Canton on Emergency Management: April 2023

Besides earthquakes and fires, California can have very severe rainstorms. This is normally not a problem for San Francisco but 1997 was one of the worst El Nino years we experienced, with all California counties receiving federal disaster declarations. In San Francisco concern over a potential hillside collapse that might require evacuation of a residential neighborhood, a closed major highway that stranded motorists in the city, and a large homeless population at risk for hypothermia prompted the decision to open a series of emergency shelters.

Like many jurisdictions, we had always assumed our emergency operations center would accommodate all our key personnel. However, when we included supporting agencies, voluntary agencies, and community groups, our shelter branch alone numbered over 50 people, completely filling our operations room. If we had also needed to respond to the hillside collapse, we would have exceeded the capacity of our EOC.

This highlights one of the dichotomies of our current approach to EOC’s. Establishing a permanent EOC, even one of modest size, is expensive, not only in initial construction and equipping but in upkeep and maintenance. This limits the size of many EOCs to one that is sufficient for small emergencies but totally inadequate for major disasters.

Add to this the fact that many of us have rarely considered how many people will need to be accommodated in the EOC. This is partly because many EOCs are activated for local events and emergencies that seldom go for more than a few hours, serving more as command posts supporting tactical operations rather than operational coordination. Our exercises run for a few hours and rarely involve shift changes or activation of alternate sites. This creates a false expectation that EOC staffing will be of a manageable size and all functions will be able to be performed there.

The reality of a major disaster will be quite different. All the senior department heads who were too busy to come to an exercise? They’ll be there looking over the shoulders of the department representatives you trained. Community organizations and business leaders will all want access to your information. Representatives from state and federal agencies, liaison officers from mutual aid agencies, teams from volunteer agencies, the list is endless. And don’t forget the media. This won’t be just the local reporters with whom you probably have a good working relationship; we’re talking about national media who have no interest beyond getting a story that plays well on the national news channels, preferably one that highlights your perceived failures.

Think I’m overstating the problem? Following the loss of their EOC on September 11^th, the New York Office of Emergency Management established a new EOC on a vacant pier. The original EOC was designed to house 68 local agencies. I couldn’t find figures for how many people were at Pier 92 but the company that provided the emergency management software supporting the EOC reported more than 1,700 users, representing over 150 federal, state, and local agencies, as well as public and private companies. Could your EOC handle even a fraction of these people?

I’m not suggesting that we eliminate EOCs completely nor am I in favor of building mega-EOCs that might never be used. I am suggesting, however, that we should seriously consider how we can use them more effectively and what other facilities will be needed to support response operations. We need to accept several key facts that we tend to ignore:

The organizational chart we put in the Emergency Operations Plan is not how the EOC will be staffed. Have you ever counted how many people it would take to fill those neat little boxes? Your organization probably doesn’t have enough people on the payroll to do it. Similarly, the teams and positions described in the multiple resource typing documents issued by FEMA probably won’t be there. Be realistic in your planning and who you actually need in your EOC.
The EOC is a point of coordination, not necessarily where work is performed. This, of course, depends on the size of your organization and how you plan to use your EOC, but we already recognize this concept using department operations centers (DOCs). Teams may be more effective if collocated with the lead agency with supporting coordination done through their representative at the EOC. Alternatively, they may need to operate from a location separate from the main EOC.
The EOC may be where you initiate operations before moving to an alternate site capable of housing more personnel. You need to identify alternate sites and exercise your ability to activate and conduct operations from these sites. During the COVID emergency, the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management established an operations center at their alternate site at the Moscone Convention Center that housed over 400 city workers and representatives of city government.
With decentralized operations, technology becomes critical, both for sharing a common operating picture and creating ad hoc task forces to deal with emerging problems. Parallel communications systems and multiple options for internet access are essential.
Databases are more important than hardware. This was a key lesson learned from September 11^th. Hardware can be replaced relatively quickly, either through purchase or through personal laptops, tablets, and cellular phones. Plan for both access and connectivity rather than stockpiling hardware

Remember that what makes emergency managers so effective is our ability to react quickly to the unexpected by creating ad hoc task forces and adapting plans as needed to solve the problem. Plan your response to maximize this ability and don’t get too attached to a single facility. An EOC is not a building; it’s the EOC team that makes the difference in a crisis.

Canton on Emergency Management

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April 2023

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