9 Fourth step: using the plan

For an emergency plan to succeed, the participants must have a sense of common ownership, of being part of the processes directed by the plan. Moreover, no participant should be without a role in the emergency response. This is true at both the individual level and at the level of particular organizations.

PRINCIPLE: no participant who works under the jurisdiction of the emergency plan should be without a role to play in the response to a crisis or disaster.

Participants should be aware of their own roles in particular situations covered by the plan. They should also be conversant with the roles of organizations other than their own. In fact, the essence of good emergency response is to understand the various parts of the jigsaw puzzle and how they fit together. This requires knowledge of the roles of a wide variety of organizations, and how the overall competencies and jurisdictions in the response process are divided up.

Serious emergencies are, thankfully, rare events. This fact is too easily taken as an inducement to do nothing. Instead, responders should remain in a permanent state of readiness, and this requires knowledge, training and sensitivity to the problem.

In diffusing the plan, the first task is to ensure that all participating organizations are aware of its existence and what it contains. This requires an initial publicity effort and continual initiatives to publicize the plan, which can often be achieved by circulating information on updates, amendments and improvements as they are made. Information and briefing meetings can be held with the leaders and personnel of participating organizations. It is helpful if these are backed up by clear information, perhaps located for ease of access on a website, and, of course, sufficient copies of the plan in whatever form it is available.

• the specific hazard, vulnerability and impact scenarios on which assessments of emergency needs are based;

• where resources will come from if local supplies, equipment and manpower are insufficient; and

• the potential geography of an extreme or threatening event: where things will happen, where resources will be located, what distances will need to be travelled, and what the time constraints of moving resources into position could be.

It may be helpful to schedule brief training courses on the plan, in which these elements can be presented and personnel can be familiarized with them. As usual, the emergency operations centre is probably the best venue. Maps can be brought out or projected and scenarios discussed. Procedures can be explained, for example regarding warning and evacuation processes. One should always remember that the plan exists to deal with exceptional events, and these require a different attitude and way of working compared to ‘normal’ emergencies of the lesser kind. Hence, participants in the course need to understand the qualitative difference involved in major emergencies. They also need to have a clear idea of the circumstances under which the plan will be activated. While these may be obvious in spectacular disasters, many large emergencies begin slowly, or with incomplete information and much uncertainty. Nevertheless, responders need to know when they will be working to the rules of the emergency plan, rather than following normal routines.

In many instances, the best way to ensure that a plan is known and understood to its users is to simulate an emergency and activate the plan. This must be done in a systematic way, as the next section describes.

Testing the plan with simulated emergencies

Emergency simulation has been described by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency as ‘an activity designed to promote emergency preparedness; test or evaluate emergency operations, policies, plans, procedures or facilities; train personnel in emergency management duties; and demonstrate operational capability.’ While it is seldom an adequate substitute for the experience of a real emergency, simulation is a useful means of testing plans and capabilities in a safe manner that lets them be checked out and improved before the next real emergency occurs.

PRINCIPLE: some of the provisions of an emergency plan should be tested periodically using crisis simulation exercises. Improvements to the plan should be derived from the results of these.

The first task is to decide which kind of simulation is needed. There are four possible options, as follows.

Table-top exercise. This is a useful means of working through an emergency scenario and checking matters such as the degree of co-operation between agencies and the suitability of resources for tackling the developing situation. Representatives of participating organizations are gathered around a table in a seminar format, and the scenario is discussed in a logical progression designed to identify and solve any problems that can be foreseen. It is a useful means of refining the emergency plan. The process requires maps of the affected area, assumptions about what is likely to occur, and the participation of all the main agencies that would be involved in responding to such an emergency. Table-top exercises do not directly test the dynamics of response, including ability to communicate in a crisis, and they do not train people to cope with unforeseen eventualities.

