Archive for the ‘Emergency Planning’ Category
CPG 101 Emergency Operations Plan Development – The Basic Plan
There are several thoughts and approaches to the Basic Plan section of an Emergency Operations Plan. Many very practical planners provide an overview with general facts and an overview hazard section that is sometimes subtitled, “The Situation”. The CPG 101 loads up the BASIC PLAN section with not only situation facts, but also general information on Administration, Communication, Coordination, Capability and Direction and Control.
Here are some of the areas of my approach. Yes to all of the above. And, whatever is needed to support the emergency response and recovery plans and protocols of the associated annexes and contingencies put it in the BASIC PLAN.
When preparing a Basic Plan section, one of my goals is to articulate through this section the facts and data of the geo-political and demographical situation, a listing of the locations and features of the jurisdiction, identification and basic definition or descriptions of the hazards, threats and potential incidents, general response capabilities and a summary of the overall emergency operations management as outlined in the CPG 101. The information presented in the Basic Plan section becomes the basic information in the management and functional response annexes, as well as, the individual hazard or incident guides (also annexes).
It takes a bit of time, effort and research to write up a Basic Plan. For a county, for example, it includes all the sub-jurisdictions, other local government entities and other types of entities, including federal, state and tribal reserves and lands that are situated within the county’s borders. It also includes a good description and listing of the infrastructures (such as transportation, rail, air, communication, utilities, etc.) and the major operations and sites such as large employers, industrial complexes, stadiums and areas of assembly. I always include lakes, rivers, reservoirs, wetlands, preserves, and major features such as ranges, mountains, deserts and agriculture.
The listing of municipalities, governments, districts and especially the entities involved in emergency operations is important. These listed agencies and entities are found as primary and support agencies and entities in the annexes and are the “Plan Holders” and sometimes signature agencies to the sections of the Emergency Operations Plan in which they are the primary or lead agency.
The Response Capability section can be approached a number of ways. I have seen this section iterated as a Resource Listing with totals of emergency responders, equipment, apparatus, and agencies. I have a different approach and I have to thank my good colleague, Cindy Mullaney, at the Flathead County Office of Emergency Services (Montana) for helping me think this through. She suggested and I agreed that this was a good approach that we think of this in terms of incident TYPING. Following through on her comment, I worked with my last three clients on typing an incident using the TYPE V-I categories. With this approach, the response capability for the jurisdiction for each hazard or incident response can be identified and listed to respond to and recovery from a certain type of incident. You could also correlate this to “Levels of Emergencies”. This was very useful in preparing the hazard/incident response guides.
The hazard identification planning process is one of the most interesting processes of the planning effort. I utilize a Composite Risk Index approach and work closely with the planning oversight group to do a CRI assessment in 2 modes. The first is to weigh the probability and rank according to Probability X Impacts which presents a list of ranked hazards on probability. This is usually supported by historical data. The second is to calculate the sum (no weight or multiplication) of the probability and impacts, all having the same weight or emphasis. The result is a ranking on impacts. It is a different list. Both are valuable as a first level hazard analysis. For each hazard (which I generally list as an alphabetical list), we also spend the time to prepare a succinct definition that is appropriate for that jurisdiction. This definition carries through the plan. This planning session is one of the most enjoyable and interesting in the process and shouldn’t, in my view, be shortcut. Some planners will have this section separated as its own annex which is also a good idea if it will be augmented by maps, graphics, photos and other information.
I also include a general list of planning assumptions for the jurisdiction. This is also a great discussion for the planning oversight group and is a major step in setting up the processes for response and coordination in the annexes.
I include sections on authority, chain of delegation, basic concepts of levels of authority, levels of emergency, levels of response and recovery, phases of emergency management, emergency declarations, states of emergency and other major concepts of an emergency response for the jurisdiction. If there are acronyms and other terms that are unique to the emergency plan, I also include a glossary.
