(Photos by Portland, OR Bureau of Fire.)
More than one hundred organizations participated in a major disaster drill that positively reinforced the City of Portland, Oregon’s Integrated Incident Command System.
A DISASTER DRILL, CITYWIDE
THE INTEGRATED Incident Command System recently proved itself in the City of Portland, Oregon’s major disaster drill, dubbed “The Big One.” 113 organizations combined their talents and resources to make this a successful operation. The command structure effectively managed 50 private industry drills, 51 organizations that participated in the Emergency Operations Center (HOC) exercise and 27 organizations involved in a combined fire and hazardous-materials field operation.
While the primary objective of our exercise was to evaluate our new Emergency Operations System, we had two other objectives. The secondary goal was to raise the disaster preparedness level of private industry’s emergency brigades and their planning efforts. To accomplish this, we worked through the safety officers of corporations in our petrochemical district. We also worked with the city/county health officer and the hospital council. 18 hospitals, 17 heavy industries, and 25 businesses and other organizations participated in private drills that were designed and supervised by their own leaders.
Our third objective was to conduct a hands-on exercise that combined the efforts of private industry, volunteer organizations, and city units in a disaster situation. Four volunteer agencies and 21 private industries joined the Portland Fire and Police Bureaus in a simulated wreck of a gasoline tanker and a leaking epichloralhydrin rail car. Since the area had been devastated and isolated by an “earthquake,” it was necessary to set up a field hospital in Shell Oil’s office building to care for “injured” industrial workers. American Red Cross and industrial nurses were to staff this site under the direction of Rescue 21. The Civil Air Patrol flew observation missions and relayed video communications both to the field commander and the HOC. The Portland Amateur Radio Club provided communications on site, around town, and at the HOC as well as to the state capitol and FEMA Region 10. Both the Civil Air Patrol and the radio club did an outstanding job.
The hands-on drill became more real than we had expected when our hazmat team and rescue unit were called on to respond to an actual incident. However, Riedel International and the Olympic Pipe Line Company took over the haz-mat sectors of the drill, while the American Red Cross managed the field hospital. This was actually fortunate, because our message to the community has been that they may have to depend on their own resources during a disaster. The entire operation ran smoothly.
NIIMS AND BASIC EMERGENCY SERVICES MERGED
Portland has adopted a modified National Integrated Incident Management System (NIIMS) into its basic emergency services plan. By doing this, we have overcome five major problem areas:
- the role of elected leaders during a disaster;
- who should be in command;
- how to combine the efforts of 23 city bureaus who answer to different elected officials;
- how to use volunteer groups, private industry, and governmental agencies during a disaster; and
- the role of an Emergency Operations Center.
The Portland Bureau of Fire, Rescue & Emergency Services assumed function of emergency management for the city on July 1, 19H7. One of our first decisions was that we would become a facilitator, not a director. With this in mind, we used the city’s basic emergency services plan to create three separate councils:
The Disaster Policy Council consists of the mayor, who assumes overall command, four council members, and the city auditor. These elected officials approve all policy questions. Furthermore, they are listed in the command succession roster.
The Emergency Management Council consists of all city office and bureau directors. This council reviews the basic emergency services plan and its annexes. In addition, they and their principal managers are assigned to the Emergency Operations Center when it is activated by the mayor, and serve as his counsellors.
The Technical Advisory Council is comprised of individuals who represent volunteer groups, governmental agencies, and private industries that have an often critical role in the management of a disaster. Many of these members have assignments at the EOC. They need to be represented during the planning stage to be sure that assigned tasks are appropriate and that their plans dovetail with the city’s plan.
“CROSS-POLLINATION”
We recognized early in our planning that a tremendous amount of talent and ability exists in other bureaus. They can and should fill leadership positions at the EOC. With this in mind, we have stressed that other bureau managers can be section chiefs on the general staff. Also, we think that the nature of the disaster should dictate which bureau commander is selected by the mayor to be the city incident commander.
The damage assessment section was added to the NIIMS overhead structure at the EOC level to ensure that the necessary information is collected and processed for federal and state disaster assistance. The information gathered by the survey teams is also shared with the situation unit of the planning section. Two bureaus, Buildings and Risk Management, are preassigned to this section.