Command-centre exercise. The activation of an emergency operations centre, with or without the addition of a field command post, is a valuable means of testing the ability to put an emergency plan into action. The method relies on generating and sending emergency messages to and from the command centre, whose operatives must make realistic decisions on the basis of the needs generated by the emergency scenario. Large exercises of this type may involve a network of command centres and may test their ability to work together. Generally this kind of exercise does not involve the mobilization of emergency resources outside the command structures, but it does need detailed scenarios based on time-sequences of events that require decisions to be made rapidly and effectively.

Test of emergency procedures. Most search-and-rescue organizations test their ability to conduct operations. They may use specially created artificial environments, such as piles of rubble, underground chambers or trenches. Fire-fighters may test their ability to put out flames or move around amid smoke in specially designed simulation environments. Indeed, most emergency responders need to gain familiarity with their equipment in situations that are not threatening (although, for the purposes of realism, they may be made artificially stressful, for example, by imposing time limits on certain actions). As they require manual dexterity or knowledge of how equipment works, emergency procedures can usually be tested in isolation from the rest of the response network. However, if it is a question of integrating different procedures, the best solution is to mount a full-scale field exercise. An example is shown in Figure 9.1 .

Field exercise. This is the most realistic option, but it requires the greatest resources and most detailed organization. A field exercise is usually a full-scale emergency simulation, conducted with the involvement of most, or all, relevant organizations and the use of all major forms of equipment, including vehicles, operations centres and telecommunications networks.

Figure 9.1 A field exercise in emergency response: Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia. Photograph: David Alexander.

When deciding to mount an exercise, the first task is to decide its scope, objectives and scale. These will indicate which of the four options to choose. As field exercises include elements of all the other methods, they will now be discussed in detail.

Here are some possible objectives of an exercise; they can, of course, be multiple:

• to improve co-ordination and communication among organizations and to clarify the division of roles and responsibilities among them;

• by mounting a highly visible exercise, to convince politicians and the public to support emergency preparedness.

Let us concentrate on testing the plan. Generally, it will not be possible to test all its provisions, and hence the aspect that needs to be tackled must be selected. Usually, this will involve drawing up a reference scenario for one particular hazard and an event that will affect one or more particular locations and will involve a particular group of organizations. For instance:

• which hazard, among those that are expected to be important in the area covered by the plan?

• where will the simulation take place (field location or locations, EOCs involved, etc.)?

• which organizations will be involved (i.e., will be simulating the emergency response)?

Having decided on the answers to these questions, an estimate needs to be made of the time required to prepare the exercise. For a major event, this will be at least six months, involving regular meetings of the parties involved.

An exercise director needs to be appointed. This will be someone with overall responsibility for designing, activating and assessing the exercise. The person will need to be instructed in his or her responsibilities and told to whom he or she reports.

A steering committee must be set up and regularly convened. It should consist of representatives of all the organizations involved in the exercise. Ideally, they should be people with operational responsibility who occupy positions of command or authority. Their responsibilities will be to help design the exercise and acquaint their own organizations with their respective roles. The exercise needs the full support, not only of the organization that is responsible for the emergency plan, but also of other organizations that are involved, either directly as emergency responders, or indirectly because their jurisdiction will be where the simulation occurs.

The exercise will require a budget. This needs to be estimated at the outset, much as a business plan is prepared for a new enterprise. With volunteer organizations it will probably involve reimbursing costs incurred in carrying out the exercise. With employees it may require the payment of overtime. The budget should be estimated in detail at a very early stage of planning. Budget items may include the following:

• logistical costs, including travel to and refreshments at meetings of the steering committee;

The next stage is to design the exercise. A master document must be prepared, which details the elements of the scenario in terms of developments, timing and requirements for intervention. The most realistic sort of emergency simulation is one that involves no prior warning, because that is how many forms of real emergency happen. In reality the exercise is almost always known to participants in advance, as there are too many problems over staff availability, liability, coverage for regular tasks, and other forms of disruption. Exercises are also usually held at a convenient time, such as at a weekend. Whereas it would be more realistic seriously to interrupt the daily life of the community, as this is what a disaster invariably does, the social and economic costs are usually too great and the level of tolerance is too low.

