Abstract
When a horrific disaster happens in multiple areas of the United States it is the people on the ground that make recovery happen. Starting with strong Unified Command System and the help from the Stafford Act reveals that the possibility of recovery is available. To first start the recovery certain pieces must be set into place. The establishment of the Chain of Command, who holds responsibility and makes the calls, and ensuring there is a strong Concept of Operations in place. By enforcing these plans into action chances of failing the mission are statistically slim. Recovering critical infrastructures is at the upmost of priorities. An analysis of the earthquake in four states located in central United States shows that: Recovery is at the upmost priority, but establishing of the Unified Command System is needed first.
Situation and Assumptions
There has been a catastrophic earthquake impacting four states in the Central United States. This earthquake was a magnitude of 7.2 on the Richter scale also causing 2.1 magnitude aftershocks. There is terrible damage throughout the Central United States along with a lot more loss to property and lives. Other impacts that the earthquake has caused are thousands of lives have been lost. Infrastructure damage is significant causing buildings to fall and be unsafe. Communication systems have been damaged due to down power lines and communication towers. Water treatment plants have been affected due to contamination from sewer facilities failing. Water, food, and power supplies are limited due to this earthquake. Roads are unsafe to drive on due to cracking in the roads and objects in the way blocking many entry and exits into town. There have been many people evacuated from the disaster area along with thousands of injured people in affected areas. There are billions of dollars in damages in all four states and they predict that they have a long road to recovery ahead of them.
Authority
Chain of command is the order in which authority in an organization is functional and passed on from top management to every employee or agency at every level of the organization. Guidelines are down channeled along the chain of command and accountability is up channeled to greater levels. The incident commander is the overall leader of the disaster. The commander will give instructions to others. There are three other staff personnel that fall right next to the incident commander which is the information, liaison, and safety officers. The information officer will distribute information. The liaison officer is the main contact for all agencies that provide support to the operations that are going on in the disaster area. The safety officer works with the operations section to ensure all first responders and volunteers are not in harm’s way. The commander will pass out responsibility to five different other sections that fall under him. These five sections are operations, sections, planning, logistics, and finance chief. The operations section will have a colleague who is in charge for managing all actions directly pertinent to the primary mission. The operation sections chief oversees organizational elements in accordance with the Incident Action Plan (IAP) and directs its execution. (OSHA, 2014) The planning section chief which is responsible for the collection, assessment, distribution and use of information about the progress of the incident and the status of resources. He or she must understand the current situation, forecast the probable course of events, and make alternative strategies for the incident. The Logistic section chief is in charge for providing facilities, services, and material support for the incident. The last organization under the commander is the Finance/Administration section chief. This section chief is in control for all monetary, administrative, and cost analysis aspects of the incident and manages all members under this section. (OSHA, 2014) This organizational chart explains who the commander will be of any incident or hazard. The commander will then spread all pertinent information to the leaders below him or her and have them complete their parts of the mission that must be accomplished.
Purpose
The purpose of the group emergency operational plan is to meet the short-term and long-term goals to ensure a swift and speedy recovery for all four states. Our main objectives are to achieve all relevant missions within a timely manner, reduce the challenges face within those communities and strengthen their infrastructures vulnerability. Such reduction of present susceptibilities and hazards will allow the populous to cope with their current crises and disaster. While the complexity of the address cataclysm demands synchronize and coordinated plans in order to adequately and effectively respond, our collaboration with the public and private sectors need to be to solidify, to attain these objectives through the Unified Command System (ICS).
To continue, the focus is to respond, aide in recovery of the Central United States from the ensued catastrophic earthquake impact through search and rescue, rebuilding and/or stabilized Critical Infrastructures and Key Resources (CIKR), with the restoration of power outage, create safe passageways, employing the collaborative effort of mutual aid agreement, the usage of service contract, information dissemination partnership and hoc partnership, in order to accelerate the resumption of operation(N.E Busch & A.D. Givens, 2012). In such a wide scale disaster deploying the United States National Guard will alleviate local law enforcement officers to focus on security and enforcement of the laws vice standing guard or control points. Likewise the same can be said about the American Red cross and Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontière (MSF) due to their fieldwork, expertise and support provided that emergency management may lack. The honorable Tom Ridge, Former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was quoted in Homeland security Affairs about the private sector “…In my mind, the government is incapable of responding to its maximum ability without private sector support…(N. E. Busch & A. D. Givens, 2012) ”. Therefore, accentuate the need of local, state, tribal, federal and private entities to tackle such obstacle.
Concept Operations
Meanwhile, the word concept of operations (CONOPS) can be described as the point of view of an individual, organization entity to use in their daily activity to isolate who will operate or interact directly with and to communicate with all involve stake holders and suppliers of propose operations or plans (USCG, 2012). In other term it is a model or a set of means that can be incorporated, utilized to achieve the objective or purpose of the group emergency management plan in effect. Subsequently, due to the severity, range, and magnitude of the aforementioned disaster, the funding received therein will be allocated properly and accordingly to section and or group to conduct responsible tasks.
