service.

The value of an Emergency Operations Center (EOC), a physical (or mobile) hub where Emergency and Incident Management teams coordinate information and resources during low-frequency, high-risk incidents, is pretty clear. The EOC supports incident management activities, up to and including on-scene operations.

Airports have never been busier. But luckily, thanks to the professionalism of airport operators, traffic flows smoothly; passengers get processed efficiently; and the planes themselves come and go.

The case for interoperability, especially the efficient transfer of relevant data between agencies, couldn’t be clearer. For one, any number of after-action reports have cited a lack of interagency cooperation as contributing to mission setbacks, even historic failures. 

From profits to press to badly-need infrastructure projects, major events can bring any number of lasting benefits to organizers and host sites. Conversely, the risks of running a major event are acute and variegated. So too are the penalties for botching it: public opprobrium, reputational damage, possibly even legal challenge and regulatory blowback. For organizers, effective all-hazards planning is the only solution to help mitigate topline risk and keep attendees safe. But with so many variables involved in major-event management, it’s easy to ask, how to get started?

A run-through of what happened

How prepared are organizations to tackle critical issues and major crises? That’s the question we at Noggin and our partner Deloitte have been posing to invited guests in our inaugural series of breakfast seminars, exploring the theme of overconfidence and crisis preparedness.

Last Friday’s (March 15) horrific attacks at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch already rank as the deadliest mass shooting incident in New Zealand history. Fifty people were killed, and scores injured in an act of terror unprecedented in the island nation.   

A few weeks ago, the team at Noggin attended the Australian Airports Association (AAA) National Conference, the pre-eminent aviation conference in the Asia-Pacific region. There, we learned all about the latest innovations in airport technology as well as new developments in best-practice principles.

AIIMS is the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System. The nationally recognized incident management structure in Australia, AIIMS has wide command, control, and coordination applicability in fire, land management, and other emergency situations, as well as for non-emergency incidents.

If you’re involved in emergency management in the U.S., you’ve probably heard of the Incident Command System (ICS). A key feature of the U.S. National Incident Management System (NIMS), ICS is an operational incident management structure that provides a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response in the U.S.

Been managing volunteers, especially disaster response volunteers, for the last few decades? Then, you’ve probably noticed a shift. There’re fewer long-term volunteers; new volunteers are harder to come by than ever; and your base of existing volunteers is serving historically short stints.

By now, the case for interoperability, especially the efficient transfer of relevant data between agencies – otherwise known as interoperability in information management – is clear. Just take a look at many post-emergency, after-action reports; most cite a lack of interagency cooperation as contributory to mission setbacks, or even failures. Of course, one of the best examples in recent memory: poor interagency cooperation between New York City responders during 11 September.

When it comes to disaster response, full-time staff usually gets heavy reinforcement from volunteers. Indeed, in the event of an emergency, volunteers, especially spontaneous, converging volunteers, are often the first on the field, providing much-needed first responder support, including search and rescue, first aid, damage and need assessment. It’s also not uncommon that volunteers numerically dominate the response effort. In Australia, for instance, rural fire services often average career staff to volunteer ratios that easily exceed 1:130.

Resources and capabilities go hand in hand. Your team’s capabilities prove the crucial variable to success in the field. In other words, managing one (resources) without considering the other (capabilities) is a surefire way to undermine the success of your mission.

To be successful, incident managers need to get materials, supplies, technologies, and especially responders to the emergency site as quickly and efficiently as possible. But those same managers will tell you that getting resources to the right place at the right time is only half the battle. Attention also needs to be paid to ensuring the productivity of those resources once they reach the disaster. Here, however, managers and dispatchers confront capability roadblocks to effective resource management.

When it comes to incident and emergency response, effectively managing resources couldn’t be more important. Resources, i.e. materials, supplies, facilities, technologies, even people, are assets in every sense of the word. But they don’t get the job done in isolation. That’s where capabilities come in.

Emergencies happen suddenly. They flare up, instantly posing a threat to life, critical infrastructure, and the environment at large. And once they get going, they don’t stay static. Emergencies are highly fluid events by definition.

If you take a bird’s eye view, the state of volunteerism seems pretty healthy. The volunteer rate in the U.S., for instance, stands at around 63 million people, roughly a quarter of the total population. And that’s only a few basis points down from the 29 percent that government statisticians recorded when they first started tracking rates of volunteerism back in the early 2000s. The importance of those volunteers to the health of the economy (not to mention the mission of their nonprofit organizations) can’t be overstated either. Some estimates show that volunteers contribute upwards of $150 billion in services.

Photo by MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti  [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Welcome to our newest blog series ‘Get to know Noggin OCA’. This series will highlight features of our enterprise resilience software platform, Noggin OCA, that help all types of business manage disruption, smarter. The next 4 blogs will focus on the key features that help organizations efficiently and effectively manage resources during an emergency. 

Photo by Matt More/FEMA  [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Efficiently deploying resources in time-sensitive emergency situations isn’t easy. Just take search-and-rescue (SAR). Time is absolutely crucial in those operations, as the possibility of success rapidly dwindles with the passing of days, if not hours.

I remember once seeing a tourism ad for Fiji that stated, "It's like Hawaii, before the war!" although it was clearly written by someone like my brother who lives in Fiji... not that I'm jealous or anything. 

Fifty-six people aboard a flight departing Belfast, Northern Ireland escaped serious injury over the weekend after the nose landing gear on their airplane failed to descend and the pilot was forced to land at Belfast International Airport (BFS) without it.

The pilot of the Flybe airline Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 was hailed a hero after landing the airplane as smoothly as possible on the plane’s nose and skidding for several hundred yards on the tarmac. The ground crew, which included awaiting fire and emergency medical first responders, was also praised by Belfast International Airport Operations Director Alan Whiteside for responding "extremely smoothly."