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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT   [Category: MGT]

What to Expect.
DISASTER/MAJOR EMERGENCY -- WHAT CAN WE EXPECT?
by Lt. Dan Blackston, Chula Vista Police Department.
The following list of seventy (70) "things to expect" is not
offered as a prediction of doom. Although most of the items are
negative, this is a realistic list of problem areas that we can
expect to face in a disaster.
Recognizing that problems will appear and giving some thought to
them prior to a disaster are steps towards overcoming them. Some
of the areas require specific actions; some will diminish with
time; some are inherent in disaster operations and must simply be
accepted.
Although not every one of the 70 listed items will occur in every
emergency, the majority of them will appear in most situations.
You are encouraged to scan the list, determine which items are or
may become your responsibility, and determine how those items
could best be handled or the problem reduced.
1. In an earthquake, there may be violent ground shaking; it will
seem to last much longer than it actually does.
2. Fires will occur, caused by electrical shorts, natural gas,
fireplaces, stoves, etc.
3. Fires in collapsed buildings will be very difficult to
control. 
4. The extent of the disaster will be difficult to assess, though
this will be necessary to assure proper commitment of resources.
5. Emergency equipment and field units will commit without being
dispatched. There will be an air or urgency and more requests for
aid than units available to send.
6. Communications will be inadequate; "holes" will appear in the
system and air traffic will be incredibly heavy.
7. Trained personnel will become supervisors because they will be
too valuable to perform hands-on tasks.
8. Responding mutual aid units will become lost; they will
require maps and guides.
9. Water will be contaminated and unsafe for drinking. Tankers
will be needed for firefighting and for carrying drinking water. 
10. Citizens will volunteer but their commitment will usually be
short-term. 
11. There may be a multitude of hazardous materials incidents. 
12. Aircraft will flood the area; law enforcement, fire, media,
civilian, commercial and military aircraft will be a major
concern. 
13. The Command Post and/or EOC will be overrun with non-
essential personnel; media, geologists, architects, engineers,
representatives from other jurisdictions, etc. 
14. Staging will be essential; the flow of personnel, equipment
and supplies will be overwhelming. 
15. Although it is an EOC function, the Field Command Post will
become the temporary seat of government. 
16. Electric power will be interrupted or will fail completely. 
17. It will be difficult to shut of the gas; valves that are
seldom, if ever, used will be difficult to find, and may not work
when they are found. 18. Phone service will be erratic or
non-existent. Pay phones will be the most reliable. 
19. The media will have the best communications available; be
prepared to share or impound their resources. 
20. Fuel will not be available because there will be no
electricity to run the pumps. 
21. There will be an epidemic of flat tires; police, fire, and
emergency medical vehicles will sustain a multitude of flat tires
that will require repair in the field.
22. Fires will need to be investigated; mutual aid should include
arson investigators. 
23. The primary police department concern will be law
enforcement; there will not be sufficient time or manpower to
provide miscellaneous services. 
24. It will be dark; there will not be enough generators or
lights available. 
25. Portable toilets will be in demand; there will be no place to
go, and if a place is found there will be six photographers there
to cover the event. 
26. The perimeter will be difficult to control; citizens and
media alike will offer good reasons why they should be allowed to
enter the restricted area. 
27. Search dogs will be needed early in the operation. 
28. Documentation will be very important; there will be a
multitude of requests for information later. 29. 
Riveted steel (oil and water storage) tanks may fail.
30. Streets will be impassable in some areas; it will be
necessary to clear streets of rubble in order to conduct
emergency operations. 
31. The same buildings will be searched more than once unless
they are clearly marked. 
32. In earthquakes, there will be aftershocks; they will hamper
emergency operations, create new fears among the citizenry and
may cause more destruction than the original shock. 
33. Many injured people will have to find their own way to
medical treatment facilities. 
34. Volunteer and reserve personnel may be slow to respond; they
will put their own families' safety first. 
35. On-duty public safety personnel will be concerned about their
own families, and some may leave their posts to check on them. 
36. Law enforcement and the media will clash; all media
representatives should be referred to the Public Information
Officer. 
37. Very few citizens will utilize evacuation/mass care centers;
they will prefer to stay with friends and relatives, or to camp
out in their own yards. 
38. Structural engineers will be needed to evaluate standing
buildings for use as evacuation centers, command posts,
information centers, first aid stations, etc.
39. The identification of workers and volunteers will be a
problem; it will be difficult to determine who is working where
and on what. 
40. There will be rumors; people will be listening to their
radios and must be given accurate information. 
41. There will not be enough handie-talkies; batteries will soon
go dead. 
42. Many fire hydrants will be inaccessible (covered or destroyed
by rubble) or inoperable. 
43. Generators will run out of fuel; jerry cans of fuel must be
obtained early to maintain generator powered lighting and
communications. 
44. Critical facilities will have to be self-sufficient; gas,
lights, water and sewage may be out for days. 
45. Emergency responders will require rest and must be relieved.
Local personnel may be of value as guides for mutual aid
responders, or as supervisors for volunteer crews. 
46. Equipment will be lost, damaged or stolen, and may never be
accounted for. 
47. Someone will get the bill; record-keeping and accounting
procedures will be important.
48. Traditional non-emergency personnel will want to go home at 5
o'clock; all public employees must be made to realize that they
are a part of the emergency response team. 
49. People will die and there is nothing that can be done about
it. Non-public safety personnel will not understand why everyone
cannot be saved. Priorities must be set to save the most lives
possible. 
50. Dead bodies should not be an initial concern. Rescuing the
living should be the first priority. 
51. If phones are working, the number of requests for service
will be overwhelming. People will have to fend for themselves; it
will be difficult for dispatchers to ignore these pleas for help.

