Does The Private Sector Really Need ICS?

Posted on June 27, 2022November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

Since its development in the California wildfires in the 1970’s, the Incident Command System (ICS) has emerged as the default mechanism for managing crises. Mandated for use in the public sector under the National Incident Management System (NIMS), ICS has seen growing application in the private sector. However, while ICS has been relatively successful in the public sector where organizations tend to be hierarchical, is it really the best choice for the private sector?

To be sure, ICS has an impressive track record as an incident management system. It has been applied in small local incidents up to Presidentially Declared Disasters. It has been adapted to unusual situations such as organizing recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina. But even in the public sector, we find problems. In a 2014 paper, The United States’ Experience with the Incident Command System: What We Think We Know and What We Need to Know More About, researchers Jessica Jensen and William L. Waugh Jr. suggested that, despite what we may believe, ICS is not applied consistently among jurisdictions. While ICS has often been used as designed, it has just as often been ignored, partially used, underused, misused, and used in organizations and jurisdictions in ways that are 
necessarily compatible with the way the system is used in other organizations and jurisdictions.
If the organizations that are best suited to employ ICS have trouble maintaining consistency, what can we expect when ICS is applied to the private sector?

There are certainly good reasons for a private organization to adopt ICS. As I mentioned, the system has been proven to be effective and adopting it would simplify integration with public sector agencies. The problem is that many organizations, in both the public and private sector, adopt ICS in name only and don’t understand what it is they are committing to.

When my corporate clients suggest organizing under ICS, my first questions is always about their corporate culture. ICS was designed to work as a hierarchical structure, something that can be foreign to many organizations. I once reviewed a plan for a major high-tech organization written by a colleague. It was a beautiful plan, well-reasoned and logical, based on ICS. The problem was that the client was a chaotic organization with no organizational structure, policies, or processes. ICS was not something they could even understand.

This highlights the key problem with ICS for many private sector organizations: the imposition of a system for managing crisis that varies considerably from their day-to-day operating systems. This becomes critical when one understands that people under stress default to what they are used to doing. That is, they rely on their trusted leaders and try to use the systems they are used to. To overcome this barrier requires considerable training. Jensen and Waugh note that ICS training has three important dimensions: frequency, depth, and specificity, and that success is often a factor of the time between the crisis and the last training session. In my experience, private sector organizations do not fully grasp the training burden required to implement ICS and are rarely willing to commit to it.
The second major problem with ICS in the private sector is common to the public as well: equating the Incident Command System with the ICS operating structure. Research suggests that denying flexibility in response by slavishly following standard operating procedures or using a structure that cannot be modified to meet an evolving situation is counterproductive and that it is more useful to adapt resources and tactics to the situation.

I am not, however, suggesting discarding ICS completely. Instead, I advocate using the system rather than the structure. By this, I mean incorporating ICS principles, such as unity of command, management by objectives, and incident action planning into your crisis management planning and focusing on the five management functions of Command, Operations, Planning, Logistics, and Finance/Administration. Using this as a foundation, your crisis management team can be structured in a way that is most consistent with your corporate culture. The closer the crisis management team resembles day-to-day operational management with managers and teams performing accustomed roles, the more effective it will be.

For those that would argue that this is not “pure” ICS, I would respond, “So what?” There are very few occasions where private sector organizations and public agencies operate under a unified command, which is the only time similar operational structures become relevant. NFPA 1600 Standard on Continuity, Emergency and Crisis Management requires only the establishment of a crisis management capability that assigns responsibilities and establishes processes; it does not specify that the organization use ICS. If the organization bases this capability on sound ICS principles and can respond effectively to a crisis, I believe this is a better approach than trying to force an ICS structure on people who have limited training and experience when the organization is trying to respond to a major crisis.

So, the answer to the question, “Does the private sector need ICS?” is a qualified “Yes, but…” with the “but” being the need to integrate ICS principles with corporate culture. Don’t create a new structure that will solely be used for crisis; build on existing processes that have already demonstrated success in problem-solving. Disasters are qualitatively different from day-to-day problems, but your chance of success in a crisis increases the more you take advantage of existing processes and leadership rather than relying on a system for which your team is not adequately trained or prepared.

