Toledo’s experience a reminder to plan for water contamination

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Toledo’s experience a reminder to plan for water contamination

The recent water contamination issue in Toledo, Ohio, is yet another reminder of how fragile our infrastructure truly is, particularly as it pertains to water, and how interconnected our environment is. In the case of Toledo, the belief is that nitrogen and phosphorus from farm fertilizer runoff entered the Maumee River which drains into the Bay where Toledo is located. Together with the unseasonably warm weather, these chemicals stimulated the growth of blue-green algae which in turn produced the neurotoxin microcystin. Neurotoxins are not affected by the usual defense mechanisms within water systems and cannot be removed by boiling, making it particularly difficult to deal with.

However, there seems to be a misconception that this is the first time this sort of thing has happened. That’s not the case. For example, a Cryptosporidium outbreak in 1987 in Carroll County Georgia sickened over 13,000 citizens. Another outbreak in Milwaukee in 1993 killed 104 people and sickened over 400,000. The cause of the outbreak was traced to a sewer outfall 2 miles upstream on Lake Michigan. This incident remains the largest outbreak of waterborne disease in US history.

Since contamination of the water supply by parasites such as Cryptosporidium or neurotoxins such as microcystin is possible, it follows that it is yet one more thing for which emergency managers need to prepare. The question is how can we plan for a crisis that may be caused by events over we have no control (e.g. farm runoff miles from the jurisdiction for which we are responsible) and for whom such plan is clearly the responsibility of another agency (i.e. the municipal water department).

This really is no different from the myriad other threats for which we are expected to plan. It begins with raising awareness of the threat and providing solid information to decision-makers. We can push to make sure that such planning remains on agency radar screens. And finally, we can develop contingencies that make use of all hazard planning. For example, there are suggestions that the government in Toledo did not communicate as well as they could have; the experience of emergency managers in public notification and warning could have been of benefit.

The important thing to remember is that it is not possible for a single agency to plan for everything in detail. Emergency managers must leverage their influence and the skills they bring to the table to encourage and support others in accomplishing needed planning.

Related articles

Toledo's Contaminated Water: Here's What Went Wrong

Toledo Issues Emergency Warning To Residents Not To Drink The Water

Farming Practices and Climate Change at Root of Toledo Water Pollution

Questions and Answers About the Toxic Algae That's Contaminated Hundreds of Thousands of Americans' Tap Water

Learning from the past

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Learning from the past

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I have a very strong interest in history, especially disaster history. I frequently make the argument that there is really nothing new under the sun when it comes to disasters. It is just that we often forget the lessons of the past.

One of my current projects is serving as a keynote speaker for a series of events around school safety. In preparing my remarks, I spent a considerable amount of time digging into statistics and anecdotal evidence on school shootings. We assume that school shootings, particularly the mass killings that have made headlines over the past few years, are a recent phenomenon. The truth is the first school shooting in the United States was a mass killing and it occurred in 1764 when supporters Pontiac’s rebellion raided a schoolhouse and killed the teacher and ten children.

Similarly, we often hear the phrase “everything was different on September 12^th”. Yet September 11^th was not the first instance of a foreign terrorist cell operating in the United States. In 1915, German intelligence set up a ring of spies and saboteurs operating primarily in New York and Washington DC that was responsible for the destruction of a considerable amount of war matériel bound for Europe, bombings in major cities, and the attempted assassination of J.P. Morgan. Five years later, an anarchist’s bomb exploded on Wall Street, killing 39 people and wounding hundreds more. Terrorism is decidedly not a new phenomenon in the United States.

I firmly believe that we can learn a lot from the study of past disasters. However, let me add a caveat. We must not use events of the past as predictors of future events. That is, we cannot assume that because something happened a certain way that it will happen that same way in the future. The past can provide us with ideas of what could occur and how our predecessors either successfully dealt with the crisis or failed to deal with it. In the end, however, the lessons of the past cannot substitute for solid situation assessment and sound decision-making in a crisis.