52. Some field units will "disappear"; you will not be able to
reach them and will not know where they are or what they are
doing. 
53. Security will have to be posted at hospitals, clinics, and
first-aid stations to control hysterical citizens demanding
immediate attention.
54. Representatives from public agencies throughout the United
States and many foreign countries will want to come and observe
the operations or offer assistance. They will be a significant
problem. 
55. Department heads (EOC) staff may not have a working knowledge
of their assigned areas of responsibility, and will "play it by
ear." 
56. Some citizens and media representatives will question your
decisions because they will not recognize that the safety of
field responders is paramount. 
57. There are no critically injured in a disaster; only those who
are dead or alive. 
58. Handicapped and disabled persons will probably die unless
personal family and friends can care for them and maintain their
life-support systems. 
59. Management will not be familiar with field response
procedures, and may attempt to change standard operating
procedures. 
60. Emergency responders (public safety and medical alike) will
not be adequately trained to respond efficiently. 
61. There will be initial chaos; supplies, materials and
equipment needed will not be readily available. 
62. There will be a general lack of necessary information;
coordinators will want to wait for damage/casualty assessment
information to establish priorities.
63. Emergency equipment will not be able to reach some locations
because of traffic jams. Tow trucks will be at a premium. Parked
or abandoned vehicles will block streets, and emergency
responders will be the worst offenders. 
64. Even though there will not be enough people to initially deal
with emergencies, many available personnel will never be
identified and never used. After the initial shock, there will be
too many volunteers.
65. General information will be offered in response to specific
questions because field units cannot verify the requested
information.
66. Individual public safety officers will be asked to do the
work of squads or companies; they will have to recruit volunteers
on the spot to provide assistance to their efforts. 
67. The message flow to, from, and within the EOC and Field
Command Post will break down and become inefficient and
unmanageable. 
68. There will be an overcritical desire to "verify" all incoming
information. If it is received from a field unit, it should be
considered as verified. 
69. Some EOC and Command Post personnel will become overloaded;
some will not be able to cope with the volume of activity and
information they have to deal with, and some will not be able to
cope with the noise and distractions.
70. Things will get better -- some time after they have become
considerably worse.  [RB053-061]

REAL TIME EXPERIENCES & OBSERVATIONS IN EMERGENCIES
This is the first of a series of suggestions, observations,
findings, and criticisms by Amateur Radio operators. This opening
statement applies to each and every subsequent part in this
series and will not be repeated in the interest of brevity.
Amateur Radio operators and served organizations met after the
October 17, 1989 magnitude 7.1 earthquake in northern California
to identify, discuss and document the good and not so good on
both sides. From the thousands of words provided us in numerous
after-action reports, I have boiled down the following as the
most frequent findings. I'm sure there are many reports that were
never provided us so we can only quote from those that were. 
We are indebted to those hams and agencies that shared their
findings with us. As is our practice, we have sanitized the
reports to eliminate individual names and callsigns. Most of
these findings can or should be helpful to any volunteer or paid
individual and organizations in their future training operations
and exercises. Most of the findings apply to sound practices and
procedures anywhere -- not just to an earthquake in California.
It is in this spirit that we share these with you. In an attempt
to categorize the findings I have broken them down into the
following broad categories: Management, Operations, General,
Packet, Plans/Preparedness, and Training.

