Some Initial “Lessons Learned’ from California Wildfires

In case you haven’t seen, heard or been talked to about the wildfires in Southern California……which is truly doubtful, the numbers look like this:

_ 24 separate fires
_ Almost 500,000 acres burned (679 square miles)
_ 1,635 homes destroyed
_ Over 1 million evacuated
_ 24 Red Cross Shelters opened
_ 1 mega shelter opened at Qualcomm Stadium that housed 11,000 evacuees
_ Over 9,000 firefighters deployed
_ 1,500 National Guard Troops deployed

Initial lessons learned that I observed include:

_ The media is “disaster hungry” and is just waiting for each disaster to take a turn for the worse, and for us as managers, to fail in our jobs. There has been no let down after Katrina in media attention to disaster events. These fires have played 24/7 on CNN. Coordination of the media has appeared to have been managed well. Reports have been consistent, there have been no major controversies, the local officials have backed up the response system, and have in turn been backed up by the Governor.
**PAY SOME ATTENTION NOW to your media management plans, including regional conversations between and training for Public Information Officers.

_ Get your Chief Elected Official out front, and briefed up properly. Arnold presented well, always had current numbers, and was always very positive. Just as important, he did not second guess tactics or appear too political in his briefings.
** HAVE A CONVERSATION NOW with your elected officials about their role with the media during a disaster event. They need to understand how important it is that they speak confidently, smartly, but not for too long!

_ We have been rolling our eyes as a profession when asked “does your plan identify shelter space for all of your citizens at one time?” Well, guess what, now might be the time to take a look at this scenario. Amazingly, after the debacle at the Superdome in New Orleans, San Diego optioned to open Qualcomm Stadium as a mega shelter. Surprisingly, the 11,000 or so evacuees were sheltered with not even a shot fired, and interviews of evacuees at the stadium were mostly positive. Never underestimate the affect that demographics have on a disaster. The mayor commented after the stadium was closed as a shelter that this was the first time they had thought about utilizing the stadium, and that now he was going to make sure that a plan was drawn up for future use…… seems better lucky than good at this point!
**REVIEW YOUR SHELTER PLANS NOW and stop rolling your eyes and find worst case shelter space for all of your citizens. Consider regional agreements. Consider different demographics, Consider transportation challenges.

_ Plan for animal evacuations and their owners. I heard more interviews with animal owners, especially horse owners, going back into evacuated areas to get their horses than any other evacuees trying to get past fire crews. This is a major red flag that needs to be addressed through public animal preparedness and planning meetings. These horse owners did not have enough trailer space for all of their animals, waited too late to begin evacuating, and then made multiple trips into high hazard areas that easily could have resulted in rescue missions for emergency responders. After all of that, many did not evacuate to the designated large animal shelters that were set up, and chose to go to local fairgrounds where, they had to evacuate again.
**INVEST TIME AND MONEY NOW into some public outreach preparedness information for all of your animal owners, both companion and large animals. Pre-designate co-located and large animal shelters. Encourage large animal owners to begin their evacuation efforts 12 hours prior to mandatory. Have regional discussions on animal response resources, sheltering and preparedness.
  

Disaster Management – The Need for Managers

One issue that continues to jump out at me as I watch disaster events unfold around the country is how disaster responders somehow are pushed into the roles of disaster managers. There is a difference. The term management is defined in Webster’s as “the act or art of managing” and when you look up managing you get to my point with the definition of “to handle or direct with a degree of skill.” Managers have to have skill and experience to be effective. One of the worse fallacies that we promote in our discipline is that a great responder makes for a great manager. Nothing is further from the truth.

A great responder is just that….. skilled and trained to complete a response task. A great manager has to have more diverse skills and training to not only be able to see the “big picture,” but also be able to see a concise, clear path to an events mitigation. The diverse skills come into play for a great manager to be able to accomplish the mitigation of this event by communicating and delegating to others, his vision and goals, and then motivating them to success. He is not managing the disaster….. he is successfully managing the people who are taking care of the disaster. A great responder may see the “big picture,” but his skills are centered on mitigating the event himself. In a management position, he quickly becomes the “micro-manager” that everyone has worked for at one time or another.

A great responder can evolve into a great manager, but he has to attain management skills and then develop them through experience as a deputy or assistant. Skills such as effective communications, conflict management, situational awareness and even creative thinking are not readily learned in response trainings. Let’s get to work in developing our next cadre of great managers through management training, education, and placement. With today’s complicated disaster events, a great responder that is forced into a management position can quickly become a victim of the disaster himself.