It Is Time to Rethink Emergency Management

Posted on May 25, 2022November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

The emergency management system in the United States is without question one of the best in the world. I, like many of my colleagues, have always been proud of my association with it. It’s not perfect, by any means, and there have been some colossal failures, usually influenced by politics. However, it’s an excellent system.

But not, unfortunately, for everyone.

Our emergency management system has been at its best when dealing with response. If one considers how the system developed from its roots in civil defense and the early influence of managers drawn mainly from the military, fire, and police, this is understandable. However, the mission of emergency management is not emergency response; it is the restoration of communities. That means our focus must ultimately be on recovery. Historically, recovery planning, along with mitigation, has not been adequately addressed by emergency managers, as evidenced by my colleague Valerie Lucas-Mckuen’s 2005 analysis of the Emergency Management Accreditation Program baseline assessments and the absence of recovery plans in many jurisdictions.

Over the past few years, there’s been a growing understanding for many of us in emergency management that recovery is biased against those who most need our help in time of disaster. This point is made very strongly in a recent book by Dr. Samantha Montano, Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, a book that should be required reading for emergency managers and elected officials. Despite the title, the book is about the emergency management system and its failure to meet the needs of disaster victims during recovery. It’s about the intersection between emergency management, social justice, and climate change and how each affects the other. Most importantly, it demonstrates why we are not prepared to deal with the consequences of climate change.

One of the key points that Dr. Montano makes is that while it is important that we work to limit the effects of climate change, climate change is not something that will happen in the future. We’re already seeing increased erosion that is affecting coastal communities. Fire seasons in the western United States are growing longer, floods, tornados, and hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more destructive. This increased frequency of events has stretched the capabilities our emergency management system to the breaking point. COVID-19 created a situation where emergency management offices in all states were activated simultaneously. If we are to respond effectively to more frequent and destructive events, we must drastically improve our emergency management system.

This brings us back to the need to understand why we are failing in recovery. Our system is designed to reward those who have resources rather than those in need. Several months ago, I highlighted the research by Dr. Junia Howell on racial and economic inequality in disaster recovery that demonstrates that much of recovery funding goes to affluent neighborhoods rather to those most in need. Part of this is the result of historical discriminatory practices, such the redlining housing policies that resulted in the segregation of vulnerable populations, mainly people of color, into less desirable areas that are more vulnerable to the impacts of disaster. Federal policies intended to prevent fraud can also create convoluted application processes that are barrier to applicants less well educated than those in affluent neighborhoods. Lacking resources, those most vulnerable to disasters are slow to rebuild, a situation exacerbated by the fact that recovery funding is predicated on property value rather than on actual cost to rebuild.

This marginalization goes beyond recovery. People who lack the resources for day-to-day necessities do not have the capacity for mitigation or preparedness measures. They may lack the ability to comply with evacuation orders. They may be unable to afford necessary medical care. This creates a reliance on government assistance and increases the stress on the emergency management system at the time of disaster.

There are two barriers that we need to overcome. The first is deciding what role government must play in disaster recovery. Historically, there has been resistance from Congress to providing recovery funding. Our system has evolved piecemeal overtime in response to focusing events, high visibility disasters that created a demand for political change, and through any coherent strategy to provide assistance to the most vulnerable. The pushback has always been the concern that substantial post-disaster government assistance will serve as a disincentive to pre-disaster preparedness and mitigation.

The second barrier is what Stanford professor Michele Landis-Dauber refers to as “moral blamelessness,” the concept that disaster victims must be viewed as innocent of creating the need for assistance before being receiving aid. Prejudice against the poor and people of color play into stereotypes that generate considerable public resistance against a “government giveaway.”