PRINCIPLE: in exercise design there is a tradeoff between realism and pragmatism. No field exercise is likely to be fully realistic, but should provide a good simulation of the urgency and demands of the emergency environment.

The master document, or exercise narrative, should be based on a probable local scenario. The magnitude of the event to be simulated should reflect the probable size of future hazard impacts, but it will also be determined by the available response capability in the simulation. If a full-scale disaster cannot be simulated, and it would be desirable to do so, then start with a modest event and simulate a larger one next time around, assuming that the first attempt is successful and that it generates a useful result.

• The exercise director and steering committee. Their job is to manage the development and realization of the exercise and report to leaders and members of participating organizations.

• The design team. They will put together the scenario and list of required actions, or in other words the master document.

• The simulators. During the exercise they will send emergency messages according to the precepts of the master document and commands by the exercise director.

• The emergency responders. These will be the main actors in the simulation and will carry out the tasks associated with crisis management and emergency relief. They will be organized in response units and drawn from the participating organizations.

• The safety officer(s). This person, or persons, will monitor the progress of the simulation in terms of health and safety.

• The team of observers. During the simulation they will evaluate emergency actions and note the successes and failures of the exercise.

• The debriefers. These may be members of the other groups, or alternatively, may be separate participants. Their job is to facilitate understanding of lessons derived from the simulation and contribute to the final report.

Figure 9.2 Planners and emergency managers conduct a briefing in an emergency operations centre immediately prior to a field exercise. Photograph: David Alexander.

The exercise may start with a briefing, in which participants are instructed in what they are expected to do, and steps are taken to ensure that they are familiar with appropriate parts of the emergency plan (Fig. 9.2 ).

During the exercise, a state of emergency will be declared. It may be preceded by phases of alert, readiness, call-up and pre-positioning of resources. Under the headship of the exercise director the simulators will send emergency messages (calls for assistance, information on developing hazards, etc.) to the participants. It is desirable that the simulators be physically separated from other participants in order to avoid bias in communication. The director can vary the frequency of messages in order to speed up or slow down the simulation and thus ensure that it is realistic.

During the simulation any threat to the health and safety of participants must be noted by a safety officer, and action must be taken to correct it. If this cannot be done easily, it may be necessary to halt the exercise. All participants should be told that they can call a halt to proceedings if there is a safety issue. It should be emphasized that health and safety must not be ignored.

In field exercises it is acceptable to make mistakes, providing that no one is put at risk by them, lessons are learned for the future, and remedial action will eventually be taken.

PRINCIPLE: during a field exercise, any significant threat to health and safety should be taken seriously and should lead to an appropriate response, which could be to halt the exercise. It is permissible to make mistakes in an exercise providing there is no threat to health and safety and the appropriate lessons are learned.

The best observers are people who are level-headed and can muster objectivity and detachment. They should receive training before the exercise in order both to acquaint them with the work of evaluating actions, and teach them to recognize signs of bias due to excessive involvement, detachment, tiredness, partiality, prejudice, or other causes. Their job is to evaluate actions taken during the simulation in terms of the objectives of the exercise. In an impartial way, they must highlight the good and the bad about the emergency responses and record their observations for future use. Hence, forms need to be developed so that the observers can codify information and note both expected and unexpected developments. The chief of the observer team will be expected to summarize their findings in the debriefing session and final report.

Good observers are neither too lenient nor hypercritical. However, the reasons for evaluating an exercise are not to accuse or incriminate participants, but to seek constructive ways of improving emergency response services.

PRINCIPLE: exercises should always be carefully and objectively evaluated so as to produce a final report that details the lessons derived from the simulation.

When ‘stand-down’ is finally declared and the exercise is over, there are two possible forms of debriefing, ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. The former involves collecting impressions as soon as possible. It has the advantage that detail is likely to be fresh in the minds of participants, but the disadvantage that tiredness is likely to distort their perceptions. ‘Cold’ debriefing will take place after an interval that, however, should not exceed 72 hours. Well-rested participants should be asked for their perceptions of the exercise and to highlight successes, inefficiencies and unexpected problems. It should be noted that these are forms of operational debriefing. They differ from the psychological debriefing used to tackle critical incident stress and other forms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Simulators and participants can be debriefed separately, perhaps by the observer team, or there can be a general debriefing for all participants. The results need to be recorded and fed into the report of the exercise.