Fitness is a Job Requirement

The demands on the profession of disaster management are more than mental and emotional. Disaster response can be, and often is, extremely challenging physically. To be prepared, the profession should have high expectations for physical fitness.

We see disaster management joining the ranks of the military and of professional sports in the value placed on physical fitness. Moreover since those in disaster response, from fire fighters to emergency management personnel, are engaged in the community, we believe that the profession has a unique opportunity to educate citizens on the value of physical fitness in their lives.

Much has been written about how to control weight and to become fit. The body is an extremely complicated structure with many checks and balances. Furthermore, individuals have unique physical profiles that determine their best physical fitness routines. Despite this, we believe that there are several general observations that apply to all who aspire to fitness.

1. The body is an open energy system. What this means is that energy that comes in must equal energy going out. Excess energy is conserved and stored as fat. Any argument about eating as much as you want because the food ingested is “special” in some way is bogus.

2. Nutritionally, the body needs fats, carbohydrates and proteins to function. The best diet strategy is to avoid fad diets and to exercise portion control, which limits caloric intake. The only types of food to minimize in the diet are those that are highly processed and filled with preservatives. Highly processed foods are low in micro-nutrients and fiber which help fine tune the fitness system. They also have a higher probability of introducing contaminants, which could mutate genes in healthy cells into cancerous causing genes. The Weight Watchers program has proven to be the most effective approach to dieting.

3. Fitness has at least four dimensions: cardio endurance (the ability of the lungs and heart to pump oxygen into tissues); muscle endurance (the ability of the muscle tissues to work over long periods of time); muscle strength (the ability of the muscles to work against heavy loads), and flexibility (the ability to extend range of motion around joints). Any fitness program should address these dimensions.

4. Body composition, the percent fat one carries around, is not so much a component as an objective of a fitness program. For almost all males, this objective can be met by maintaining a waist size of 35 and under; for females, a waist size of 29 and under. A rigorous and consistent fitness effort will achieve this objective.

5. Cardio endurance can be developed by engaging in moderate to high intensity exercise that stresses the lungs for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, to an optimum of 60 minutes a day five times a week. Best exercises are jogging/running, bicycling, or rowing.

6. Strength training is best accomplished through a weight training program using multi-joint exercises (bench press, dead lifts, parallel squats, clean and press, and bent barbell rowing). Multi-joint, full body strength training should be conducted no more than twice a week.

7. Flexibility can be achieved by engaging in daily stretching exercises or by taking up a martial art or yoga.

8. Research has shown that getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a night, drinking several glasses of water a day, and maintaining healthy teeth (by brushing and flossing often), have significant impacts on one’s health (and fitness).

9. Finally, negative habits such as smoking and substance abuse are detrimental to fitness and should be eliminated altogether.

Almost all will agree on these general observations. The hard part is building a program that incorporates them and then following it consistently. The most common reasons given for not following a program are: don’t have time, have some physical malady that prevents exercising, don’t feel comfortable in front of others, and too much effort.

For disaster response, physical fitness is a job requirement, so all of the reasons for not following a program are invalid. One can even exercise around a physical malady until completely healed. The public deserves guardians capable of protecting them.

One sure fire method of developing the discipline to carry out a fitness program is to alter one’s image of self. “Disaster managers and response personnel are fit. They are public guardians, so as a responder, I need to be fit. I see myself as a fit person and a fit person does not smoke or abuse substances. A fit person exercises often. And so on.” Get the idea?

We recommend the following resources as references for developing a fitness program:

http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Navy-Guide-Fitness-Nutrition/dp/1602390304/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-6870500-1737720?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193065198&sr=1-2

http://www.weightwatchers.com/index.aspx

Higher Education in Disaster Management

I am starting my third year at UNC directing their Disaster Management Certificate Program, and I here I am “blogging” for the first time and thinking about how different my views are today on higher education and how it applies to the disaster management community. I use the term community because that is how I view our discipline. We are a community of “young citizens” who are interested in disaster management and confused at the same time about exactly what the job entails. We are a community of “middle aged citizens” who are experienced and beginning to recognize that the profession is more than just SUVs with allot of lights and antennas. And finally, we are also a community of experienced steeped “elder statesmen” that actually participated in the last big transformation in disaster management from the civil defense mission of the ‘60s to our current all hazards mission. This particular segment of our community is beginning to step aside in North Carolina, and we are facing a new era of the “middle aged” folks stepping up. As the process continues, this creates space for our “young citizens” to step up as well.