The finance section is staffed by members of the Office of Fiscal Administration and the finance managers of the Bureaus of Fire and Police. Several bureaus are preassigned to the operations, planning, and logistics sections. The Bureau of Maintenance supplies the logistics section chief, while Police and Fire provide the operations and planning section chiefs. Thus far, Fire has provided the city incident commander and Police have provided a deputy city incident commander.
The Civil Air Patrol provides an officer to manage the air group and a radio for the communications room of the Portland Office of Emergency Management (POEM). Also represented in the communications room are the American Red Cross, Portland Amateur Radio Club, and four city bureaus, in addition to POEM’S staff. Many members of the Technical Advisory Council are assigned to the logistics, operations, and planning sections as appropriate.
This “cross-pollination” of disciplines has resulted in several good ideas and has allowed the primary actors to get to know one another. We learned of new equipment and capabilities that other agencies possess, such as the Civil Air Patrol’s aerial television system. This added a whole new dimension to intelligence gathering. Other bureau managers suggested that general staff sections could be strengthened by adding representatives from one or more of their divisions. These division and bureau managers have met and discussed their strengths and needs. High-quality training has resulted from these personal contacts.
SIMPLIFIED PAPERWORK
Our inherited EOC forms caused a lot of heartburn for everyone. A committee was convened to design new ones. These proved very useful during the major exercise.
The four forms shown on page 63 are the only forms that we use in the EOC. The incident log is only used by the communications room and the city incident command section. It is mainly used to track the flow of incidents. The resources status form is only used by the communications room and the logistics section. The situation status form is only used by the communications room and the planning section.
Both the resource and situation status forms are identical to large white boards in the respective general staff sections. The information is transferred to those boards. The action form is used for any situation which requires that an action be taken or coordinated between sections. Any section can use the action form. The initiator can either send the form to other sections for information dissemination, or retain the form and record needed information pertinent to their project. The use of these four forms greatly reduced the confusion level at the EOC.
EOC ACTIVATION
In a metro area, an EOC probably will not be fully activated until the situation is critical and there are numerous major simultaneous incidents. Field incident commanders can and do handle most major incidents. We feel that a city EOC would not be required for the normal greater-alarm fire. We have found that an EOC should concern itself with the big picture and not get bogged down with problems in the field.
The first mission of our Emergency Operations Center is to prepare an estimate of the situation for the mayor. Once this is done there are six remaining objectives for the EOC:
- maintain continuity of government;
- locate and assign resources to each field or zone commander to best protect the city and its citizens;
- plan and coordinate operations that involve two or more zones of operation;
- coordinate outside resources that are coming to our assistance;
- refer newly reported incidents to the proper zone commander for action;
- maintain current situation and resource status.
ZONE OF OPERATIONS
We have added a zone of operations to the city’s Incident Command System because of the probability of numerous and complex situations faced by a metro area during a disaster, and the need to maintain a good span of control. The zone of operations (ZOP) is a major command which will be created by the city incident commander when necessary due to the volume of incidents occurring simultaneously within the city. The zone commander reports to the city incident commander through the city operations section chief. Zone commanders will assume command of the field incident commanders within their geographic boundaries.
The zone command functions in the same manner as the EOC; each general staff section in the ZOP system is similar to its counterpart at the city’s EOC. Supervisory level members of the various governmental and volunteer agencies represented at the city’s EOC will be directed to report to an existing building within a designated geographic area that will become the ZOP headquarters.
The zone commander will be named by the city incident commander. The zone commander will designate his command and general staff officers. It is expected that this command will be a small version of the city’s EOC and coordinate the resources available w ithin the zone. The zone commander will supervise the field incident commanders within his ZOP. The ZOP commander(s) will receive new missions from the city’s EOC. They will also require new resources through the city’s operations section chief.
The use of five ZOP headquarters in the Incident Command System with a 5to-1 span of control allows the city IC to manage 3,125 units.
5 units per sector = 5 units
5 sectors per branch = 25 units
5 branches per field incident command = 125 units
5 field incident commanders per
zone commander = 625 units
5 zones of operations per city EOC = 3,125 units
We have a very powerful management tool that combines the resources and talents of our community to cope effectively with a disaster. However, we will continue to conduct major exercises and refine this system.