These two barriers to recovery assistance are inextricably linked and raise the question, “How do we provide assistance to the most vulnerable in a way that is fiscally responsible and will not encourage an over-reliance on government assistance?” There are no easy answers to this question as it must ultimately be determined by politicians, not emergency managers. This suggests that we need to rethink emergency management from a social justice perspective that focuses on those truly vulnerable to disasters. It also means that we must be vocal advocates and, to a certain extent, activists. Politicians seldom listen to emergency managers, but they will pay heed those with strong community support. Encouraging and supporting community action means, as Dr. Montano suggests, truly applying the Whole Community concept.

Integrating Response and Continuity Planning

Posted on April 22, 2022November 27, 2025 by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

Recently I wrote about the importance of integrating response and continuity operations. This makes sense conceptually but, like so much in emergency management, the devil is in the details. Response and continuity have different objectives that have the potential to conflict with each other and the planning and execution of each involve different actors and leadership. How then do you integrate such disparate operations?

The answer is not as complex as one would think but it is difficult in execution. Over the years I have developed some rules of thumb that I share with my clients.

• Recognize that successful resilience requires an enterprise-wide approach. Response and continuity are not discrete functions but are inter-related and co-dependent. Actions taken in one will have an impact on the other. If you have a successful response but no plans for continuity your organization will most likely one of those that fail after a disaster. Alternatively, if response fails, there’s no need for continuity; you won’t have the resources to continue as an effective organization. Response often relies on the restoration of key systems while decisions made during response may have long-term consequences for the organization.
• Be clear about your priorities. Priorities drive strategy which in turn drives operational planning. Priorities are not always obvious. I was once asked to assist a non-profit in developing their command center to communicate with their clients immediately after an earthquake and to coordinate with public agencies. They were on the verge of committing some serious funds on radios and satellite phones until I asked the simple question, “Why?” This eventually led to a discussion as to their mission. It turned out they had no resources or technical assistance to offer clients during the first 24 hours following an earthquake. Their mission was to provide emergency funding once their clients had identified the need for the funds in a formal request. The organization’s priorities shifted from establishing a command center to continuity operations that would position them to deal immediately with client requests for funding.
• Centralize coordination and decentralize planning. Unless your organization is small, putting everyone in the same room to develop plans can be counterproductive. As Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert points out, the IQ of a meeting diminishes with each member added. Be comfortable with a variety of task forces and working groups trying to solve specific problems but have a mechanism for reviewing and integrating their end products. This mechanism should have sufficient authority to identify and resolve issues such as duplication of effort and competition for scarce resources.
• Identify your leadership structure. The question of who’s in charge always arises sooner or later, so nip it in the bud right up front. Decide how you will coordinate your planning process. Will you use a committee or a single executive? Who has final say on key decisions? Note that this is about strategy development and planning, not operational leadership. That can be developed later as part of your planning.
• Be inclusive. There is a tendency to top load committees with managers and senior supervisors. However, the expertise you need in a crisis is usually found in the employees that work with critical processes on a daily. Remember that one of the characteristics of successful high-risk organizations if deference to expertise; do not hesitate to include people who know how to deal with a crisis, regardless of their rank in the organization.
• Formalize your planning structure. Create an administrative plan that defines roles, responsibilities, and authorities and formalizes the process for developing workplans and deliverables. The role of an administrative plan is twofold: it clarifies what is expected of stakeholders and, by their agreeing to it, fosters commitment to the planning process.  

If this sounds like I’m recommending developing a full emergency management program, you’re right. Planning for organizational resilience is not a one-time process; it needs to be sustained and revised as situations change. Having a program that identifies priorities and has the capability to translate those priorities into effective operational plans is vital to preparing for a crisis.

Why Emergency Managers Should Care About the War in Ukraine

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Why Emergency Managers Should Care About the War in Ukraine

As I have mentioned many times before, emergency managers tend to have an inward focus on their communities. Geopolitical events, such as the war in Ukraine, are generally not considered something that has any relevance to local communities. This is understandable as our specific charge is the safeguarding of the communities we serve. However, one of the fundamental concepts in emergency management is that events have ripple effects, and those effects can be wide-ranging. This is certainly true of the current conflict in Ukraine and emergency managers would be wise to anticipate possible consequences.

