Page 1 OPSWhat Version 1. 3 3/1/92 WHAT TO EXPECT IN EMERGENCIES [Category OPS] Both the Responder and the Agency Officials are urged to review the materils under Disaster Critiques in the Management section for that contains vital real-on-the-firing-line experience by those who lived through some of the California disasters. ARE YOU REALLY EARTHQUAKE FREE? A recent comment by an eastern seaboard resident was: "California is the only place that need worry about earthquakes, so why bother us with all your earthquake information?" I was reminded of this statement when the March/April 1989 issue of "RESCUE" arrived at this office. A color map of the U.S. shows graphically how erroneous is such a statement. The seismic risk map shows that areas of CA, NV, AZ, WA, UT, ID, MT, MS, AR, TN, KY, IL, NY, VT, MA, NC and SC are subject to MAJOR DAMAGE. These same, and several other, states are subject to MODERATE DAMAGE, and an even larger number of states are prone to MINOR DAMAGE. Only parts of TX, LA, and AL are subject to NO DAMAGE. Food for thought. RB062 LOMA PRIETA OES RESPONSE OVERVIEW As is always the case, the recent Santa Cruz earthquake demonstrated that there are never enough communications facilities available when disaster strikes. In the hundred mile long affected area telephone service was partially knocked out and that which remained in service was totally overloaded. Microwave public service links went down as antennas were mis-aligned, towers buckled and power failed. The result was a huge lack of information about what damage had occurred, what was needed and where it was needed, and where recovery effort priorities should be placed. The State of California RACES quickly came on line to supplement limited circuits between government agencies where they existed, and to provide communications where all regular circuits had been disrupted. At the Governor's Office of Emergency Services HQ, in-place RACES radio assets were manned within minutes. Solid communication links into the affected regional OES command posts in turn were in communication with the key units in their recovery plans. The RACES links had a vital part in knitting governmental recovery operations into a viable, efficient effort. For the first five days, RACES radio rooms were manned around the clock. Then, as regular government and commercial circuits were restored, RACES operations were reduced, but not before Jon Madzelan, Chief of OES Telecommunications, told the RACES that "We couldn't have done it without you." RB090 There were many lessons to be learned from the actual operation in a major disaster recovery situation. Some of them follow: 1. Government furnished, pre-positioned, tested radios and other equipment are vital to successful communications in and out of headquarters where operational direction and control is accomplished. 2. Sufficient RACES staff must be available, known in advance to be committed to their particular assignments, when disaster strikes. 3. The RACES units must be good enough to be considered as members of the professional staff by the fulltime, paid disaster workers. This, of course, means regular contact between the RACES and paid staff, planning and exercising jointly. 4. The use of tactical callsigns is basic to success. Ham calls that change as individual operators change can and do cause confusion and disruption. FCC callsign rules must be met, of course, but the tactical call sign is paramount. "KB6ABC at OES Region 2" meets requirements and lets other locations know what they need to know and with what part of the system they are talking. The use of individual callsigns should be minimized and limited to meeting FCC requirements. 5. Hard copy is better than voice, where messages addressed to third parties must be delivered with zero chance of error. Packet radio provides hard copy and allows logging each message automatically for retrieval or any future need. 6. As far as the end user is concerned the means of communication are normally invisible and should be so. The goal of the system is to move information and/or data as rapidly as possible, neither adding or subtracting anything in the process. RB091 FLIGHT 232 COMM LESSONS LEARNED United Airlines flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 19, 1989. Here is a brief summary of the lessons we learned: 1. Centralize control and decision making. 2. Plan for the worst. 3. Extend handheld range with a portable repeater. 4. Have packet capabilities. 5. Tape record all repeater communications. 6. Document each potential volunteer's skills. 7. Maintain regular contact with service agencies. 8. Meet regularly to discuss disaster preparedness. Sgd MIKE NICKOLAUS, NF0N, EC Dakota County, Nebraska DOUG POTTS, KA0VHV, Asst. EC, Woodbury County, Iowa ALAN PEDERSON, KA0VNM. Asst. EC, Dakota County, Nebraska. RB092 COMMUNICATIONS WILL ALWAYS FAIL! "You can depend on it: communications ALWAYS fail in a disaster!" So reports Joseph Scanlon, Director of Emergency Communications Research Unit, Carleton University in the Alberta (Canada) Public Safety Services INSIGHT publication. The following excerpts from his article are food for thought, education and planning: While working as a consultant, I was asked by an engineer how often communications fail in a disaster. I replied, "always." He looked at me in disbelief; so I asked a colleague, Dr. E. L. Quarantelli. His reply? "Communications always fail in a disaster." Though that's a fact--and there's lots of evidence to support it--the hardest message about disasters to get across to emergency managers is that, at times, now matter how well prepared, they won't know what's going on. Take the tornado which hit Edmonton, July 31, 1987. There was damage and destruction including downed power and telephone lines. Traffic routes were impassable. There was flooding, enough to block many north-south arteries. There were toxic chemical incidents. Emergency radio systems--police, fire and ambulance--were overloaded. Part of the phone system was destroyed. No one, for a time, could possibly know what happened. That doesn't mean that Edmonton's plan, based on a central EOC, didn't work. It means it took time before the EOC had the information needed to make useful decisions. Any disaster--no matter how well handled--has some communication problems, some uncertainty. Effective emergency planning must assume such problems will occur. It must accept that there will be periods of uncertainty. And it must have systems in place to overcome the inevitable failures of communications. I always liked what the mayor of one Canadian city once told me. He said that everything had gone wrong during an exercise, and that when things become confused during a real disaster, he was in good shape because "confusion seemed normal." A word about disasters versus emergencies. Emergencies are serious events which require coordinated response to protect the health, safety and welfare of people, or to limit damage to property. Disasters differ substantially in nature; they are not just large emergencies. Disasters are disruptive and cause organizations and systems to break down. After a disaster the recognized stages of response are: (a) initial confusion with only individual response to immediate personal needs (b) decentralized response (c) coordinated response (d) cleanup (e) recovery. Disruption is a key feature of the confusion and decentralized response after a disaster. [This concludes the article by Joseph Scanlon. He has spent 19 years studying crisis and disaster, examining the problems of emergency planning, and emergency management.] RB 109 and 110