Upon response, the Unified Command Center will be established to include all participating and responsible entities from local, states and federal. The private bodies will identify in their role and provisions. Furthermore, the determination of managers, staff, operation and support, and tactical group/section to accomplished the tasks at hand. A perfect example as mentioned above, is the involvement of the USCG, a much needed and a great asset. Because of their ability and versatility to effectively perform multi-undertaking capabilities, they will be employed to install equipment, provide medical evacuations, replenish goods, escort and increase law enforcement compliance.
Organization and assignment responsibilities
Everyone reports to someone when dealing with this type of natural disaster. In this scenario for the UCS, all sections report to the Unified Incident Commanders and they collaborate to have an overall answer to the problem of the disaster. “The individual responsible for the overall management of the response is called the Incident Commander” (USDL, n.d., Para 1). The Incident Commander is in charge to make all decisions no matter what the situation is. The Incident Commander (IC), is at the top of the managerial command, and only delegates duties to the sections below. As you can see below in (diagram 1) shows the roles of a Unified Command organization.
Diagram 1: Unified Command Organizational chart (ICS-100, 2008, p 6-10)
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All sections underneath the Unified Command answer to the Operations Section Chief. The Operations Section Chief is the most qualified and knowledgeable person in the UCS. He is also the one who relays information from the Unified Command on down to the different branches that assist in recovery, “e.g. Emergency Services, Law Enforcement, and Communications”.
Direction and Control
The process of the plan will stay on course due to the CONOP and the Operation Orders (OPORDR) that are presented during recovery. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC), delivers the task to the Unified Command who in-turn manages the different agencies on the ground; by ensuring that the Unified Command coordinates with the executive policy group to ensure that all operations are legit.
Through the CONOP all goals, objectives and actions are implemented into phases that the Unified Command address. By following these actions will minimize the deterrence of mistakes to a minimum, and gives the agencies a clear idea of what their specific guidance is. Another reassurance is inviting the community stakeholders into the plan will achieve for better success. “The most realistic and complete plans are prepared by a diverse planning team, including representatives from the jurisdiction’s departments and agencies, civic leaders, businesses, and organizations (e.g., civic, social, faith-based, humanitarian, educational, advocacy, professional) who are able to contribute critical perspectives and/or have a role in executing the plan” (FEMA, 2010, p 1-2). In essence, everybody has a share in a successful recovery process. Involving the community will keep the recovery going and at higher standard by making the communities feel that they are a part of the contribution, and not just the federal government.
Plan Development and Maintenance
During the Plan Development and Maintenance phase with regards to an earthquake, a vulnerability assessment should have been prepared as part of the hazard analysis. This assessment will lay down a foundation to assist in determining probable consequences and damages after an earthquake as hit. Under this assessment plan we must look at the following areas determine the severity and extent of injuries and damages, implement and prioritize response actions. Under the response action plan our focuses should be access control and re-entry to the impacted area, debris clearance, restoration of utilities and lifeline repairs, and the inspection, condemnation, and plans for demolition of buildings and other structures.
Key factors during this phase will be the cost estimated for each area of the assessment. Cost can always be factored which agency, which state, local, or federal will cover the cost of emergency response or clean up. Other factors are the magnitude of the damage and earthquake as caused. it is likely that local and State governments would be overwhelmed by the demand for emergency response services and management. If there are jurisdictions that don't have a
sufficient quantity of specialized equipment, budget, or even enough trained personnel available to accomplish the wide range search and rescue operations that would be needed to respond to a catastrophic earthquake this could be another potential factor that we must assess.
Another factor during the assessment would be the ability for crowd control. People during this tragedy would flock back to their homes to retrieve items or even look for family members. Establishing a protocol for determining the appropriate time to allow evacuees and the general public to re-enter the area that was severely impacted (Fema.gov.)
References
Incident Command System (ICS): Organizational Chart. (n.d.). Retrieved November 2, 2014, from https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/ics/org_ops.html
Busch, N. E., & Givens, A. D. (2012). Public-Private Partnerships in Homeland Security: Opportunities and Challenges. Homeland Security Affairs, 8(1), 1-23. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.cecybrary.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tsh&AN=9
1631766&site=eds-live&scope=site
National Response Plan Finalized. (2005). Professional Safety, 50(4), 19. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.cecybrary.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4def1977-
6043-4bf4-9f92-8b0e339b4cd2%40sessionmgr198&vid=5&hid=119
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) (November 2010). Developing and Maintaining Emergency Operations Plans Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG)
-25045-0014/cpg_101_comprehensive_preparedness_guide_developing_and_
maintaining_emergency_operations_plans_2010.pdf
ICS-100: ICS for Higher Education-Student Manual (November 2008). Unified Command. Retrieved from: https://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS100HE/SM_PDF/L6_ ICS100HigherEd_SM.pdf
United States Department of Labor (USDL). Incident Command System. Retrieved from: https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/ics/inci.html
Access Control and Re-entry Appendix A: Earthquake (n.d.) Retrieved November 2, 2014
from http://www.fema.gov/pdf/plan/slg101.pdf
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