This analogy leads me back to my views on higher education. I have worked at each level in our disaster management community, beginning “wide-eyed” in 1987, settling in after hurricanes Andrew and Fran in the mid-90s, and now feel that I am stepping into the beginnings of the “elder statesman” role as we see more and more of our experienced folks step aside. In the beginning, to me, education and training were one in the same. In the interim, educational classes were something that I could not attain because of the time and effort required, so training became my conduit to knowledge and educational courses were “not as useful” or practical.

Now that I am working in academia, guess what!? That’s right, the light has come on, and my years of being a “nay sayer” about the usefulness of higher education have come to an end. Academia does have a role in our profession, both the educational component, as well as the research component. This “gap” of inclusion has been part of the confusion for our “young citizens” because they are very much in tune with higher education, and are having trouble finding the connections. So, it is up to us, collectively, to pursue higher education connectivity in disaster management for the good of our order. Yes, experience is still a cornerstone of our business, but higher education has to be just as important to reflect our discipline in a professional manner. Fire, law enforcement, and even EMS have undergraduate and advanced degree opportunities across the US. It is time for disaster management to catch up and fulfill this need as well.

The community colleges have supported disaster management well in North Carolina, and continue to do so. The shortfall in our system is not having a next step to take after that associate level for disaster management. Western Carolina University has stepped up to the plate, and we now have our certificate program at UNC, but more can be done. And just as importantly, more can be done in support of these efforts by our disaster management community. I used to think that we did not need an undergraduate or advanced degree in disaster management because we learned as we worked, and what good was a framed degree going to do up on the wall. But, I am older and hopefully wiser now, and as I see our “elder statesmen” stepping aside, I realize we need that educational component to speed up the process of giving our “young citizens” the benefit of all of the work experience that we are so quickly losing. At the same time, through comprehensive higher education programs, they will be validating their grasp of this complicated and ever changing discipline that we call disaster management.

Now is the time for us to move forward and support higher education initiatives, by teaching, by attending, and by supporting attendance by our “young citizens.” I believe this will be one of the keys to our discipline evolving into a true profession.          

Disaster Management — Future Challenges

Over the next 50 years our nation, and indeed the world, will face crises on an almost unimaginable scale. If even a few of the following trends continue at current rates, then public service leaders of the future will be living in a far more challenging environment.

• With Climate Change, rising ocean levels affecting coastal areas.
• With Climate Change, rising sea temperature, producing more intense meteorological events, with stronger surges.
• Water pollution
• Air pollution.
• Ecological degradation and contamination of animal genomes.
• Depletion of ocean resources and changing ocean chemistry.
• Water shortages and increase desertification.
• Continued world-wide food shortages.
• Decreases in plant and animal specie diversification.
• Movement of species into non-native habitats.
• Emergence of drug resistant bacterial and viral strains
• More virulent viruses spread more rapidly
• Collapse of petroleum based economy.
• Persistence of major worldwide epidemics like HIV/AIDS.
• Emergence of new lifestyle epidemics like obesity.
• Continued spread of addiction diseases.
• Worldwide and national resource disparities.
• Rise of militant ideologies.
• In the US, aging of the baby boomer population, increasing demand on healthcare.
• Global aging population.
• Problem of universal access to healthcare.
• Spread of gang violence.
• Erosion of civil liberties.

Each of these challenges requires a thoughtful, systems approach to understand how best to respond. Each of these challenges requires leaders and managers versed in critical thinking and systems thinking skills to make intelligent decisions. We need to start now (1) preparing a cadre of highly educated and skilled public decision makers who are attuned to these problems, and (2) preparing an educated citizenry to prepare for, and to respond thoughtfully to, these changing conditions.

FOSTERING A NEW PROFESSION

From the ranks of the emergency management and first response fields, we are proposing the development of a new profession that will take up the task of preparing this nation for the events we are likely to see over the next 50 years-the profession of Disaster Management.

The profession of Disaster Management will draw from the following fields:

• Emergency Management
• Emergency Medical Services
• Fire Fighting (including Hazmat, Search and Rescue)
• Public Health
• Veterinarian Services
• National Guard

Education

As a profession, Disaster Management should have a clear educational trajectory, starting with the two-year associate’s degree offered by the Community Colleges for many of these fields.

We propose the following organization for Disaster Management Education.

• Certificate Programs in disaster management for those transitioning into disaster management.
• Two Year Associate’s Degree for field skill-based training in the response fields of Emergency Management, Emergency Medical Services, and Fire Fighting. (Community Colleges)
• Four-year and Two plus Two Baccalaureate programs in Institutions of Higher Learning. Two tracks should be available: residential transfer tracks and distance education tracks. The later will be easier to implement initially.
• Master’s programs in Disaster Management. Again two tracks should be offered starting first with Distance Education for currently practicing disaster managers.
• PhD. Level programs to train researchers and educators in Disaster Management.

