W1

EMA 305: Principles of Emergency Management

Week 1 Lecture: Exploring the Concept of “Principled” Emergency Management

The idea of establishing a set of principles which define and provide a universal, overarching context to

for emergency management is not unique. It is an outgrowth of the recent development of a more well

defined and professional approach to dealing with emergency and disaster events. It is also implicit in

any attempt to create a distinct profession or discipline called “Emergency Management”. In order to

appreciate and articulate the need for such a principled approach it is necessary for us to understand:

1. How the use of principles affects disaster policy making:

The Principles have clear implications for disaster policy making in that policies should be developed in

collaboration with major stakeholders who will be responsible for implementing them. Disaster policy

should be comprehensive in coverage. That is, policies and programs should address mitigation,

preparedness, response, and recovery, not just one aspect of a hazard or disaster. With few exceptions,

emergency management or disaster policies have been reactive. Too often they address the most

recent disaster and have little application to future disasters (Waugh, in press). Too often they are also

disaster specific and have little application to other kinds of disasters. While all policies need not be

comprehensive in terms of covering all hazards, all stakeholders, all impacts, and so on, there should be

an explicit assumption that comprehensive and proactive policies are preferable.

Government programs are often designed by legislation with little flexibility in terms of organization and

staffing and no flexibility in terms of mission. These are the constraints under which government

agencies operate and often an argument for using private or nonprofit sector organizations that have

greater flexibility in how they operate – albeit usually with the same requirements for accountability and

transparency.

Collaborative processes do pose accountability problems because responsibility for performance may

well be shared with other individuals and organizations. Determining an individual’s or organization’s

contribution to the overall effort may be difficult. Moreover, failures by partners can damage an

organization’s reputation and can have political repercussions. Collaboration can be a messy and long

process, but the products tend to have greater support and engender greater trust among the

participants. Much of emergency management decision making is not done under the stress of crises

and, thus, lends itself to more cooperative and collaborative processes. Speedy crisis decision making

would be much easier if the stakeholders already have high levels of trust and understanding.

Integrating stakeholders into operations and coordinating their efforts is no small task, but progressive

programs anticipate issues relative to knowledge, skills, capabilities, and resources to facilitate

integration and coordination. Building flexible structures and processes is a challenge, but it is

achievable when there are common goals to guide action. One of the advantages of incident command

is that there is a common set of objectives and flexibility in how to structure the organization. Having

common objectives is prerequisite to higher orders of improvisation (Wachtendorf, 2004). Risk-based

planning is the new imperative. Basing policy priorities and resource allocations on measured risk is

fundamental. Basing priorities on risk is the most effective and, perhaps, the most ethical approach to

risk reduction.

Lastly, policies and programs should be designed with the advice of and implemented by knowledgeable

professionals. Disaster responses often include individuals and organizations that lack knowledge of

emergency management and lack the skills necessary to manage operations effectively. While not all

agency personnel need to be experts in emergency management, but all in charge of operations should

be. Despite the caveats, the Principles lend themselves to the new governance approach. Managing the

networks of public, private, and nongovernmental organizations is a challenge, particularly in the stress

of crisis. Accountability to taxpayers and to elected officials is important and maintaining transparency

engenders trust and cooperation. Social vulnerability is now a focus of emergency managers. There has

been a number of foci over the past decade from alert and warning systems to addressing the needs of

the disabled population. The new concern is the need to address the needs of those most vulnerable.

Getting policymakers to respond to that concern will be challenging.

2. How the Principles can relate to community risk management:

Cooperation and collaboration have been used in community risk management programs. Much of the

literature on collaborative processes focus on the involvement of stakeholders, ranging from the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers to private landowners and sport fishermen, in watershed management. Local

emergency managers develop relationships with other public officials, community group leaders, and

citizens in order to build support for risk reduction programs. Interpersonal skills were identified by

Thomas Drabek (1987) as the most important trait of effective emergency managers, more important

than technical skills.

Collaborative processes are increasingly being used in community planning and development, including

a visioning process to develop long-term goals and action planning to prioritize programs. The

involvement of stakeholders is a basic requirement for strategic planning in organizations and

communities. At the federal level, Project Impact, the Disaster-Resistant Communities program, for

example, provided support to community groups to encourage hazard mitigation. Despite evidence of

success, Project Impact funding was eliminated in 2001.

Collaboration was also very much a part of FEMA’s effort in the 1990s to encourage the adoption of safe

construction practices (Waugh, 2002). FEMA personnel developed strong working relationships with

community groups, building code organizations, and other public agencies to encourage the

development of a market for homes built with hurricane straps, elevated utilities, fire-resistant

materials, and other measures to reduce vulnerability to wind, water, and fire. In some cases, FEMA had

regulatory power, such as through the National Flood Insurance Program, and, in other cases, the

influence was as informal as personal encouragement. The Firewise and StormReady programs similarly

involved working closely with communities to encourage risk reduction.