MANAGEMENT 
1. "Sometimes ARES people forgot to look at the big picture.
Decisions were then being made by people too close to the
situation or people too weary to comprehend the scope of the
event." Solution: "Identify before a disaster a list of people
able to serve as supervisors or managers."
2. "Managers sometimes made decisions without consultation with
those in the field." Solution: "Those overseeing the operation
must also consult with, or be in touch with, those on the line."
3. "The Resource Net sometimes filled in vacant slots with the
first ham that came along." Solutions: "(a) Every ham should be
told to bring every piece of gear and every kind of clothing and
to make sure that they are in excellent health. (b) Hams should
be told to bring whatever is known to be required and to meet in
a staging area."
4. "People would come from long distances and then discover
overstaffing. They would then feel unwelcome and return home."
5. "Every city ARES EC should have liaison with the local
hospitals."
6. "Better coordination of housing for hams coming from out of
area is needed."
7. "The employer having dibs on the body makes active
participation hard." (See General comment number 2).
8. "Better resource management needed -- database would have been
useful."
9. "Personality conflicts arose during the course of the
operation." Solution: "People don't have to like each other in
order to work with each other. When possible, parties with
disagreements should wait until after the incident to resolve
them. If the disagreements are interfering with the running of
the operation and the parties involved cannot reach resolution on
their own, then they should agree to sit down with a higher level
of management with a specific list of problem behaviors and their
suggested resolution. The mediator/manager must help them devise
a solution with the good of the group or the operation in mind."

OPERATIONS 
1. "There were complaints that some portions of the ham community
did not understand the magnitude of the problem and so provided
little support." Solution: "A status or situation report (SITREP)
must be broadcast periodically."
2. "Two hams may be needed at each station -- one to serve as a
runner and one to serve as the ham."
3. "Use tactical calls. ID with a ham call only when needed to
fulfill FCC requirements."
4. "Staying overnight makes it nice to have two people." 
5. "There is a greater need for ham radio discipline; hams need
to follow/listen the Net Control Station (NCS)."
6. "There are shift change problems if you do not provide enough
time for shifts to do a turn over or for a supervisor to give
information out to each new operator. Relief should be present at
least 30 minutes before the shift ends in order to do the
turnover properly."
7. "H&W (Health & Welfare) is important but we need a structured
way to address it. Maybe we need to split our [ARES] personnel
into H&W and ARES? H&W and tactical communications are two very
different missions!"
8. "Remember to be courteous on the air -- even during a
disaster."
9. "Many messages lacked clear 'TO' and 'FROM' addresses.
Remember that radio callsigns are not acceptable addresses."
10. "There was confusion over tactical callsigns and the overuse
of callsigns between any two stations in communication with one
another. Use the ham callsign only once: at the end of any
two-way exchange or once every ten minutes -- whichever is less."
11. "We are communicators -- we shouldn't be making decisions."
12. "Brief relief operators!" 
13. "We need to (a) work 8 hours and be off 8 hours; or (b)
consider 8 hour shifts instead of 6 hour shifts."
14. "Backup power is needed for strategic repeaters." 
15. "Lack of equipment in Red Cross communications center(s)."
16. "Always send 2 people on any assignment."

PACKET RADIO 
1. "Packet is useful for logistical traffic in a long operation."
2. "Surprised not to see packet used but maybe it wasn't planned
out?"
3. "Packet grossly underutilized." 
4. One county suggests packet may not have worked because "Many
of the packeteers are also the best voice operators."
5. One person suggested packet also not desired because people
have a need to "talk" in a disaster -- "not to type in a
disaster".
6. "Cities need more information about our [ARES] skills;
statistical information desired by many cities would have been
great to go via packet on a preset form."
7. Felt packet not used enough "Because lack of packet
portability; contact companies now to purchase equipment."
8. "Strategically placed packet for resource availability and
equipment requirements would have been very helpful."
9. "Packet radio was needed." 
10. "Places that needed packet may have been without
electricity."
11. "It is hard to decipher manuals for packet during a disaster.
Have drills involving packet with other peoples' systems."
12. "If cities and counties establish a RACES unit they can buy
and have radios and packet terminals in place ready to be
operated by any qualified ham operator." 

GENERAL 
1. "Conflict between employment and volunteering; have EOC and
Red Cross write letters to employers and maybe send a press
release to the job." (See Management #7.)
2. "At County Communications is a small room for us with a lack
of antenna drops and it has to be bigger. Technical improvements
are needed."
3. "Have procedure manuals at County Communications."
4. "Label the ends of all coaxial cables [at any facility]."
5. "Headsets are needed on all base stations at any facility."
6. "There was a clear need to handle the ARES resources
management better in the 'X' area, but the job did get done. The
problem again is not the quantity of hams that are licensed but
the quality. Only a small handful was willing to come and provide
emergency communications when the chips were down. We must
continuously address the issue of values and quality of Amateur
Radio and not over simplify any exclusive quantity of
technological advances."
7. "Use this event as an incentive to work out the kinks."

TRAINING
1. "How do you train those who won't participate and be trained
ahead of time?"
2. "How do you train the untrained?" 
3. "We need to discipline ourselves better in following a
directed net. Give practice in passing traffic."
4. The need for traffic handling reiterated.