On the surface, a conflict thousands of miles away would seem to have minimal impact on local communities. However, we must consider how the extended impact of the conflict may affect our communities. Here are just a few examples :

• Cyber warfare – Should the conflict escalate further, one of the quickest and cheapest ways for Putin to escalate the war would be through cyber warfare. Russia has an extensive cyber warfare capability and has not been shy about using it. There are rumors that Putin is recruiting hackers to augment this capability and that he may legalize software piracy as a potential threat to the global economy. Disruptive attacks on infrastructure, most of which is privately held in the United States, are also a possibility as are attacks affecting the economy, such as denial of service or ransomware attacks. This is also an election year in the United States and there is credible evidence that Russia has attempted to influence past elections and will continue to do so in 2022. We must also consider the potential impact on public opinion the dissemination of misinformation through social media and the use of state-sponsored teams targeting political blogs, something that is ongoing.
• Supply chain disruption – We’re already seeing some of this with increases in the price of oil, but it can go far beyond this, particularly if China sides with Russia. Russia and Ukraine export 25% of the world’s wheat while Russia exports 7% of the world’s steel. China controls 90 per cent of the world's supply of rare earths vital to industry and exports 15% of the world’s steel. The recent blockage of the Suez Canal, the backlog at the California ports, and the recent supply chain problems as COVID restrictions eased demonstrate the fragility of supply chains and how easily they can be disrupted. These disruptions would not only have a considerable economic impact but could affect the supply of critical components for technological systems.
• Civil unrest – There are several possibilities that can result in civil unrest. We can anticipate pro-Ukrainian demonstrations in major cities, with small but vocal and potentially violent counter protesters. If the economic situation worsens, this could also produce waves of anti-government protests. As an example, consider the widespread anti-war protests during the Gulf Wars or the more recent ones over police and civil rights issues.
• Corporate Attacks – Corporations still doing business in Russia or seen as making excessive profits from the crisis may well find themselves as potential targets. We’re already seeing the targeting of oil companies on social media because of the rise in gasoline prices. While we can expect that some of these will occur overseas, but demonstrations at corporate headquarters or key facilities, targeting of key leaders, and industrial sabotage are also possible domestically.
• Infrastructure disruption – While the possibility of sabotage to infrastructure by Russian agents or sympathizers is possible, another overlooked potential source are pro-Ukrainian groups targeting corporations still doing business in Russia or citizens blaming corporations for a deteriorating economy.
• Hate crimes – If we learned anything from September 11th, it is the willingness of some people to conflate innocent immigrants with an actual enemy. Anything that distinguishes a person from the “average” American, such as skin color, language, or dress, may be sufficient to spark an attack. We’re already seeing posts on social media targeting Russian immigrants and businesses.

As emergency managers, we have a responsibility to assess potential risks such as these and ensure that our response and continuity plans are prepared to deal with them. We may also find ourselves dealing with unusual responsibilities such as personnel evacuation and executive protection, particularly those of us who work in the private sector and global responsibilities.

Who’s In Charge Here? Business Continuity versus Emergency Management

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Who’s In Charge Here? Business Continuity versus Emergency Management

I was speaking recently with a good friend who has taken on the job of building a business continuity program for a major information technology company. Like me, he takes a strategic view of risk management and is experienced in both emergency management and business continuity. His problem at the moment is a common one: the company has separated business continuity and emergency management into separate programs, and he is perceived by the emergency manager as the “new kid” trying to muscle in on his turf.

This separation is not uncommon in my experience. Its root cause is the perception that emergency management and business continuity are discrete functions rather than complimentary components of an enterprise-wide function. The result is frequently a battle over which program should be dominant.

The Emergency Management Accreditation Program’s Emergency Management Standard which provides guidance for public sector emergency managers addresses Continuity of Operations (COOP) and Continuity of Government (COG) as essential parts of an emergency management program, suggesting that business continuity is an emergency management. The Professional Practices for Business Continuity Management promulgated by the Disaster Recovery Institute, International (DRII) identifies incident response, crisis communications, and coordination with outside agencies as key practices, all of which are also parts of a good emergency management program.