3. How the Principles can affect the relationship between emergency managers and the public:

Currently, the “big ideas” in public administration include the concepts of accountability, transparency,

and stewardship. Accountability to the public requires openness. It also means performing effectively

and efficiently and being responsive to the public’s needs and responsible for exercising due diligence in

the performance of duties. Accountability is often associated with legal liability. This association is not

something particularly new to those involved in emergency events; however, the emerging concepts of

disaster management can create unforeseen complications in this area. An extreme example is a recent

situation in Italy where volcano researchers/disaster planners were criminally charged for failure to

provide adequate warning of a volcanic eruption. An examination of this case is provided in the learning

resources for this week: “Emergency Management on Trial”. Please read this case and think about the

implication of this kind of “accountability” in the emergency management context. Transparency in

relation to the public means having open decision processes, clear decision criteria, and an ethical

approach to decisions. Transparency increases the credibility of programs and builds trust that can pay

off with investments in risk reduction. Stewardship, having the long-term view, is the exercise of one’s

discretion to protect the community’s future, to preserve the quality of life and not trade that quality for

short-term values.

The “big ideas” also included community resilience and social vulnerability. To the extent that the

community can be made more resilient so that it can cope with disasters and other challenges, it will be

stronger. Experience with disasters can increase resilience. Integrating citizens into the emergency

management program builds capacity and, thus, resilience. Community emergency response teams and

other volunteer programs build resilience and support for emergency management programs.

Resilience also means that communities can cope with other kinds of emergencies and crises. A resilient

community can better deal with crime waves, plant closings, and other social and economic crises.

Reducing social vulnerability is perhaps the most challenging task. Emergency managers typically do not

become involved in social welfare or health care or education or employment programs. The best that

might be expected is that they can point out the vulnerability to decision makers who are involved in

those programs and that they can assure that local emergency management personnel understand the

need to address those vulnerabilities when disaster strikes. Encouraging the adoption of appropriate

building and fire codes, land-use planning to remove homes and businesses from hazardous areas, and

other measures can reduce vulnerability simply by moving people away from the hazards.

4. How the Principles relate to the profession of emergency management:

In many respects, emergency management is emerging as profession. Some evidence of this is the fact

that common body of knowledge has been identified. The IAEM Certified Emergency Manager (CEM)

program makes explicit expectations concerning experience, education and training, knowledge of the

field, professional activities, and skill in written communication. There is also a professional code of

conduct and there is a developing community of practice.

The dilemma is that many emergency managers are volunteers or part-time, many work in agencies in

which emergency management is a secondary responsibility, many have few resources with which to

build programs, and many entered the field with little or no experience or technical knowledge. In those

respects, emergency management is not unusual in many communities. Building a profession is not a

quick process. General notions about roles and functions have become sharper over the past several

decades and, as we discussed last week, it is clearer what emergency management is and what it is not.

The Principles document states that emergency management is fundamentally management. It involves

coordination, collaboration, integration and the rest of the functions identified in the Principles. But is

also involved budgeting and financial management, human resource management, and other more

traditional managerial functions.

We have tried to make clear that emergency management is not disaster or emergency response, but

also it not simply disaster planning, although planning is a major function in the field. To cast Thomas

Drabek’s conclusion a little differently, emergency management is building relationships. It is working

with members of the community and other public officials to reduce risks to life and property and

environment.

The “big idea” in emergency management, like it is in other areas of public administration, is then

governance. Effective governance requires good people skills and it also helps to have access to

decision makers. To the extent that government is becoming more open, more participative, and more

transparent, access will be easier. Relationship building will be easier. Collaboration will be possible,

but it is still problematic when dealing with agencies that are not open, not participative, and not

transparent. That is the frustrating aspect of emergency management today.

The Principles spell out the job (comprehensive, integration, collaboration, coordination), the values

that underlie the job (flexible, risk-based, and progressive), and the conditions under which the job can

be performed well (professional). The task environment of emergency managers changed on 9/11 and

again on August 29th, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina made landfall. It will change again all too soon.

The 2005 South Asian tsunami had an impact. TsunamiReady programs expanded along the U.S.

coastline. The 2010 Haitian earthquake and the 2010 Chilean earthquake and tsunami are already

having impact upon American and international logistics and medical response networks.

References:

The Principles of Emergency Management, 2007.

Drabek, Thomas E. (1987). The Professional Emergency Manager: Structures and Strategies for Success.

(Boulder, CO: Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado).

Wachtendorf, Tricia (2004). Improvising 9/11: Organizational Improvisation Following the World Trade

Center Disaster. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Delaware. (Available on the Disaster Research Center

website)

Waugh, William L., Jr. (in press) “Emergency and Crisis Management: Practice, Theory and Profession,”

in The State of Public Administration: Issues, Problems, Challenges,” edited by Donald C. Menzel and

Harvey J. White (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, forthcoming).

Waugh, William L., Jr. (2009) “Mechanisms for Collaboration in Emergency Management: ICS, NIMS, and

the Problem of Command and Control,” The Collaborative Public Manager: New Ideas for the Twenty-

First Century, eds. Rosemary O’Leary and Lisa Blomgren Bingham (Washington, DC: Georgetown

University Press), pp. 157-175.