Time invested in preparedness is well-rewarded and will pay significant dividends when an incident occurs.
BY RICHARD R. ANDERSON, CFPS
Emergencies can and do happen at all types of facilities (e.g., manufacturing plants, research laboratory complexes, warehouse distribution centers, and office buildings). Each segment of an emergency management program (EMP)-assessment, prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery-contributes to important business goals of the company: protection of life and the environment and minimizing property damage.
The emergency management process is like a circle: continual and flowing. Some parts of the process take more time than others and seem more important, but each is significant. For example, you may spend many years working on preparedness before an emergency strikes, but a well-thought-out and executed recovery, which may not take as long, brings the facility back to working order.
Assessment. Assessment pinpoints hazards most likely to occur at the facility, anticipates their consequences, and determines what resources are (or are not) available to counter them. It takes into account how the facility measures up to regulatory standards and other corporate requirements.
Prevention. Prevention reviews engineering projects from a life safety and loss prevention perspective, incorporates a human elements program, and provides for self-assessment or audit of the facility’s EMP.
Preparedness. Are you prepared to manage hazards and vulnerabilities a facility hazard identification risk assessment (HIRA) has identified? Do you have the appropriate equipment in-house, or, if you are relying on the community emergency services, do they have the appropriate equipment? Preparedness encompasses site-specific preemergency planning: routine periodic inspection programs for loss prevention, life safety, fire protection, and equipment; responder exercises and training; community and media relationships; and mutual-aid agreements.
Response. When an emergency occurs, how will responders be mobilized and notified, and who will take command? These and other questions are addressed in the emergency response plan (ERP) developed as part of the EMP element, response. Once the ERP is completed, this guide explains how to maintain, modify, and distribute it.
Recovery. In recovery, the guide addresses the aftermath of an emergency: post-incident investigation, business continuity, clean-up, and other measures needed to resume “business as usual.”
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PROGRAM PLANNING PROCESS
The following steps outline a systematic approach that can serve as the framework for the program development or review process.
- Form the emergency management program planning team. One person alone cannot do emergency management planning. Effective planning requires a team approach. Selecting an effective emergency management program planning team is discussed later.
- Identify applicable regulatory and corporate requirements. Consider both regulatory and corporate requirements in the development and maintenance of the EMP.
- Conduct a hazard identification risk assessment (HIRA). The HIRA is the cornerstone of a facility’s emergency preparedness. Management must be fully aware of hazards inherent in the facility operations, the risks, and the consequences.
- Evaluate the effects of hazards. Once hazards and vulnerabilities are known, it is vital to evaluate the consequences of credible scenarios.
- Determine what is an acceptable outcome. The EMP’s primary goal is to produce acceptable results. Therefore, it stands to reason that acceptable outcomes must be identified in four key areas: life safety, environmental impact, property damage, and business impact/interruption and impact on the company’s reputation relative to the five key aspects of the EMP.
- Identify resources and assess capabilities. It is important to know if there are sufficient resources and capabilities to achieve an acceptable outcome for credible scenarios.
- Prioritize protection needs. Once it is clear what additional resources are needed for acceptable outcomes, prioritize the protection needs.
- Evaluate written prevention strategies to eliminate or reduce risks that present unacceptable outcomes.
- Evaluate written preparedness strategy to ensure resources (including trained personnel, equipment, and materials) are available to manage an emergency to a successful conclusion and an expeditious return to normal operation. Consider preparedness strategies and guidelines on levels of training and types of emergency response equipment.
- Evaluate written plans and procedures to ensure they specify an appropriate emergency response. Well-written emergency response plans should prescribe actions to take for all credible scenarios and include guidelines on plan content. Prepare standard operating guidelines (SOGs), department emergency response plans, and detailed action plans for each.
- Evaluate written procedures to ensure they specify a safe and expeditious return to normal operations. The written recovery procedures should focus on minimizing the consequences of an incident. Procedures should identify responsibilities, conditions that trigger procedure implementation, a checklist of primary expected actions to take, and a statement of the expected outcome.
- Evaluate the facility EMP documentation, including emergency procedures and SOGs. All facilities should fully document each element and subelement of their program to ensure the maintenance of a methodical and consistent approach to emergency management.
- Evaluate the skills and knowledge needs of the EMP and ensure that the training program meets them. The most wisely conceived program will always depend on the persons responsible for taking the appropriate actions. Develop methods for evaluation.
- Develop a project plan to correct deficiencies. The development of a comprehensive industrial EMP will require a good project plan.
- Revise the facility EMP as required. The EMP is a dynamic process-it is never done. As hazards increase, decrease, or are identified during emergency response exercises, adjust the program accordingly.