One of the last sections is the requirements in the CPG 101 to address Administration, Finance, Direction & Control, Communication and other major response and recovery functions. I have my own approach to this which is divided by phase and authority. It is important to be able to summarize these operational processes as they are also key components of the annexes.
And, I include a training and exercise section, if this is NOT an annex, which I think it should be. This part would need to be updated annually as the exercise and training program is updated.
There are other additions to the Basic Plan and it can be as comprehensive as you want. One of my goals is that the Emergency Managers do not have to find another source of basic data during an emergency for their reports, public information releases, and operational information. They can refer to the Basic Plan and find what they need, and in most cases, lift out the text for their forms and documentation. Additionally, by reading the Basic Plan, all leaders in the jurisdiction will be on the SAME PAGE AND CONCEPT during an emergency response. Further, it is an education and training tool and by reading it, the reader understands the SITUATION for the jurisdiction and is articulate in the Basic Concepts.
Wanna talk about the Basic Plan – give me a shout – Jan Decker 253 261 2704, jan.decker@comcast.net
CPG 101 – That is the subject of the next few blogs.
There are a few of us who oddly came of age with an interest – and for me it is a passionate endeavor – in developing, training in, and using what are now known as Emergency Operations Plans (EOP). While emergency planning per se is now a more or less common task, when most of us who were here before the CPG 101 – when we were coming up the ranks, the drudge job was writing the emergency operations plan and I’m one of the few who actually wanted the job. In fact, I helped other agencies and private entities and finally became a consultant in it just because I loved it. Thank the GOOD LORD for the proliferation of computers and MS WORD, which has made the production of the pages into a planner-friendly process. And, no matter what you think of the various governments and models and all the bazillion guidelines and requirements, you gotta be happy that there is the CPG 101 (Comprehensive Planning Guide 101, a FEMA guideline, available at: http://www.fema.gov/pdf/about/divisions/npd/CPG_101_V2.pdf .
It is a smart, strategic and comprehensive approach. Where I come in with these blogs, is hopefully, to explain it in such a way that it makes sense and if you are an emergency planner, or want to hire one, you will have a good feeling about this planning process.
To start off, I believe it would be good to remember where we came from. Emergency Operations Plans, in the good ol’ days came from the CIVIL DEFENSE era, when we were focused on, funded by, and supposed to be addressing ATTACK and THREAT contingencies. Most of our DISASTER COUNCILS and our local, state and federal government authorities were based on (many of them still are) an attack from a foreign entity. We were all about population protection from nuclear bombs, radioactive particles, explosions, air attacks and, air borne threats of mustard gas and other attack agents. Our plans were focused on the organization and assignment of our government resources on such contingencies. We had the CIVIL DEFENSE radio and then television emergency broadcast system, assigned shelters, and cadres of civilian volunteers who were registered and willing and able to organize their communities into protection, relocation, and survival. Oh yeah, we had cool yellow construction helmets and vests with CIVIL DEFENSE all over them. You could pick us out in the crowd!
With the givens of such potential situations, the Plans were organized around government emergency authority and department or agency based assignments. Many of the plans were very straightforward and simple and supplemented by separate plans based contingencies, such as radiology monitoring or field hospitals. Some of these plans had different authorities and were quite unique – each one having its own authority, set of leaders and levels of activation or trigger points. We didn’t have a STANDARD set of terms or functions and these plans varied by state, city, county and application. As a relative youngster in the emergency management business, I was very impressed with how military sounding these plans were. And almost every plan had pages and pages of contingency instructions with department assignments and the identification of resources, such as, the American Red Cross, the local volunteers and places or equipment. Pretty basic. And today’s planning is pretty much based on the same approach.