Related articles

First US school massacre was in 1764

Three Mile Island Anniversary: Lessons from the past

Hostile Interviews: Lessons from a public relations disaster

Language as a precision instrument

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Language as a precision instrument

A few days ago, I was reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle when the following sentence caught my eye:

The investigation concerns the actions of (the accused), a 24 year veteran of the… County Sheriff’s office who shot (the victim) in an unincorporated area just outside (the jurisdiction) on (the date).

Now to many, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this sentence. It is reasonably clear that the author is referring to the location of the shooting. However, I’m of a generation that was taught in grammar school how to diagram sentences and this particular sentence had me chuckling and wondering just what part of the body was “an unincorporated area”.

Before you write me off as another nitpicker, recall that one of the three basic skills required of an emergency manager is the ability to write persuasively. We are frequently the authors of important reports and summaries as well as the originators public warnings. It is important, therefore, that we are both precise and concise in our writing.

There is a good reason for this. We live in a world in which much of our messaging is now stripped down to 144 characters or less or given in short soundbites. We need to be able to condense our messages to the shortest possible size that still preserves clarity.

But this is nothing new. Anyone who’s written a report knows that senior executives rarely read past the first page of the executive summary. Advertisers both in print and online know how important it is to get your message “above the fold”. In print journalism, this means the upper section of the publication that is first seen by the reader. To online marketers, this means the section of the screen that can be seen without scrolling down.

It behooves us, then, to keep in mind that language should be a precision instrument and not a blunt one. This means considering carefully what you are saying not only from your perspective but from that of the recipient. You need to be certain that what they are hearing is what you actually meant to say. Taking the time to review your message or, even better, have others review it if time permits will go a long way towards preventing miscommunication.

Not just don’t get me started talking about terms such as “free range eggs” and “organic produce”…

Related articles

One small change can improve your emergency message

Diagramming Sentences ~ A Lost Art?

The Beautiful Complexity of the Sentence Diagram

The opening sentences of famous works diagrammed

One small change can improve your emergency message

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on One small change can improve your emergency message

You may recall that several weeks ago I talked about the three critical elements of an emergency message. I said that any message had to have three elements: what has happened, what does it mean to the recipient, and the action that you wanted the recipient ent to take. I'd like to expand on that with the benefit of some new research.

I'm just back from the Natural Hazards Workshop in Broomfield, Colorado, where I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Dennis Mileti speak. Dr. Mileti is professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder and former director of the Natural Hazards Center. His book, Disasters by Design, summarized scientific and engineering knowledge about natural hazards and made recommendations for national policies and programs. It is considered a "must read" for new emergency managers. Mileti is also considered a national expert on risk communication and public warning.

Dr. Mileti's latest research suggests that not only is the content of the message important, the order in which elements are presented can also affect how the recipient perceives the message. Dr. Mileti believes that it is important that the message be seen as coming from a credible source. For this reason, he suggests that the first element in a message should be the identity of the sender. Mileti advises that an emergency message follow this format:

1. the source of the message
2. a description of the hazard, i.e. what has happened and what it means to the recipient
3. what actions the recipient needs to take

In his research, Mileti found that messages presented in this format were significantly more likely to be acted upon.

 

Related articles

Three vital parts of an emergency message

Three vital parts of an emergency message

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Three vital parts of an emergency message

My wife and I were spending a quiet evening watching one of our favorite shows when the program was interrupted by an emergency alert system message. The message concerned two children who had been abducted from their home in a nearby Bay Area community. The message provided the names and ages of the children and the name of the woman that had kidnapped them. Unfortunately, that was all the information that the message provided.

When the program resumed, my wife and I looked at each other and marveled that such a useless message could have been sent out using the emergency alert system. There was no information about how the kidnapper was traveling, where she was bound, or any description of her or the children. In other words, there were no cues that a citizen could use to identify either the kidnapper or the children besides the fact that she was a woman of indeterminate age traveling with two children.

I have seen this problem occur all too often with emergency messages. In a rush to use the system, we sometimes neglect to determine what message we want to send to the public and, more importantly, what actions we want them to take. If we think back to the messages we received following 9/11, we see the same problem: a warning with little real content and no recommended protective action.