The final report should explain the reasons for and objectives of the field exercise. It should describe the results in terms of good and bad features and explain how these can be used to improve performance in the future. Usually, improvements will require greater staffing levels, better equipment or more training – i.e., more resources devoted to emergency preparedness. Hence, a field exercise is often a way of drawing official attention to shortage of resources, by graphically illustrating the consequences of inadequacy.

Field exercises are always a learning opportunity. As conditions change over time, including the readiness of staff, it is a good idea to aim for a regular cycle of exercises, perhaps annually or biennially. This enables new staff to be inducted and trained, existing personnel to refresh their knowledge, and exercise design to undergo a development that tackles increasingly sophisticated objectives.

One of the greatest benefits of exercises for emergency response is human contact. In civil protection there is a universal recognition that ‘knowing a person’s face’ (and character and mannerisms) makes communication easier and more efficient. Multi-organizational field simulation involves meeting and getting to know unfamiliar faces, and hence, when an emergency occurs, collaboration is made easier as a result of knowing with whom one is dealing.

In some cases, field simulation can be combined with training programmes. The classroom aspects may involve teaching the theory and dynamics of emergency response, and the simulation involves putting that knowledge into practice. However, a balance must be struck between demanding, costly, long-drawn-out assignments and constraining the event to manageable and affordable levels.

One final aspect concerns the extent to which the general public, the mass media, and outside organizations should be involved in field simulations. Media liaison and management of the public are key parts of emergencies and associated planning. In some instances good publicity can be derived from the visible effort to provide safe conditions for the public. Moreover, in the final analysis civil protection is unlikely to succeed without public and political support. However, there are two arguments against involving the public. The first concerns the level of disruption to daily life that field exercises can cause. If access is restricted, people are evacuated from their homes or workplaces, economic activities are suspended, and long lines of vehicles build up on roads, then the threshold of public tolerance is likely to be exceeded. Hence the temptation to hold field exercises on holidays and in out-of-the-way places, which, of course, detracts from their realism. The second argument refers to the confidential nature of certain operations, particularly those in counter-terrorism. Nevertheless, there has been little or no attempt to evaluate whether secrecy is actually necessary and beneficial. Logically, the public are unlikely to respond well to a terrorist alert if they are not instructed in what to do, or cannot see the point of certain actions. Hence, it is a good rule to involve the public as far as possible.

The revision cycle

Over a significant period, perhaps a year or two, there are likely to be many changes that could affect an emergency plan. These will affect the geographical area covered by the plan and the organizations that participate in it. For example, alterations in road networks, one-way systems and road junctions, and construction of new roads and bypasses will change accessibility and travel times during emergencies. Development of business parks and housing estates, construction of tall buildings and bridges, and upgrading of physical facilities will change the risk landscape and the geographical pattern of vulnerability. In the civil protection services there will be new appointments, redundancies and retirements. Offices and telephone numbers will change, and so will the division of responsibility between people, units and organizations. Information technology and communication equipment will be updated, increasing the potential to share data, monitor situations and respond efficiently. Finally, there will probably be new and improved information on the hazards that threaten the area, and possibly new monitoring services or data streams.

As a result of this dynamism, an emergency plan should be revised more or less frequently. Major changes should lead to ad hoc revisions, but it is advisable to have a regular revision cycle so that, at a predefined interval, the plan is at least reviewed and where necessary updated. There is no hard-and-fast rule about how often this should take place; it depends on the complexity of the area, the organizations involved and the plan itself. Generally, simpler situations relating to places where change is relatively slow and measured will be those in which the revision cycle is relatively long. Fast-growing cities and regions, and complex plans, will require shorter cycles. Nevertheless, any plan should be re-examined at least once a year and perhaps two or three times.