What is different is now instead of a whole bunch of separate plans, we have a comprehensive approach with one basic plan, identified potential hazards, threats, situations and incidents, and a single system of authority, management, coordination and control. All of it is INTEGRATED, which means that there are master or primary concepts and each annex (contingency or function) works off of the main concepts (the Basic Plan). We also have multiple concurrent leadership, and try as we do to get it all under 1 INCIDENT COMMANDER; we have to work with various laws, programs, and authorities.
So, after the 80’s, we left the simple plan and bunches of other plans, and started to consolidate into one master plan and tried to focus on FUNCTIONS instead of DEPARTMENTS. Hence, the MULTI-FUNCTIONAL PLAN, which was very comprehensive and its signature was the old P and S chart – where the functions were listed across the top and the departments down the side and the P’s were the primary (in charge of) and the S’s were support.
Into this design comes the Incident Command System (ICS) which provided an excellent model of functional based response organization that was loosely integrated into the plans. This was a monkey wrench into the department based plans and works fabulously for fire type incidents, but was difficult for other types of responses.
And, with the 80’s came FEMA and emphasis shifted from war planning to natural and technological disasters and you all know the story of how we got to 9/11.
And that’s the thumbnail of plans and their history – I’m sure most communities that have been around for the past forty years could expound on this with very interesting anecdotes.
So, with the CPG 101 – all of the above has come together into a comprehensive guide and I love it. The most recent guidelines bring back the departments and allow all annexes (which are those separate plans) to co-exist as management annexes, specific functional annexes, hazard/incident specific annexes and now department annexes. Hurray for the CPG 101. We can have it all and have it all organized into one master plan again.
If you are still saying, ok, so how do I get started? Hang in there. We’ll start on that next blog.
Questions – give me ring or a ping– Jan Decker 253 261 2704. jan.decker@comcast.net
The Profile of a Crisis Management Leader – A BALANCE of Plans, Processes, and Posture
Emergency Managers love to quote Snoopy who said, “Five minutes before the party is not the time to learn to dance.” They, of course, are referring to the Crisis Manager or Leader – who should be well prepared for the leadership moment as well as the sustained management of continued response, containment, control, and eventual recovery to normal operations.
Well – Snoopy is right. No matter how good you are, you can’t be briefed five minutes before the big one on what to do and how to do it – and expect to succeed.
A Crisis Management Leader is a balance of three primary components:
- Plans – which are decisions made in advance
- Processes – which are systems and organized resources
- Posture – which is how one looks, acts and communicates
If I were to be pressed to give a percentage score – I would say it is the following:
- 35% Plans – which are the solid foundation for any crisis management program – plans are the intelligent and progressive development and roll-out of anticipatory decisions and actions to confront, mediate, mitigate and neutralize the crisis situation until it is no longer an emergency.
- 35% Processes – which are the implementation of plans into systems and resources. This is essential to being able to operate and take action – providing real time information exchange, the dissemination of directions, information and the tracking and management of operations.
- 30% Posture – posture is composure, readiness, confidence, and the appearance of full understanding and capability that the leader knows what to do – this may not be the solution or answer to the problem, but it is the pathway to determine the answer and the authoritative direction to get to that end. Posture is the ability to communicate succinctly, with authority to influence and direct the entire organization toward the objectives and end goal of containing the hazard or threat and restoring the situation to normal. Posture is best exhibited in communication – verbal, non-verbal and written (digital) to all entities, internal and external.
Notwithstanding Snoopy’s wisdom, if a Crisis Management Leader has a good written plan and reliable tested processes in place, they can, in 5 minutes, construct their posture of leadership when facing a sudden crisis situation. It isn’t learning how to dance; it is more of knowing that you have to now dance, deciding which dance to dance, what steps to take, and being light on the feet, always ready for a change in the music.
My tag line, should I use one, would be my Grandma’s saying to me as I was walking out the door to life, “Jan, straighten up your posture, stand tall and look good.”
Same to you, Crisis Management Leader – lead with posture!
Jan Decker
Crisis Management Consulting
253 261 2704
Copyright© Jan Decker 2012