So, who should take the lead? The question only has relevance if we continue to treat business continuity and emergency response as discrete functions. If instead we recognize that risk management is an enterprise-wide function, then it becomes clear that emergency management and business continuity must work together, not only in those areas where responsibilities overlap but to ensure that the programs mutually support each other. This is the approach taken in the more general standard NFPA 1600 Standard on Continuity, Emergency, and Crisis Management which incorporates both business continuity and emergency management elements.

To understand why this is so critical, we need to debunk the common assumption that disasters occur in phases. A moment’s thought will show why this is a false assumption. There are actions in any crisis that must occur simultaneously or that can have future consequences if not considered during initial response operations. For example, while mitigation is considered a separate phase from response and recovery, mitigation actions to reduce immediate hazards, such as debris clearance, can occur during initial response. However, uncoordinated debris clearance can prevent assessment of how mitigation measures performed and create issues with future insurance or reimbursement claims during recovery.  Failure to coordinate concurrent actions during response can be extremely costly.

Secondly, there is often an unspoken assumption in emergency plans that facilities and support functions will continue to operate. This is particularly true when we consider our increasing dependency on technology. Business continuity is intended to ensure that these facilities and support systems are available when needed or can be quickly replaced. This is the concept behind the prioritizing systems restoration through recovery time objectives (RTO): the identification of how quickly systems will need to be restored following an event.

Most importantly, parallel operations create competition for resources and personnel and can cause conflict during response operations. This is the reason we developed the concept of unified command in the Incident Command System, a single operational and command structure that reduces conflicts and competition for resources. How you opt to integrate emergency management and business continuity in your crisis management team is immaterial; the important thing is that they are integrated.

Solving this problem shouldn’t be a reach for emergency or business continuity managers; it’s what we do for a living. We create interagency working groups all the time. This is no different. Stop vying for control and worrying about turf. Approach the problem as a team.

Cascading Catastrophes

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Cascading Catastrophes

In an article some years ago, my colleague Bob Jaffin suggested that the difference between homeland security and emergency management was one of focus; while homeland security targeted threats external to the country, emergency managers concentrated on internal threats to the communities they served. This internal focus is completely understandable but can blind one to threats that originate externally but create cascading effects that have an impact on local communities.

The recent eruption of an underseas volcano in Tonga is an example of this problem. Although occurring some 5,000 miles away, the tsunami wave generated by the eruption caused an estimated $6.5 million in damages to the harbor in Santa Cruz, California, and the need for numerous rescues of surfers and sightseers.

 While the damage to the West Coast was slight, events with widespread impact are the literally the stuff of legend:

• There is a hypothesis that the Black Sea may have been formed by a catastrophic rise in sea levels around 5600 BCE, an event that may have served as the basis for the story of Noah’s ark and other legends of a great flood.
• The eruption of the Thera volcano circa 1600 BCE may have led to the fall of the Minoan civilization and the legend of Atlantis.
• A recent report on archeological excavations in Tell el-Hammam, Israel, suggest that an asteroid struck the area around 1650 BCE, possibly giving rise to the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

There are numerous examples of global catastrophes in the geological record. Volcanic eruptions occurring some 250 million years ago are thought to have caused an event known as the “Great Dying” that saw the extinction of 70% of land species and 90% of ocean dwelling species. Volcanic events that created “volcanic winters” resulting in global famine are recorded throughout history. An eruption in 535 CE produced what has been considered the most protracted period of global cooling in the northern hemisphere in the past 2000 years. An event in 1257 CE followed several other smaller eruptions is thought to have ushered in the “Little Ice Age” that lasted until the 19^th Century. The eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 was one of the most destructive events in recorded history, with the explosion heard up to 3,000 miles away. It produced a volcanic winter that reduced the global temperature by .72°F and produced record rainfall in Southern California.

