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RECOVERY SENIOR
EDITOR ASSOCIATE
EDITOR COPY
EDITORS ADVERTISING _____________ Corporate President/CEO Vice
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CONFERENCE REGISTRAR EXECUTIVE
COUNCIL
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Click Here for a Printable Version A Team Approach To Emergency Management By TOM ARMINIO & TROY TRUAX, AICP Whether your perspective is from the national strategic level or the municipal level, the view of homeland security and emergency management has changed for the foreseeable future. The primary responsibilities of any elected or appointed public servant – or leader of a private corporation, for that matter – are to protect property and, above all, preserve the health, safety, and welfare of his or her respective constituents. Meeting those challenges and the increased demands of emergency preparedness and security planning is a daunting task for even the most seasoned professional. In an environment that is complex, uncertain, ambiguous, and often volatile, leaders have five primary roles to play in ensuring the security of their communities and organizations: plan, prepare, practice, communicate, and seek funding/resources. This article focuses primarily on planning and preparing your organization for the next disaster – manmade or natural – that will inevitably affect your community or organization. The article discusses two areas that require a dedicated team effort from the entire county government staff: continuity of government and its associated vital records program, and emergency support functions (ESFs). Continuity of Government The Continuity of government concept dates back to President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 10346. The president directed federal agencies to develop plans to maintain the essential functions of their organizations during nuclear war or other catastrophic event. Succeeding presidents have maintained the concept through other executive orders, and ultimately many state and local governments have adopted it as well. President John F. Kennedy best summarized the importance of this concept
when he said, “The continued effective functioning of civilian
political authority in an emergency is vital to the survival of our
free society.” Continuity of government operations and planning will facilitate rapid restoration of authority and essential government functions and services, reduce panic, preclude civil unrest, minimize potential risks posed by secondary effects of the disaster, and greatly reassure the citizens of your community that their elected and appointed officials take emergency preparedness seriously and will do everything humanly possible to preserve their health, safety, and welfare. A viable continuity of government plan that ensures restoring order, protecting the safety of the public, restoring utilities, clearing roads, and preventing looting, etc. will also reassure the private business sector.
County government must be prepared to respond to any emergency or threat of emergency that may disrupt operations within an agency or county facility. The county emergency operations plan (EOP) was designed to martial your forces and respond to any emergency in the county. The continuity of government plan, as part of the EOP, should be designed to help you help yourselves and allow you to be as self-sufficient as possible. Development of a solid continuity of government plan will require the county staff to look internally for additional expertise and staffing of a county continuity of government working group. The establishment of such a group will help ensure all departments are on the same page and will support one another. Establishing a public-private partnership in this effort and having representation from the business community on the working group will also pay dividends. The business community has a great deal of experience in continuity of operations planning and several concepts translate to the public sector. Additionally, when county government staffs are looking for emergency relocation sites, the private sector may be able to offer empty or under-utilized office space. Memorandums of agreement would solidify this arrangement. The county continuity of government working group will provide the impetus for a living document, requiring long-term strategy and program management, as well as support and commitment from county leadership. The working group will not only identify essential functions and personnel and materiel resources, but also develop long- and short-term goals and objectives, forecast budgetary requirements, evaluate obstacles, and establish planning benchmarks. FEMA suggests a number of relevant performance measures in its discussion of the objectives and planning considerations for continuity of government activities. These include the following:
To ensure its viability, a continuity of government plan must contain a baseline of preparedness, be capable of execution across the full range of potential emergencies, and, therefore, include these minimum essential elements:
Generally speaking, the key performance measures for continuity of government are the degree to which the consequences of emergencies can be mitigated and the speed with which government functions and services can be restored. As suggested by FEMA, in cases where civil government and associated
services have been disrupted, the goal of the continuity of government
planning process should be to reestablish a basic level of civil authority
within 12 hours and be sustainable for up to one month. You are the
best judge of your administrative needs – only you will be able
to get back to business as usual … if you plan.