In crafting your emergency message you need to keep in mind three basic questions that the public wants answered:

1. What has happened?
2. What does it mean to me?
3. What can I do about it?

These three basic questions are at the heart of any successful message.Keep them in mind and your message has a better chance of being heard and acted upon. Neglect them and you end up with a message that is at best confusing and at worst generates alarm and concern in the recipient.

Is your emergency plan real?

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Is your emergency plan real?

As many of my readers know, my hobby and interests revolve around the history of the Middle Ages. So it was a real treat to visit the Royal Armory in Madrid, one of the premier collections of armor and weapons in Europe. There were some amazing examples of the armor makers art and I spent quite some time examining them. There was just one thing a bit troubling – none of it (well, most of it) was real.

Now, I'm not knocking the Royal Armory. The exhibit is amazing and worth seeing. However, my interest is in munitions grade armor – the stuff you could fight in. On display were suits of parade armor and others designed for jousting, a very specific type of mock combat. This type of armor was never intended to be used in combat. Indeed, they would have offered some serious disadvantages to the fighter if they were so used.

So here's the question for you: is your emergency plan "munitions grade" of only for parade? 

One of the problems I see when I assess emergency plans is that many of them are written for review by a higher authority. Like parade armor, they really won't work well when relied on in a crisis. The planners make the mistake of focusing on requirements rather than on reality, forgetting that, in many cases, the "requirements" are actually guidelines.

An effective plan starts with the needs of the organization and builds out, incorporating guidelines as necessary and using them as a means of quality control. It doesn't start with the guidelines and "filling the blanks".

The true purpose of medieval armor was to give a warrior an advantage in a crisis. It's the same for the emergency plan. If your plan looks good and meets all requirements but cannot be used in a crisis, it's like parade armor. It looks really good but it won't give you an edge in surviving a crisis.

What a light switch can teach us about ICS

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on What a light switch can teach us about ICS

During a recent visit to my brother-in-law in Ireland, I realized that I had left my book in the living room. It was late at night and the house was dark. As I entered the room I reached for where the light switch should have been. Nothing. I tried the other wall. Same result. Eventually, I gave up, stumbled around in the darkened room and found my book. It was only when I returned to my bedroom that I remembered that in many Irish and English houses light switches are outside the room entrance. (They also have switches on wall plugs, which add a whole new dimension to trying to recharge electronics.)

What's this got to do with ICS? We have an expectation that since we are all using the incident command system in the US that we should be able to seamlessly integrate mutual aid agencies. However, as Dr. Jessica Jensen has shown in her research on ICS, very few of us apply it in exacly the same way. However, we expect that everyone will respond in exactly the same way we do, just as I expected the light switch to be where it was supposed to be. We forget that different jurisdictions do things differently. It is these jurisdictional differences that can cause friction during a mutual aid response.

The answer to much of this is to do joint exercises. However, this is not always feasible, particularly if you're attempting to integrate Federal resources in a major disaster. In these events the role of the liaison officer becomes extremely important. Unfortunately, we do little training for liaison officers and focus mainly on using them as points of contact. Instead, give some thought to how the liaison officer can help identify and ease operational differences.

Airport security depends on depth

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Airport security depends on depth

In a recent post I wrote about a young stowaway who managed to penetrate security at a California airport and somehow survived a flight to Honolulu in the aircraft wheel well. This prompted a message from my friend and colleague Jeff Whitman from Air Safety Group.Jeff is an expert on aviation safety and security and I thought his comments might be of interest to you:

I think of safety and security as the obnoxious twins.  Both can be annoying and certainly require effort to manage. These siblings are nearly identical. The primary difference is security protects us from others, while safety protects us from ourselves.

You spoke of layers of defense in your recent blog.  I break these layers into two high-level categories, avoidance barriers and recovery barriers.

I find people need help understanding how/where to apply their barriers.