PLANS / PREPAREDNESS 
1. "Radio clubs of companies (firms) should be involved with the
ARES EC of the city in which the company club is located."
2. "We need to preassign hams to support the Emergency Broadcast
System."
3. "Need to establish Memorandums of Understandings with
different repeaters/groups before a disaster."
4. "Include an AM/FM radio in your list of necessary field
response equipment."
5. "Pretest equipment. Use simple radios."
6. "Now is the time to check over radios and power cables."
7. "Separate power supplies are needed for radios."
8. "Some volunteers are not properly signed up Disaster Service
Workers and this is jeopardizing the volunteer and his/her
dependents." [RB 100-104 and 119-120] 

EMERGENCY DIRECTORS PERSPECTIVES - (LOMA PRIETA EARTHQUAKE
CRITIQUE)
Only one state and parts of two others are free from any threat
of earthquakes. For this reason we continue to receive requests
from volunteer communications services and the agencies they
serve for any helpful information. I attended a military-
civilian-common carrier critique following the October 1989 Loma
Prieta (S.F. Bay Area) earthquake. It was a candid exchange of
comments and observations by high ranking individuals. The theme
was "Lessons learned from the earthquake". I am sure that you
will be able to adopt one or more of the following statements to
your own area. How many can you find?
An Army general said, "Too many people show up wanting to be
helpful. They should know in advance where they fit in or stay
out of the way. If people don't know what to do or where to go,
then someone isn't doing their planning job properly."
A big city emergency management director said, "We didn't need
ham radio operators. Our biggest communications problem was we
didn't have any interdepartmental radio communications without
cellular telephones." [The contradiction is clearly obvious to
ham radio operators! This city has no RACES program but no
shortage of hams who wish it did. ---KH6GBX]
A big city fire department battalion chief said, 
"One: our plans did not work. They should all be redone. The
Incident Command System works but it took more than a few days to
make it work. 
Two: if you don't control the media, they will control you. 
Three: a mobile command post is extremely important. 
Four: we were hampered by a lack of simplex radio channels. 
Five: there must be a mechanism to coordinate volunteers."
A county emergency management director said, 
"Communications: some lost or overtaxed it so bad we lost it. You
must have redundant communications. Volunteers: you should have a
plan on how to deal with and manage volunteers. They showed up
uninvited in (one hard hit city) and nobody could use them. On
the subject of ICS (the Incident Command System), you should all
adopt it. Finally, in the recovery phase, we didn't do as good a
job as we should have. We should train people how to use the ICS
for the recovery phase, too."
A gas and electric utility representative said, 
"Everybody needs to work on their communications systems. Our
phones were overloaded for the first five days. Our mobile radio
system was useless because our mountaintop remote base stations
were all out. Generators failed because we don't use them. We all
have to run them under load for more than just a few minutes."
A state emergency management official said
 that we need to be more proactive by moving up certain resources
to the periphery of the incident, rather than await dispatch from
greater distances. She also said that we all should start placing
as much emphasis on recovery operations as we do in response.
An emergency medical service official said, 
"We instituted the earthquake plan and it really helped. The
earthquake was not a catastrophic event but it did validate our
planning. Lack of intelligence the first few hours is a problem
-- it was zero. Communications needs to be established much more
quickly. We need to set up a communications system in advance.
One hundred of the 112 hospitals in the earthquake area were
affected in one way or another." 
[Note: Several states have regional or statewide EMS radio
communication systems. California does not.]
The critique day concluded with management and communications
workshops. Some key findings of the latter were that a four to
eight hour communications battery backup is no good if there
isn't a generator available. Batteries are simply a switchover
bridge between commercial and generator power. Emergency power
generators will fail when you really need them if they are not
exercised and maintained frequently. 

A briefing on Amateur Radio was given to the communications
workshop. Most of the governments that do not have a RACES
program have little understanding of ham radio; at the time of a
disaster is too late to find out. I explained that the RACES is a
mutual aid resource similar to fire suppression, law enforcement,
engineering and others. They are trained in emergency management
procedures and operations, the ICS, public safety, disciplined
operations and teamwork. A MARS representative concluded by
explaining the MARS resources available to the military
community. -- RB99 and 121

FOOTNOTE TO BULLETINS-BY-TOPIC
Ideas, questions and suggestions from many people contributed to
these materials. In some instances quotations occur or articles
authored are as indicated. RB reference is to the original RACES
Bulletin issued by Stanly Harter, KH6GBX, State Races
Coordinator, Office of Emergency Services, 2800 Meadowview Road,
Sacramento, California 95832 between l985 and l992.Input and
comments are welcomed by mail or packet radio to W6HIR @
WA6NWE.#NOCAL.CA [Telephone 916-427-4281.]