Catastrophic events that produce cascading effects are not limited to pre-20^th century history, of course. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines 1991 produced a volcanic winter that reduced overall global temperature by .7°F, reduced the ozone layer, and may have contributed to the Midwestern floods of 1993. In 2010, the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland created the highest level of air travel disruption since the Second World War when it forced the closure of European airspace for several days.

Clearly many of the historical events I have cited are extreme and beyond the capability of local emergency management response. However, smaller events are both predictable and within our ability to prepare for and mitigate, as the Eyjafjallajökull and Tonga events demonstrate. The cities and towns on California’s West Coast, for example, recognize the tsunami threat and plan for evacuation, building on existing plans and public warning protocols.

Emergency managers know that disaster planning is driven by limited budgets and consequently there is a need to prioritize those events that present the highest risk. How then do we plan for cascading events produced by catastrophes that may occur on the other side of the world? I suggest a two-pronged approach. First, acknowledge the possibility that such an event could occur and recognize the significance of events that occur outside your jurisdiction. Factor this into your hazard identification and risk assessments. Second, build flexibility into your existing plans based on that risk. You don’t necessarily need specific contingency plans for these events, but you should be able to recognize and react to emerging threats by adapting existing plans. Consider the problem of ash cleanup after the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980 and the application of existing debris removal plans by local jurisdictions.

Remember, all-hazard planning doesn’t mean have a plan for everything, it means consider risk and be prepared to respond to threats, even those that take us by surprise.

Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Ignoring Inclusiveness

Posted on December 14, 2021 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Ignoring Inclusiveness

Some years ago, I was tasked with reviewing the evacuation plan for a large metropolitan area. The plan looked pretty good and seemed to address all the critical issues. Things began to fall apart quickly when I started asking questions about how the plan was developed. It turned out that the plan had been written by a single individual in two weeks on the orders of his department head. None of the agencies tasked to support the plan were aware of it or had ever been consulted. In addition, the plan effectively ended at the county line; none of the adjacent counties had been consulted as to how they would support a major evacuation. The plan was well written but totally worthless, the classic example of a “paper plan.”

This is an extreme example of failing to include stakeholders in the development of an emergency plan. Few planners would fail to include coordination with other agencies in their plans. However, these same planners frequently neglect to include non-response-oriented stake holders in their planning process.

The first time I recommended a declaration of emergency to our mayor in San Francisco, the process almost suffered a significant delay when the City Attorney’s staff insisted on reviewing the standard format included in the emergency plan. It seems they had never been consulted on the plan and new nothing about the declaration process or recovery programs, despite the city still being heavily involved in recovery from the Loma Prieta earthquake. Within a few weeks, we had designated attorneys assigned to our EOC team who received training in emergency management legal issues. Other examples of frequently neglected agencies that we worked with are the risk manager (risk analysis and insurance issues), the personnel department (personnel reassignment, volunteer management, union issues), and the department of the environment (holistic recovery issues).

As neglected as non-response agencies are, the situation is even worse when we consider community organizations. The big-name organizations, such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, are generally included but lack of input from other community-based organizations can lead to significant problems in a disaster. One of our most embarrassing lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina was that the planners who developed emergency supply lists had completely neglected to include items for women such hygiene products and supplies for nursing mothers. In 2011 the City of Los was found liable for failing to include people with functional needs in their emergency planning. Other issues that have emerged are often related to cultural norms such as those surrounding the handling of remains. Even food can be an issue: I learned the hard way that there is a significant difference between long grain and short grain rice when a vendor shipped the wrong type to several Pacific islands during a typhoon relief operation.

Inclusiveness is of critical importance in emergency planning. But what does that really mean? I often get pushback from planners that “we can’t include everybody”. This is based on the erroneous assumption that all stakeholders are equal. Being included does not necessarily mean that everyone gets a vote and veto rights. What it does mean is that all stakeholders should be able to have input to the planning process and have that input at least considered as the plan develops. This can be accomplished in many cases by providing an opportunity to review working drafts and to comment on those drafts. The key to success in that their input must be acknowledged and responded to, even if the issues raised will not be addressed in subsequent drafts. Providing an explanation as to why input will not be included may not always defuse conflict, but it will at least allow discussion based on fact rather than generating a feeling the stakeholder is being ignored.