Planning for vital records protection must address actual and potential risks that could adversely affect agency operations. Possible threats include: fires, hurricanes, floods, other physical damage to infrastructure, infestation, sabotage (from either an internal or external perpetrator), civil disturbance, power failure, and acts of terrorism. Conducting an internal vulnerability analysis is highly recommended. To assist in the effectiveness of this process, counties should develop departmental emergency guidelines, outlining policies and objectives of the program, as well as functional statements on how the program will be implemented and staff responsibilities. Here again is an opportunity to tap into the experience and expertise of the private sector. All political jurisdictions are not equal when it comes to IT staffing, level of knowledge, and hardware. IT experts from the private sector are an invaluable resource when it comes to IT strategic planning and preservation of vital records. The private sector also has a vested interest in the aspect of the continuity of government plan. After all, tax documents, land use planning documents, building permits, and licenses, etc. are considered vital records. In summary, the vital records program will achieve two important and fundamental aims. First, the program will provide a department/agency with information needed to execute essential functions under other than normal operating conditions, thus providing basic services to its constituents and resumption of normal operations during and after the post-disaster recovery phase. Second, the program enables county staff to identify and protect vital records dealing with the myriad of legal, financial, and historical concerns of county government. Emergency Support Functions To help counteract this phenomenon, county EOPs have recently been revised and are, to a large extent, based on the National Response Plan (NRP)/Emergency Support Function (ESF) concept . County EOPs serve as an emergency management link between the municipalities and the state. ESFs, developed by FEMA in the late 1980s, are tools that build synergy among multiple agencies that perform similar functions, creating a single, cohesive unit, which, in turn, allows for better management of emergency response functions and resources. ESFs group the types of assistance that the county and/or its municipalities are likely to need based on 12 federal ESFs. Because differences exist between the capabilities and resources at the federal level and the needs at the county/local level, the 12 federal ESFs do not fully address all state, county, or local needs. For example, in our state of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) requires an additional seven ESFs (with some counties even adding more of their own), which are included in the ESF annex of county EOPs. Standard operating checklists should also be developed to further facilitate response actions and activities of the staff in the county emergency operations center. ESFs are established to carry out the provisions and task assignments of the county EOP. Each ESF addresses tasks for specific emergency management functions and is broken down into the four phases of emergency management (preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation). A single department or agency is designated as the primary coordinating agency responsible for managing tasks and resources within each ESF, while other departments or agencies act as support agencies. The primary coordinating agency oversees the assigned ESF under the direction of the county emergency management coordinator (EMC). The selection of the primary coordinating agency is based upon its authority, resources, and capabilities in a particular functional area and its administrative and personnel abilities to perform the required duties. Each primary coordinating agency is responsible for assigning sufficient personnel and time to ensure effective administration and implementation of the assigned ESF. Other agencies, departments, and organizations are identified as support agencies for one or more of the ESFs based on their resources and capabilities to support the assigned functional area. Primary coordinating agencies may reassign support agency tasks as needed and may recruit additional support agencies for newly identified tasks. he private sector will also have role to play when ESFs are executed and will be instrumental in how they are implemented. First, in the event of a catastrophic disaster numerous volunteers will be required. This may have an impact on employee attendance at many places of business. Also, several ESFs are directly tied to the private sector. Private hospitals may be inundated with injured greatly affecting their ability to address their normal case load; private transportation resources may be required for evacuation or the transportation of mass casualties; construction equipment may be necessary for debris management and removal, excavation, or river bank stabilization; grocery stores or “big box” retailers may be asked to provide food and water; utility companies may pressured to restore power to thousands of business and residential customers; and some county emergency management agencies in Pennsylvania have even developed a separate ESF for business and industry. Conclusion Troy D. Truax, AICP, is a principal of community and economic development planning, for Delta Development Group. Truax provides a diverse background of professional planning expertise and knowledge to Delta’s public and private client base.
©Copyright 2005 Systems Support Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without the express written permission of System Support Inc. is prohibited.
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