Canton on Emergency Management

New Standards Proposed by DHS

DHS today issued its long anticipated proposal for standards for the Voluntary Private Preparedness Accreditation and Certification Program (PS-Prep) established under Title IX of Public Law 110-53. As expected, DHS is proposing the following three standards: 

• ASIS SPC.1-2009Organizational Resilience: Security Preparedness, and Continuity Management Systems – the American Society for Industrial Security is making ASIS SPC 1-2009 available for inspection, downloading, and printing at no cost.
• British Standard 25999-2:2007Business Continuity Management – the British Standards Institution is making BS25999 available for inspection, downloading, and printing for a nominal charge.
• National Fire Protection Association1600:2007 Standard on Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity Programs – the National Fire Protection Association is making NFPA 1600 available for inspection, downloading, and printing at no cost.

So what't this mean to the average company? Well, the first thing to remember is that this is the proposal phase of the adoption process, so you have 30 days to make public comments. Secondly,  PS-Prep is voluntary and it's going to take a while to work out any sort of accreditation. So this is just a step in a long process.

Still, standards-based programs are the way of the future and you might want to start thinking about using one of these standards to improve your program. There are a lot of variables that go into that decision and I'll try to write about them in either a blog or newsletter. Meanwhile, you might want to check out my August 5 blog, "Who Needs Standards?"

My personal preference? Well, that's a bit irrelevant because you need to pick the standard that's right for you. I've worked with NFPA 1600 for years, although I have not reviewed the 2010 version yet, and I've just received some training on the ASIS standard. Both are good and both have their pros and cons. I haven't reviewed the British standard because it was cost prohibitive. I note that they're charging $40 for the privilege of downloading an electronic review version - that's actually a bargain compared to what they normally charge - but with two good standards available for free why bother?

October 2009 Newsletter

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The Zombies Strike Back!

This seems to be the season for zombies. After writing my article in August, I've noticed them cropping up just about everywhere. Woody Harrelson's Zombieland is in theaters and doing well. Scott Phelps will be offering a session on zombie attacks at the upcoming   International Association of Emergency Managers conference in November. Zombies may well become the new trend in exercises. However, a little caution is always in order when you try something a bit different.

A colleague at the University of Florida, Doug Johnson, developed a pretty good disaster preparedness exercise  based on a zombie attack. The exercise was designed to spark discussion among planners while being a bit light-hearted. Unfortunately, the local and national  news media got wind of it (months after it was posted in June) and initially thought that the UF was really preparing for a zombie attack. The story even merited a blurb in US News and World Report. You can imagine the concern that generated with UF officials!The good news is that media reports eventually got it right and Doug even got a good interview out of it. Still, the UF administration has pulled the disaster scenarios from its e-Learning Support Services website.

The caveat here is that when you do something a bit on the wild side, think about how it will look to outsiders. Make sure you do a little preparation ahead of time, such as briefing your superiors and having some media announcements ready to go. This is not the time to maintain the "zombie silence" advocated in Scott Kenemore's The Zen of Zombie!