There are many reasons an emergency plan may fail but not including input from those who will have to implement the plan and those affected by it is a guarantee of failure.

Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Sequential Planning

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Sequential Planning

The development of the Comprehensive Emergency Management model by the National Governors’ Association in 1979 was a major step forward for modern emergency management. It was the first attempt to define emergency management in a holistic way that integrated the various functions related to disaster. It influenced the development of FEMA and forms the basis for much of our current emergency management practices.

Unfortunately, it has also created some problems for emergency planners. In using the term “phases” the framers of the CEM document were referring to clusters of  “emergency-related activities…that are related by time and function to all types of disasters.” This was an attempt to group categories of like activities to identify relationships among them. It was not an attempt to define how disasters unfold.

Why is this a problem?  Approaching a disaster with a preconceived idea of how it will progress can lead to poor decision making through cognitive biases such as confirmation or overconfidence biases. It can lead to confusion if phases are used as operational triggers that generate competition for resources and conflict over leadership roles.

Disasters do not operate in phases. Consider mitigation, for example. While the CEM model would suggest that mitigation is a phase between recovery and preparedness, there are immediate mitigation activities that take place in a disaster, such as reduction of immediate hazards or assessment of the performance of past mitigation projects. Similarly, decisions and activities conducted during the initial stages of response such as route restoration and debris clearance can have an impact on recovery operations, particularly in relation to insurance issues.

Perhaps the biggest problem I have seen in a commitment to a sequential approach to disasters is the tendency to develop separate plans for each phase. I’m not suggesting that separate plans are the problem. Quite the opposite is true as the planners, implementers, required skills, and strategies for each phase are quite different, as is the level of public involvement. The problem is that because each plan requires different working groups, they tend to be created in a vacuum with an underlying and often unspoken assumption that each plan will be implemented in sequence. The result of simultaneous implementation is invariable a competition for resources and confusion over leadership and priorities.

The solution is simple but complex in execution. You need to look at response to a crisis not in phases but as a series of activities that occur over the life cycle of the disaster. This includes particular attention to priorities for resources and transition of operational leadership. You can’t make a crisis fit into your preconceived notion of phases; you need to adapt to the unexpected. There’s a reason “Flexible” is one of the Principles of Emergency Management.

Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Ignoring your target audience

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Ignoring your target audience

Many years ago when I was a student, there was an apocryphal rumor making the rounds about a teacher who used the “fling method” to grade term papers. The method involved standing at the top of a staircase and flinging the papers towards the bottom. The theory was that those papers containing the most content (i.e., the most pages) would travel the farthest. Where your paper fell on the staircase determined your grade. I suspect that many emergency managers are using this method to determine the value of their emergency plans.

We all deride “doorstop plans,” plans that come in 4-inch binders or multiple volumes. Yet we continue to produce them. However, both anecdotal evidence and a small smattering of research suggest that during a crisis no one is going to read your emergency plan. This begs the question, for whom are we writing the emergency plan?

In my previous blog, I wrote about the three levels present in any response (strategic, operational, and tactical) and the need to distinguish among these when writing your plan. The easiest way to do this is to ask the question, “who is my target audience?”

Consider, for example, what happens when we apply this concept to the basic plan. The basic plan is a bit of an exception in that it delineates overall strategy and lays out the operational framework for response. But who is the target audience? If you’re honest, you’re probably writing it for anyone but the user (e.g., auditors, evaluators, politicians, the public) with the intent to demonstrate your level of preparedness. Plan users are most likely intimately familiar with the contents as it is the basis for more detailed planning. If this is indeed the case, why include extraneous material that is of no use to anyone?