Selecting the Planning Team
Facility management should name key decision makers to the facility EMP planning team (FEMPPT). There can be two separate teams: planning and crisis management. Although functional responsibilities may necessitate assigning a specific manager for the crisis management team, it is more important that planning team members are decisive policy makers. The team should consist of a maximum of seven members. A three-member team may be appropriate for a small facility.
The planning team should solicit input from all functional areas of the facility and include persons from the following departments or areas:
- maintenance,
- operations or line personnel,
- upper and line management,
- emergency responders,
- safety and the environment,
- security,
- public relations,
- personnel, and
- community emergency management representative.
It may be helpful to have management appoint FEMPPT members in writing and, where possible, reflect the assignment in their objectives. Whatever the number, you will find working as a group encourages participation and involves more people in the process, enhances the planning process’s visibility and stature within a facility, and allows many perspectives to be heard on an issue.
Determining Responsibilities
Once the planning team is in place, assign tasks or responsibilities to each member. Select someone to take notes during meetings or follow up on any technical questions raised. Spread out the responsibilities as evenly as possible. When an individual or single department is assigned most of the work, others may lose interest in the planning process.
The Project Plan
The FEMPPT should meet initially to develop and revise the EMP. Explain the purpose of this initial planning meeting to the team. Each member must understand the criticality of his work and the prestige of his selection as a key decision maker by facility management. The emergency manager should charge the team with its mission: to develop, put in place, and maintain a facility EMP commensurate with facility hazards and vulnerabilities and explain how that is in the best interests of the employees, the community, and the company.
Expected Results
The FEMPPT should agree on the aspects of the facility EMP. The emergency manager should help the team define what the project plan is expected to deliver. Once the team has agreed in principle on what the facility EMP should address, it should develop a project plan, which will serve as the map for the planning team to reach the agreed-on outcome.
The project plan should clearly assign tasks, responsibilities, and timelines. The intent is not to have the planning team do all the work. The team’s main role is to identify what needs to be done and where the necessary technical expertise exists, and to coordinate support for the technical expert to address the program element.
Example. The FEMPPT decides that local emergency responders should have access to the pre-emergency plans of all important buildings. To implement this, pertinent technical information should be assembled, formatted, and made available to emergency responders. Since the pertinent technical information (i.e., location and type of hazardous materials or the location of utility shutoffs) may be in several different departments, a task leader would be assigned to coordinate the assembly of this information, produce the pre-emergency plan document, and distribute it to the local emergency responders.
In this case, a sample task assignment might be to develop and implement a written procedure that defines the pre-emergency planning process. The procedure should stipulate that there must be up-to-date pre-emergency plan drawings for all important facility buildings. It should also specify a mechanism to ensure this information is accessible to local emergency responders and the facility crisis management team.
Task Leader: Utilities Manager.
Stakeholders: Safety, Utilities, Environmental, Site Administration.
Timing: Quarterly Updates, Expected Completion-90 days.
The task is clearly defined. The FEMPPT selects the utilities manager as the task leader. The FEMPPT believes this should be complete within 90 days. The utilities manager is now responsible to work with the following site personnel:
- the facility emergency manager to determine the best means of making the document accessible;
- environmental, for sewer locations;
- utilities, for the location of utility shutoffs;
- maintenance, for the location of the electrical control panels;
- safety, for the location of the portable extinguishers and muster points; and
- site administration, which will have the information put on the site map and reproduced.
The utilities manager is responsible to report the status of this task quarterly to the chairman of the FEMPPT. As you can see, no one person can make this all happen. It requires a facilitywide effort.
Keep in mind the following.
- Important program attributes with the potential for a significant impact should be addressed in 30 days.
- Documentation of protocols should be completed within two years.
- Deficiencies with the potential to most greatly impact the facility’s ability to achieve an acceptable outcome should be prioritized. For example, developing pre-emergency plans will be a far more important issue than putting an inspection protocol in writing.
Next Phase
A follow-up meeting, scheduled within 30 days, should review and revise the task leader’s work product to date. If the task is not progressing, it may be necessary to reassign resources or reprioritize commitment. Site management plays a key role in communicating the importance of meeting task deadlines.
Obviously, task assignments must be evaluated against everyday work. However, loss history has demonstrated that the EMP processes are dynamic and must become an everyday occurrence. Time invested in preparedness is well-rewarded and will pay significant dividends when an incident occurs. The old axiom “Pay me now or pay me later” still stands true.
RICHARD R. ANDERSON, CFPS, is a senior emergency management consultant with ERT, Inc. His more than 27 years of experience in the industrial and municipal emergency services includes nine years as chief officer of District 12 in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, and more than 15 years with Merck & Co. Inc. He served as director of training for the Middlesex County Fire Academy and is a New Jersey certified fire and haz-mat instructor. Anderson is a member of the New Jersey Division of Fire Safety Training and Educational Advisory Council and the Technical Committee member for Disaster Management, responsible for NFPA 1600. He is a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee.