Avoidance barriers need to be applied well upstream of the potential consequence. In simplest terms, avoidance barriers defend against the triggers that cause the undesirable operational states (UOS).  Recovery barriers are how we minimize the effects of reaching the UOS, after the avoidance barriers fail.

In the example of the 15 year-old breaching airport security, the teen reaching the aircraft could be considered one of many UOS, the consequence in this case, was a stowaway.  There are other consequences that could have been much worse!

In order to defend against the UOS, we need to understand the hazard components (triggers) that allowed the teen to reach the aircraft (UOS).  In this case, one of the hazard components is unauthorized access to the ramp.  In theory, a person with authorized access to the ramp could have also reached the same (or similar) UOS, so this analysis tree has growth potential.

Pop quiz: What is the hazard in this scenario?

This is a very important question, because without accurately identifying the hazard, the potential for reducing risk is limited, at best.

Continuing with the stowaway example, adding the fence is clearly an avoidance barrier.  Unfortunately, it failed. Why?

This is where the recovery barriers should kick in and protect against the fact that we’ve reached the UOS.  In this case, there were recovery barriers in place, (security cameras), but they failed too.  Why?

The classification of hazards, triggers, UOS, and consequence may shift, depending on where the analyst sits in the business process.  For example, the persons responsible for the fence may identify the UOS as unauthorized ramp access and the hazard component as fence height. Without dragging on too long, the hazard and risk analysis tree can get pretty complicated. 

 

Related articles

Teen stowaway shakes up airport security

Teen stowaway takes another trip after wheel well flight

Stowaway teen leaves Hawaii

Teen Stowaway Yahya Abdi Leaves Hawaii

Teen stowaway shakes up airport security

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Teen stowaway shakes up airport security

By now you’ve probably heard about the 15-year-old boy who stowed away in the wheel well of a jet aircraft bound for Honolulu from San Jose and the questions it has raised about security at US airports. I believe there are two very important lessons we can learn from this.

One of the myths that has been sold to the American public is the belief that they can be protected from everything. We’ve raised expectations to such a level that when things go wrong, as they inevitably do, the public feels betrayed. However, any security expert will tell you that there is no such thing as a foolproof system. That’s why we work in layers. The purpose of any security system is first to deter penetration of the facility. The second is to detect the attempted penetration and, finally, to delay the attacker long enough for a response to be mounted. However, inherent in any system is the risk that an extremely motivated attacker will be able to penetrate the system, something that we keep from the public.

So the fact that a 15-year-old boy could breach an airport perimeter by hopping a fence in the dark would not have been an issue if the system had been able to detect and delay him until security personnel arrived. This failure leads to the second point that I would like to make that of focusing on the expected rather than the unexpected.

The attacks of September 11 occurred onboard aircraft so the focus of all our security planning has largely been on passengers. We have considered the threat of terrorists on board an aircraft and the placement of bombs in luggage. However, we initially neglected the screening of the many vendors and workers that had access to restricted areas not open to passengers and there’s been little attention to the larger perimeter, partially because of the extreme cost that would be involved.

Yet an attack through an airport perimeter is not something that cannot be foreseen. On the morning of September 11 I was at a conference on infrastructure protection and we were discussing the tactics used by the special air service in World War II in their raids on German and Italian airfields. These attacks were made by breaching the perimeter and destroying parked aircraft with explosives and heavy weapons fire. Our assumption that airport attacks will always be against passengers and take place in the air is not particularly valid. Destroying multiple aircraft on the ground would have a significant cost both in damages and in future preventive security measures as well as profound psychological impact on air travelers.

This was not a failure of security. It was rather a failure to consider alternative means of attack, to think beyond past experience. To allow ourselves to focus solely on methods that have been used in the past is to leave ourselves vulnerable to the unexpected. And that is something we cannot afford to do.

Related articles

Teen Hawaii Stowaway Sneaked Into Secure Area Of SJ Airport Despite Hundreds Of Security Cameras

Stowaway teen stirs concern about airport security

Father of Teen Stowaway: 'Allah Had Saved Him'

Woman Claiming To Be Mother Of San Jose Stowaway Teen Speaks Out