Canton on Emergency Management

Gas pipeline safety: rewarding the wrong thing?

As a consultant, one of the things I tend to look for when evaluating a client's program is something psychologist call "cognitive dissonance". Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding two conflicting cognitions (ideas, values, beliefs, etc.). In simpler terms, it's the internal conflict you feel when you're told to do one thing but are rewarded for doing something else.

Case in point is a recent article on the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's incentive program for gas surveys. These gas surveys are used to determine the overall safety of the gas pipeline system and to direct repair crews to potential problem areas. One would think that the company would have an incentive program that encourages finding and correcting problems. Instead, PG&E's program rewarded supervisors and crews who found fewer leaks and kept repair costs down. The conflict between being told that your job is to find leaks but rewarding you for not finding leaks creates cognitive dissonance.

The results are predictable - people will tend to perform the tasks for which they are rewarded and avoid those for which they are penalized. When internal whistle-blowers finally got the attention of senior management in April 2008, PG&E began an inspection of its gas system that by December 2008 had found more leaks than had been reported between 2004 and 2008.

Although the incentive program was discontinued in 2008, it takes a long time for an organization to change it's culture. During an emergency survey following the San Bruno pipeline explosion in 2010, PG&E found 38 major gas leaks, 4 serious enough to require reports to the Federal government. Survey crews had only reported six major leaks the previous year.

This is an extreme case of cognitive dissonance, to be sure, but it's not really all that unusual - I find examples of it all the time in government and business. So take the time to look at what results you're trying to achieve with your programs and compare them with the behaviours you're actually rewarding. You may find out why you're not achieving the results you want.

Crisis Communications: Read Before You Rant!

Last week I received an angry email from a colleague who objected to one of my recent articles and demanded to be removed from my email list. In honoring his request, I noted that he had never even read the article to which he was objecting. He had made an assumption about the content and then acted on it.

At about the same time, I was preparing a blog on the legislation authorizing the military detention of civilians that was included in the recent defense appropriations bill. You may have recalled that the legislation purported to allow the detention without trial of US citizens suspected of terrorism. Fortunately, I took the time to read the legislation and found that it specifically prohibited the detention of US citizens (see Section 1032, b-1). Now, I have my concerns about the legislation and its overall intent but my point is that every article I have read on the internet and on my social media sites includes the phrase, "including US citizens". Someone made an assumption, passed it off as fact, and others have continued to spread it without verification. I almost did it myself.

So the lesson here is clear: take the time to check your facts before passing on inflammatory information. You can't assume that everything you read on the internet is true (duh!). If you're the victim of such disinformation, you need to act quickly to counter it with solid facts. Once the horse has left the barn, it's difficult to catch!

Emergency Management Solutions December 2011 - Is the Occupy Movement Really Unique?

Emergency Management Solutions Dec 2011

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?