The revision process should be built into the plan, one of the final sections of which should stipulate how to revise it. There are three elements to this process. The first is to convene regular meetings of representatives of the participating organizations, again at least once a year, in which possible alterations to the plan are discussed. The plan can include a template or draft of the standard agenda for this meeting. Secondly, it helps to devise a checklist of the items that need to be checked or reviewed. These may include the following:

• basic data such as the names, addresses and contact numbers of group leaders;

• maps (hazard, vulnerability, potential impact, evacuation routes and reception centres, vehicle circulation, air-space corridors, etc.);

• specifications, competencies and responsibilities of emergency response organizations;

• the specific role and technical capacities of available information and communications technology;

• the availability and use of equipment, supplies, vehicles and buildings; and

Hazard and impact scenarios need to be revised periodically, as new information may be available on threats, vulnerability and periodicity of events.

Evaluating the plan in order to improve it

We have considered how to evaluate a simulated emergency response, which is indirectly a means of assessing a plan. Now it is time to discuss more direct forms of evaluation, and their uses.

Self-congratulation is the industrial disease of civil protection. All services and organizations want to feel that they are valued and their efforts are worthwhile, but this all too easily translates into excessive levels of self-satisfaction. Much of this may be the fruit of ignorance about what else could be achieved, and what relevant developments are occurring elsewhere in the world. In stating this, I am merely trying to be realistic. I have no desire to condemn emergency plans, planners, managers and responders, many of whom do excellent work. Nevertheless, evaluation is an important part of planning. One of its pitfalls is the risk that people who are being evaluated, or whose work is under scrutiny, will become defensive and thus seek to limit their cooperation. Self-evaluation is often used, as it is cheap and convenient. However, it may lead straight back to self-congratulation and is often not conducive to objectivity. The best way around this is to make the process independent of what is being evaluated, but to emphasize the constructive elements of evaluation: that it is being carried out to make the plan stronger, not to point the finger of accusation against any of the protagonists or to deprive valuable initiatives of their resources. Nevertheless, some reallocation of resources may arise from a thorough and effective evaluation; but emergency managers, of all people, should be accustomed to change.

Evaluation may have both static and dynamic components and should be a continuous process. The static part involves scrutinizing the plan and its elements. Dynamic evaluation takes place during exercises, real emergencies and post-incident debriefings. Regarding the former, a dozen basic questions can be posed, as follows:

• Is the level of resources sufficient to enable the plan to function adequately in an emergency?

• What are the greatest challenges and obstacles in the planning process? Are there areas in which the plan is likely to underperform?

• Are more resources needed in order to tackle the problems, and what resources?

• What information (and of what quality) is available to judge the efficacy of the plan?

The motivation behind these questions may involve an attempt to guarantee some or all of the following objectives:

• to offer a good service to the public and specific groups of beneficiaries (people in difficulty, the elderly, the sick, people with disabilities, ethnic minorities, families, children, etc.);

• foresee events that have some likelihood of occurring during the life of the plan (this can be specified, for example, as five or ten years);

• respond efficiently and effectively to foreseeable contingencies, emergencies and disasters;

• develop the service and enable it to grow in size, capacity, capability, flexibility and sophistication; and

In a previous article, 1 I put forward a methodology for evaluating a civil protection system in its entirety, which is primarily intended for use at the local authority level. The procedure involves 43 categories for investigating and judging the system, which are grouped under 13 headings (the individual lines in Table 9.1 ), as follows: development of the system; emergency plans; early warning; evacuation and care of citizens; critical facilities; communications; command and control; public involvement and information; education and training; post-disaster recovery; available resources; intangibles (e.g., culture and attitudes); and summary evaluation. By compiling indices based on single evaluations of these criteria, one can determine the state of evolution of a civil protection system. This is important as a means of judging whether it has achieved ‘critical mass’, or in other words, sufficient impetus to function autonomously and fulfil basic requirements during an emergency (Fig. 9.3 ). The scope of this analysis is wider than that of emergency planning per se , but plans, and the processes behind them, are a constituent part of great importance. Similar methodologies can be devised for evaluating the plan itself. Rather than doing that here, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the 20 categories mentioned in the introduction to this book as possible emergency support functions. The classes of evaluation can be drawn up in relation to what is important to the plan under evaluation, and the contingencies it must deal with.