Let me give an example of what I mean by extraneous material. Almost every basic plan I have reviewed over the years contains an extensive section on the Incident Command System. Given our requirements for ICS training, how likely is it that someone reporting to the emergency operations center in a crisis will be completely unfamiliar with ICS? Even assuming that they are, will they have any inclination to sit down and read several pages of ICS theory before starting work? Now consider the non-responder who is reading your plan for background; do they really need an in depth explanation of ICS? I suggest that in both cases, your audience might be better served by a single page fact sheet rather than five to ten pages of information.

We find a similar problem when we consider the supplementary annexes in the emergency plan. Here the problem is that we tend to mix operational and tactical information. Let me stress again that the target audience of the emergency plan is at the operational level. Annexes are about relationships, priorities, and specific assignments. They are not step by step instructions on how to perform a task. The emergency plan is a toolbox, not a bible; it should tell the reader what they are expected to do, what they will need to do it, and the resources that are available. It should not have to tell them how to do it.

Next time you’re reviewing your emergency plan, ask the question, “who’d my target audience?” Identify what they need to get their job done and cut out anything extraneous. The shorter the plan, the easier it will be for the user to find the information they need. Shorter is better; you’re not being graded by the “fling method.”

Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Ignoring Basic Concepts Part 2

Posted on September 16, 2021 by Lucien Canton | Posted in WeblogsLeave a Comment on Why Your Emergency Plan Will Fail: Ignoring Basic Concepts Part 2

In my last post I stressed the importance of applying basic concepts to developing your emergency operations plan, particularly distinguishing between response generated and agent generated needs. Another important concept is that of operational levels.

There are roughly three levels in any response to crisis. The first and most obvious is the tactical level, those actions that directly address the crisis. The next is the operational level that provides support to the tactical level. The final, and most neglected, level is the strategic, where the long-term impact of the crisis is assessed, long range goals are identified, and policies are developed. In simple terms, the strategic level sets the policy direction, the operational manages the overall response, and the tactical implements the actions necessary to achieve the desired results.

Why is this concept so important to planning? It’s because each level has unique planning requirements. Information requirements, operational focus, and even operating structures will vary and a plan that is appropriate for one level may prove ineffective for another.

The tactical level requires very specific planning. Leadership is primarily hierarchical, with decision making centralized in a single command function. Information requirements to support decision making are specific and the more granularity the better. The event horizon is often minutes or, at most, a few hours.

Contrast this with the operational level. Unlike the tactical level that seeks to address an immediate problem, the operational level seeks to jump ahead of the crisis and address anticipated needs. The event horizon is hours and days, and, on occasion, may be even longer. Information requirements focus more on analysis and projections, seeking to understand the “big picture”. Leadership is more about coordination and less about command and control, with decision making being more collaborative.

Where the operational level focuses on anticipated support to the immediate response, the strategic considers the long-range impact of the crisis. The focus is on community restoration and long-term recovery. Information requirements tend to focus on potential changes to demographics, housing, transportation, and the economy. Decision making may require community involvement and extend over years.

What does all this have to do with your plan? Understanding the different operational levels and their different demands for information, anticipated timelines, and leadership structure allow you to structure components of you plans to address these specific needs. For example, the level of information required by an on-scene incident commander may be too detailed to meet the needs of the operational or strategic levels. Conversely, the long-range analyses and forecasts needed by the strategic level would be of no use to the tactical. Similarly, the type of collaborative leadership demanded in the higher levels might have grave consequences if applied to the tactical level where immediate decisions are the norm.

The principal failure I find related to operational levels is the assumption that everything must be contained in a single plan. The typical emergency operations plan is operational in nature. Let me say that again: emergency operations plans are operational level plans. They are intended to coordinate the activities of the plan signatories in support of tactical operations. The basic plan summarizes relationships among the signatories and annexes delineate specific tasks as they’ve been agreed to, but the plan must be supported by lower-level documents that address tactical issues.

Trying to cram too much information into your emergency operations plan creates a bulky and unwieldy document that makes it hard to find necessary information. It almost guarantees that your plan will not be used when it is most needed.