Canton on Emergency Management

Is the Occupy Movement Really Unique?

Download Is Occupy Unique Dec 2011

National Preparedness Goal a paradigm shift?

Like many of you, I've been wading through the recently issued National Preparedness Goal. From my somewhat cynical perspective, I think it's going to pretty much put a final nail in the coffin of the Comprehensive Emergency Management model that has guided our programs since 1978. Instead of the four phase model of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery we now have five preparedness missions: prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery.

Changing paradigms is not necessarily a bad thing. If you accept the fact that the "war on terror" needs to be a central focus for preparedness, then a change makes sense. If, however, you believe as I do that emergency managers deal with consequences and that prevention and protection could be legitimately placed under the original definition of mitigation (actions taken to prevent or minimize the impact of disasters), then one has to question the wisdom of such a change.

Please understand that I am not fighting a last ditch effort to save an old paradigm. Those of you who have read my book know that I think that a misunderstanding of the CEM model has created a number of problems in our emergency planning. What I am concerned about are the hundreds of emergency plans that have been based on the CEM model that will now be revised to focus on the five missions. This will happen despite that fact that the five missions are national goals and not specific to emergency plans and despite the assurance of trusted colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security that this is not the intent. This means we will need to address them as a community, as we are expected to do with standards.

So what does this all mean? I wouldn't run out and start revising plans just yet. However, I would look at how your emergency management program addresses the five mission areas. Focusing on core capabilities makes sense and this is where you should put your effort.

Civil Disturbance Response: A case study (Part 2)

As promised, here are my thoughts on the UC Davis pepper spray incident. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am reacting solely to what I see in the video and am not privy to any other facts, so it is not my intent to second-guess the officers on the scene. There's enough of that going on already. My point is that images are ambiguous and open to interpretation - my views may be completely different from yours and both of our opinions may not be supported by the ongoing investigation.

I should also mention that I have had training in both police practices and riot control tactics and have been in both the EOC and field command posts during demonstrations. While I don't consider myself an expert on the subject, I do have more understanding of the issues than the average person on the street. So for what they're worth, here are my thoughts:

1. It's seems apparent that the operation initially went well. Police issued warnings, successfully removed the tents, and arrested those demonstrators who did not comply with the order to leave. However, I'm not sure why police felt it necessary to remain in the area and await transport for the prisoners. Under the circumstances, the potential for mass arrests should have been anticipated. The suspects should have been moved from the area before the crowd had time to react.
2. Case law in California is pretty clear that pepper spray is a defensive weapon. As I view the video, it seems to me that the police are wary but fully in control of the situation. They are calm and fully prepared to defend themselves if necessary but they are under no immediate threat. The pepper spray was used because the demonstrators did not move out of the way of the vehicle and were blocking the police from leaving - an offensive maneuver.
3. If the police should not have used pepper spray, what else could they have done? Clearly, there was a concern that physically engaging the demonstrators might have led to escalation of the conflict. However, physically moving demonstrators one at a time was an option that has been successful in other circumstances. There were also officers positioned behind the demonstrators who could have been used to target the leaders of the demonstration - also a tactic that has been used effectively in other demonstrations. Police also had the option of just waiting out the demonstrators - they did not appear inclined towards violence and police so far had acted with tact and professionalism that had helped avoid it. None of these are ideal but they would be more defensible in court than the offensive use of chemical agents.

Again, I'm offering impressions gained from the video under discussion, not an in-depth analysis of the police tactics used. This is what is going to occur over the next few months as this incident is dissected by both the official investigation and the public.Your reaction to the video is largely determined by your personal bias for or against the protesters. The danger of visual images is that the emotion they evoke can obscure the facts.

Civil Disturbance Response: a case study

In my recent article on the power of visual images I discussed the image of a UC Davis campus police officer using pepper spray on student demonstrators. One of the points in my article is that visual images lack context and that we are moved by the image because we don't always know what occurred before or what came after.

One of my contacts has made me aware of a video that purports to set the pepper spraying incident in context. After viewing the video, I think it provides an interesting case study in responding to civil disturbances.

As emergency managers, we need to view case studies from a neutral position, so don't be but off by the rather biased commentary in the video. Assume for the moment that the facts are as purported in the video (the incident is still under investigation and I don't know the provenance of the video). Don't let your support for one side or the other influence you. Instead, consider the following questions:

• Could confrontation have been avoided by different decisions by the police?
• Did the level of confrontation justify the use of chemical agents?

Emergency Management Solutions - Crisis Communications: The Power of Images November 2011

Emergency Management Solutions November 2011

Crisis Communications: The Power of Images

Download Power of Images Nov 2011

Emergency Alert System: Do we really need it?

By now you've probably heard that yesterday's test of the national Emergency Alert System did not go as well as planned. This, of course, is not a bad thing. The system has never been tested and identifying problems can only help to improve it.