Capacities and capabilities

The system

local — regional — national
articulation — integration — autonomy
services — versatility — all-hazards orientation

Resources

personnel (salaried/volunteer, full/part time)
equipment — supplies — materials
redundancy of equipment and procedures

Processes

plans — procedures — protocols
communications — networks — organizations
command — co-operation — collaboration
warning — evacuation — rescue — shelter — care

Culture and knowledge

esprit de corps — level of optimism — readiness
comprehensiveness — training — expertise
renewal and development — robustness — sustainability

Notes: Bold , major categories; Italics, subject to thresholds (tipping points) for critical mass; Underlined , subject to growth orintegration criteria.

After Alexander, D.E. 2015. Evaluation of civil protection programmes, with a case study from Mexico. Disaster Prevention and Management 24(2): 263–283.

Figure 9.3 A model of the stages of evolution of a civil protection system, with emphasis on its emergence to a state of autonomy and functionality.

In other words, the schema for evaluation should be tailored to the priorities and questions that are important to the specific circumstances of the plan. Here, we can mention some of the more common issues. The first of these concerns the functionality of the emergency operations centre, and whether 24-hour operation is feasible and effective. The plan should deal with call-up and communication procedures in order to ensure that the EOC can reach full functionality rapidly in all foreseeable sudden-impact emergencies, as well as those contingencies that are preceded by warnings ad preparation time.

A common failing of plans is not to investigate adequately the causes, drivers and mechanisms of local hazards and threats. Evaluators can enquire into the scenarios, and whether they are satisfactory representations of what is likely to happen in the future. Is the risk register comprehensive enough, and does it include good enough information on the risks that the plan must address? Are all pertinent risks included? Evaluation can include communications, evacuation procedures, levels of interoperability, and arrangements to ensure the continuity of normal business in an emergency. Command systems and procedures, apportionment of responsibilities, integration of forces and organizations, arrangements for communicating with the public and mass media can be evaluated.

It is a rather greater challenge to evaluate some of the intangible aspects of the creation, maintenance and use of an emergency plan. These include esprit de corps, learning cultures and adaptability. Likewise, the level of political support for emergency planning and management may be hard to characterize – or risky, if there is a danger of upsetting one’s paymasters! Even harder to evaluate are corruption, malfeasance and the misuse of resources. More tangible, and perhaps less controversial, aspects are represented by the arrangements for training and commissioning research, and the levels of accountability inherent in the processes specified in the plan.

Evaluation, like the plan itself, must have clear and realistic objectives. It is best conducted in an atmosphere of co-operation, transparency and intellectual honesty, and with the objective of improving a service. In these times of increasing risks, few emergency response services deserve to be ‘downsized’, and evaluation will not be looked upon with favour if that is its purpose.

The real emergency

Paradoxically, how well the plan works in a real crisis is not necessarily the most important question. Emergencies are chaotic situations in which perfectionism has no place. The plan is only a guide to what to do in a crisis. Its real utility is in helping emergency responders anticipate what is likely to happen, and what unusual needs will suddenly be generated. Obviously a plan that causes problems rather than solving them is not going to be welcomed by the responding organizations. However, even the best emergency planning instrument cannot be expected to anticipate all aspects of the situation. At best it can:

• help emergency managers anticipate situations by furnishing approximate scenarios of hazard, vulnerability and impact;

• make sure that responders know what their roles are in unfamiliar situations;

• indicate approximately what resources of personnel, equipment, vehicles, supplies and communications will be needed;

• ensure that mutual aid is forthcoming according to pre-established agreements; and

• ensure that protocols are activated for communication, resource use, the maintenance of health and safety among responders, resource management, and other tasks related to the emergency.

