Amy Gillespie EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Emergency management programs in Washington State are vulnerable because they do not have a sustainable and stable funding source. In 2004, the Washington State Emergency Management Council assessed its emergency management system. The resulting report stated, “Reliance on funding sources that are sometimes insufficient, inaccessible, or restricted is increasing the administrative…
Posts Tagged with Emergency Management
Beyond The First 48: Incorporating Nontraditional Stakeholders into Incident Response
Emily McLaughlin EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Cyber-attacks will create grave homeland security consequences in the coming years: power outages that last for weeks, drinking water supplies tainted with bacteria, and other destructive outcomes that are likely to result in the loss of human life and the destruction of property. At the local government level, a wide variety…
The Case for Adaptive SOPs in Complex Crises and Unpredictable Operating Environments
By Shawn Harwood and Wayne Porter, Ph.D. Abstract Standard operating procedures (SOPs) guide emergency responders in a crisis, providing predetermined steps to manage anticipated events. Modern disasters, however, often manifest as complex systems—susceptible to nonlinear interactions and feedback in the environment that produce unanticipated outcomes. As a consequence, the application of prediction-dependent SOPs to prediction-defiant…
Reading From The Same Map: Towards A New Situational Awareness Model For Emergency Management
Erik Rau EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Situational awareness (SA) is a critical issue for public safety disciplines, including emergency management, law enforcement, and the fire service. These fields operate substantially differently from each other, but share a common model for SA, based on John Boyd’s OODA loop. Boyd’s model, though applied widely, is heavily shaped by artefacts…
Aligning the National Preparedness Goal and FEMA’s National Preparedness Grants
Lance Harbour EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The majority of Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) preparedness grant programs were formed in the wake of the terror attacks on 9/11. The focus of these programs was to prepare the nation not only to prevent, but respond to, and recover from another terror incident. The National Preparedness Goal (the Goal)…
Analysis of the New Jersey Civil Defense and Disaster Control Act through a Modern Emergency Management Frame
Daniel Cunning EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Emergency management in the state of New Jersey has been guided largely by the New Jersey Civil Defense and Disaster Control Act of 1942 (the Act).[1] Portions of the associated legislation from the Act have been amended many times over the last 75 years. However, the Act has not been systemically…
After the Exercise: Using Change Management Theory to Improve After-Action Event Outcomes
Cynthia Holmes EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A. OPENING STATEMENT Preparedness agencies fail to act on gaps identified by exercises; instead, they repeat exercises and never move to resolve issues. After-action reports (AARs) document exercise findings, but are not shared with forward-facing staff who do the work. Agencies spend federal money exercising capabilities, but fail to implement changes…
911 and The Area Code From Which You Call: How To Improve The Disparity In California’s Emergency Medical Services.
Jeffrey Covitz EXECUTIVE SUMMARY There are 33 separate local emergency medical services (EMS) authority agencies serving the 58 counties in California.1 A local EMS authority (LEMSA) in California governs either EMS providers in a single county or several counties combined. Each LEMSA dictates widely different treatment and transport protocols for its paramedics.2 The medical director for…
Applying the THIRA to Special Events: A Framework for Capabilities-Based Planning Adoption in Local Governments
Daniel Bradley EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Local officials planning for disasters at the local level must make risk-informed judgments about what capability is needed to defend against known threats and hazards while remaining adaptable to address the unforeseen. However, risk assessment tools are imperfect and sometimes not available to local governments. Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8) and…
When the House Is Full, But the Guests Keep Coming: Determining the Impact of Daily Hospital Overcrowding on Disaster Response
Charity MenEfee EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Generally, healthcare emergency preparedness strategies have revolved around major medical disasters or catastrophic-event surge planning. Leaders throughout the emergency preparedness and management continuum―including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP),…