The larger question, though, is do we still need it? The system itself is a Cold War artifact - developed to allow the President to address the nation in the event of nuclear war. We have made some use of parts of the system at the local level for such things as weather warnings and AMBER alerts. But I found our system in San Francisco to be cumbersome and hard to use and made much more use of other tools such as California's Emergency Digital Information Service.

We have an amazing array of new systems and technologies that allow for almost immediate communication. We're making it easier and easier to move information across systems through through innovations such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP).

The nature of the threat has changed as well. Instead of a worldwide nuclear war, we now deal with asymmetrical warfare. Evening catastrophic natural disasters don't seem to warrant use of the system. During Hurricane Katrina, EAS was not used by local governments, although the NOAA weather radio system which is used in conjunction with EAS was used to provide weather reports.

I applaud my colleagues at FEMA for having the courage to test the EAS system, knowing that it would most likely have difficulties. I think this puts us in an excellent position to determine whether it is cost effective to fix the system or to pursue other options.

Social media: Two attitudes

"Social media is for parties. We ain't giving no parties." This quote is attributed to a Washington DC Fire Department spokesman in a response over the DC fire twitter feed. It seems that one spokesman (who was later transferred to another job) was tweeting real-time information that the public could actually use. His boss preferred the usual pablum that most public agencies put out.

The problem for me here is not the internal workings of the DC fire department. I have no knowledge of the issues involved or the appropriateness of the tweets, so I do not feel I can comment on a personnel action. What does concern me is that a spokesman for a major department is completely dismissing social media as means of communicating with the public.

There are certainly concerns about providing real time information. Part of it is culturally based: emergency responders don't like to share information with outsiders. Part of it is the technical difficulty - computer aided dispatch systems are usually required to be isolated from the Internet because of security concerns, making it impossible to add a "tweet this" option and requiring a separate step when a dispatcher is dealing with an incident.

However, ultimately we're going to have to deal with these issues. The public demand for information is already out there and a tweet that says, "fire at Broadway and Main. Avoid the area" seems a reasonable expectation.

Let me give you a different quote from Craig Fugate, Director of FEMA, from his testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Communications:

"Social media is an important part of the Whole Community approach because it helps facilitate the vital two-way communication between emergency management agencies and the public, and it allows us to quickly and specifically share information with state, local, territorial, and tribal governments as well as the public."

So what's your attitude towards social media?

Social media: rumors can kill

Several times a month I'll receive an email from some well-meaning friend that provides a warning about some new crime technique, virus or government/corporate conspiracy. I'm fairly good at spotting that they're spam and usually can find a link on one of the debunker sites that I can send back to my friend. Some of these rumors have been making the rounds for years and are still going strong.

Couple this longevity with the speed of social media and you have a potent combination with the power to spread disinformation almost instaneously. When US soldiers started vacinating cows in Iraq in 2005, rumors that the US was poisoning livestock to starve the Iraqis garnered substantial support for the insurgents. Other rumors spread via social media have led to riots and the death of innocent bystanders. In response, the US Navy has just awarded a $1.6 million contract to develop a system track and defuse rumors.

The project seeks to develop an app that can be used to report rumors via smartphone. This data will then be analyzed and, if necessary, counter-narratives will be developed. The project team hopes the system will lead to a website that can by accessed by anyone to check any rumor anywhere.

Until that day, though, it's a good idea to monitor your web presence and make sure you're being responsive to complaints and rumors. In this day of instanteous communications, you've only got a short time to realize you have a problem and respond.

 

 

Preparedness and the zombie apocalypse

By now you've probably heard that the CDC has been trying to generate interest in preparedness through a rather light-hearted campaign encouraging people to prepare for a zombie apocalypse. The idea of using zombie infestation as a metaphor for pandemic infection has been around for a while - I blogged about it back in August and October  of 2009. I thought the it was a minor trend that would soon run its course. Boy, was I wrong.

Zombie infestation is stronger than ever. The CDC campaign exceeded the expectations of its planners (who deserve kudos, by the way, for having the courage to try something so outlandish in such a conservative industry). The CDC now has a range of zombie products (I'm on the waiting list for my T-shirt) and the trend is being picked up across the country. My colleagues in Ohio named October "Zombie Preparedness Month" and held a major hazardous materials drill yesterday (Halloween, of course!) with a zombie theme.

Are we being just a bit silly here? There's always a risk that campaigns like this can backfire and reduce our credibility. After all, FEMA is still taking heat for a 1994 publication that included a chapter on dealing with alien landings. But let's face it - our traditional methods of encouraging preparedness don't work all that well. Anything that gets people's attention and gets the message of preparedness across is, in my book, a good thing. Besides,  there are a lot of people really having fun with this and that's also a good thing.

Can't wait for the CDC to restock so I can get my T-shirt!