The process of managing an emergency is not one of blindly using the emergency plan. Rather, it requires an on-going planning process. Let us now follow through the emergency from the point of view of the plan’s users.

PRINCIPLE: planning does not end with the compilation of the permanent emergency plan. Instead, it should continue during emergencies, when it involves adapting the provisions of the plan to the requirements posed by the on-going situation.

An emergency plan is a set of provisions to be used in exceptional circumstances when normal working practices are insufficient. The first task is to know when to activate the plan. In the event of a major sudden impact event, such as a large earthquake, this may be obvious. However, there are many situations in which it is not so clear. An approaching hurricane that may or may not make landfall in the local area, a developing storm that may or may not cause tornadoes, or a river full of water that may or may not cause flooding are examples of uncertain situations. No emergency manager wants to anger colleagues by deploying resources in a false alarm. Moreover, once resources are sent into the field, it is difficult to recall and redeploy them to cope with an alternative scenario. Hence a modicum of caution is needed before setting the plan into motion.

The activation of an emergency plan usually requires the declaration of a state of emergency. This is a condition under which all responding organizations are called upon instantly to recognize that normal working procedures are suspended and substituted with emergency ones. The appropriate criterion is that a situation has occurred, or is about to happen, that cannot be managed with normal resources and organization, and therefore needs the special provisions made in the plan. The announcement of a state of emergency should automatically activate the plan. There are no hard and fast rules for recognizing the appropriate situation, and in many instances a modicum of judgement and common sense will determine whether to declare an emergency. It will also be necessary, of course, to monitor threats and learn how to recognize the signs that indicate when the situation has passed the threshold at which it is no longer possible to cope using normal resources.

PRINCIPLE: a state of emergency should be declared as soon as the developing situation can no longer be managed adequately with normal resources (or preventatively in anticipation of this). At this point the emergency plan should be activated and all participating organizations should simultaneously switch to emergency mode.

Once the emergency plan has been activated, its provisions will determine the initial deployment of resources and strategy for managing the situation. Thereafter, planning should continue at the strategic and tactical levels as resources are accumulated and deployed and the response is adjusted to the developing nature of the event. Strategic planning concerns the identification and procurement of resources (on the basis of needs assessments) and tactical planning relates to their deployment in the field.

The end of the emergency phase is also something that needs to be identified. As noted in previous chapters, responders and their organizations tend to ‘get stuck in the groove’ and become accustomed to working in emergency mode. They may need to be told to stop. In any case, it is a good idea formally to declare the end of the emergency phase, and thus deactivate the emergency plan. This is appropriate when there is no longer any need to work in emergency mode, as objectives have been met or conditions are no longer critical. Again, this requires a process of monitoring, both of the hazard and the response work.

In an ideal world, the activation of an emergency plan would automatically trigger a process of monitoring its usage. Much can be learned from which of the plan’s provisions work and which do not. In practice, responders are usually too busy dealing with the crisis to worry about collecting data for future revision of the plan. This is a pity, as perishable information can be gathered – i.e., data that are available for a short time only before they are forgotten or discarded. Anything that is not normally logged in handwritten, computerized or tape-recorded form falls into this category. The only other solution is to hold a debriefing after the emergency and ask responders to contribute observations on how well the operations went, in the light of the need to improve the plan. ‘Hot’ debriefing is needed, such that the meeting should be held within hours of the end of the emergency.

PRINCIPLE: ‘stand-down’ should be declared as soon as emergency response objectives have been met or are no longer appropriate and conditions are no longer threatening. This should automatically deactivate the emergency plan. Debriefing should follow.

1 Alexander, D.E. 2015. Evaluation of civil protection programmes, with a case study from Mexico. Disaster Prevention and Management 24(2): 263–283.

Fourth step: using the plan

Making sure participants know and understand the plan

Testing the plan with simulated emergencies

The revision cycle

Evaluating the plan in order to improve it

The real emergency