Those obtaining these degrees should head up local, state, and federal agencies responsible for the preparation for, and response to emergencies and disasters. These positions (to name only a few) include local county emergency managers, EMS personnel, fire chiefs, public health directors, state emergency management personnel, other public safety positions at the state level, veterinarian personnel, federal emergency management coordinators, CDC personnel, National Guard and active duty personnel, and DHS personnel.

Research

A profession requires an articulated research agenda with clear aims. For example the health professions orient research around finding effective treatment for physical and mental maladies affecting individuals with disease, trauma or other conditions that interfere with daily activities. Disasters are defined by the costs, both in economic and in health terms, that they impose on a community. A research agenda that focuses on how to find strategies that reduce the net costs to society organizes Disaster Management into a discipline.

Below is a diagram that maps the research effort. Risks and Costs are determined by four properties of the disaster situation.

• Nature and properties of the threat.
• Environmental vulnerability.
• Public (citizen) vulnerability.
• Capabilities of the Disaster Response Effort

Moreover at least ten key risk and cost drives may be identified that affect the magnitude of costs during and after an event.

• Hazard Knowledge. The less we know about the nature of threats, the higher the costs.
• Warning. With more advanced notice for impeding events more lives can be saved.
• Risk Communication. When the public does not have a clear idea of the risks involved, it is not able to make rational choices, which ultimately drives up costs.
• Mitigation of Built Environment. The more vulnerable our built environment, the higher the cost will be during an event.
• Mitigation of Natural Environment. Man-made destruction of natural barriers in the environment increases vulnerability to hazards.
• Public preparedness. When the public is not prepared for the threat, costs will be higher.
• Recovery. When recovery is slow or ineffective, or hasty and uncoordinated, costs will ultimately increase.
• Disaster Response. When we do not have a coordinated, effective response to an event, cost will be higher.
• Health Response. When we do not have surge capacity to handle mass casualties and the procedures to handle effectively the spread of infectious diseases, cost will rise.
• Information Technology. Without data and tools to render data into information, sound decisions will be rare and costs will rise.

Research efforts should be undertaken in each of these areas to reduce the cost of disasters.

Disaster Management–What’s in a Name?

“Disaster” derives from the Latin “dis” and “aster” meaning “apart” and “star.” The current use of the word reflects the notion of an unlucky star and is “anything that befalls of ruinous or distressing nature; a sudden or great misfortune, mishap, or misadventure; a calamity.” Disasters are events that we define by their distressing nature; that is, by their costs to us and to our community. No other definition focuses on the outcome of what concerns us most—our losses as individuals and as a community. Disasters regardless of how they come about, through natural hazards, technological accidents, military action, or terrorists activities are undesirable and if it were in our power, we would eliminate them. What concerns and preoccupies us as a profession, what we do, has something to do with disasters.

What we do when we manage events is to control or manipulate circumstances so that we can reduce the effects of disasters. Only since the enlightenment have we come to believe that we can manage the conditions leading to disasters; that we can actually prevail over the forces we once attributed to vengeful powers beyond our control. Within our powers now are the abilities to reduce our vulnerabilities, to develop increasingly advanced detection systems to forewarn us of the possibility of disasters, and to prepare for and to develop expertise in responding to stressful events.

Since disasters are defined by their costs in human suffering, a cost driver model is an accurate way of framing how we think about disasters. Disaster Management is the only term that captures the full range of meaning in what we do in security and natural hazard events. By including threat assessment, vulnerability, detection, and action, Disaster Management is comprehensive—it covers all the cost drivers affecting the magnitude of a disaster; it is reflective of our core objective—to reduce or minimize disaster costs; and it is descriptive of our activity—control or management of cost driver properties within our power.

Having a substantive definition sharpens our mission and guides our actions. Moreover, having a clear definition of what we do is a prerequisite for coalescing our work into a profession and, eventually, into a discipline. The disaster management profession is composed of those occupations that need to maintain high states of readiness and whose tasks are to manage events that are extra-ordinary, and therefore costly. To achieve our primary objective of reducing costs (monetary and non-monetary) of disasters, the definition of what we do therefore is to improve effectiveness in the disaster management system using a comprehensive approach with our efforts. And because the definition of what we do is disaster management, we should call what we do Disaster Management.