Chesterfield fire department response to severe storm emergencies executive analysis of fire department operations in emergency management

1. 
   Contain and extinguish fires
   

1. 
   Remove victims from any situation in which injury or loss of life has occurred, or the potential for injury or loss of life exists, to include any situation involving fire or threat of fire
   
2. 
   Monitor radiological defense (RADEF) for personal protection and for reporting
   
3. 
   Contain hazardous materials situations
   
4. 
   Assist in dissemination of warning to public
   
5. 
   Assist volunteer EMS as necessary
   

The department, in the past, has not provided any initial training to its officer corps on either the County EOP, or Operational Policy #13. Recently, however, a class providing an overview of the EOP has been developed for the department’s Officer Development Program (ODP) Level II. All current battalion level officers and chief officers were required to attend the pilot presentation for that program, and that has been the only formal exposure to the EOP for most of that group of officers. The target audience for ODP Level II is the Company Officer, captains and lieutenants, who have completed ODP Level I. (Participation in both levels of that program is currently voluntary with bonus points awarded for the participant’s next level promotion panel.)

Lastly, the department does not routinely conduct a systematic review and evaluation of its operations at severe storm related emergencies to make improvements to its processes and policies. Operational Policy #13 was last revised September 20, 1996 in response to Tropical Storm Fran passing through the county. The only significant change to the policy was to add standardized damage assessment forms to the policy. This was in response to the large numbers of structures damaged by the sustained winds and falling tree that Fran caused. Though the officers of the department collect a tremendous amount of data during storm operations, there is no standardized process to convert that data into information, and then “plow” that information back into policies and procedures to improve same.

Under the Increased Readiness Phase of the EOP, two of the departmental requirements are to alert on-duty personnel that this portion of the plan is being implemented and to identify the status of vehicles and equipment. Operational Policy #13 does not specify a standard methodology for alerting on-duty personnel of impending severe weather and the need to make preparations for the likelihood of response to severe weather emergencies. The policy’s main focus is on managing potential flooding on the James and Appomattox Rivers, and Swift Creek.

Table 6 below shows the available staffing levels for the on-duty career platoon. Those staffing levels reflect the number of firefighters and officers available to respond to emergencies aboard engines, trucks, and medic units (ambulances). Severe weather that struck during a weekday, between the hours of 0800 through 1800, would have a significant impact on the on-duty platoon because that is when the platoon is at its lowest staffing level. This was borne out by both Tropical Storm Fran and Hurricane Floyd that struck the county during this time period.

The department does have a policy for the notification of volunteer members of the organization via radio dispatched paging. Policies “Signal 15-Bravo” and “Signal 15-Charlie” are designed to notify volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel, respectively, to report to their duty stations and staff their apparatus. For volunteer firefighters, this procedure is becoming less effective due to the declining number of volunteer firefighters in the department.

Addendum D to Operational Policy #13 does a fair job of outlining fire station level preparation for storm response, but its major focus is preparation for response to emergencies created by severe winter weather. This addendum to Operational Policy #13 was written following severe winter weather that struck the Central Virginia area in January, 1995 with incapacitating snowfall. This part of Operational Policy #13 provides very few guidelines for officers, at any level in the organization, to use for resource deployment and management during the response to storm related emergencies.

The department also does not have a process for the staffing of reserve fleet fire apparatus and ambulances if and when off-duty personnel report for duty. This lack of process is further complicated by the fact that the department has no system of tracking where reserve fleet apparatus is located throughout the county. When not in service replacing normal apparatus, pieces of the reserve fleet are housed across the county in fire stations that have available space in the station. Reserve ambulances, with the exception of biomedical equipment such as defibrillators, are stocked for immediate deployment as a replacement piece, or to meet demand when the system is short of ambulances. Fire apparatus, however, is largely devoid of any equipment except fire hose in the case of pumpers. When a reserve fire unit is placed in service almost all of the necessary equipment must come off of the unit that it is replacing. This practice makes it almost impossible to staff reserve fire apparatus for possible deployment either before an impending storm, or in the aftermath of a storm.

As mentioned previously, Operational Policy #13, Addendum D does not provide any significant guidelines for resource deployment and resource management by senior fire officers during severe weather responses. The policy does call for the Senior Battalion Chief to notify the Emergency Communications Center (ECC) to (1) reduce the number of emergency resources dispatched on calls for service, i.e., a one engine and one truck on a structural call where the Computer-Aided Dispatch System (CADS) recommendation is three engines and one truck. The Senior Battalion Chief is also to direct that the ECC limit the dispatch of resources to no more than three Priority 3 fire calls, and no more than three Priority 3 EMS calls at a time. This last directive is only of marginal value for fire call types because presently the overwhelming majority of fire call types are classified as Priority 1 (See Appendix A).

In past response to severe storm emergencies the fire department has had a major role in assisting with damage assessment. The department has a strong tradition of providing a high level of customer service to the county’s citizens. Much emphasis has been placed on fire department resources being dispatched to calls to assess the situation and provide necessary services such as salvage work where a tree has fallen into a house, clearing of fallen trees from roads, etc. In the early stages of the incident this has historically been reactionary–the citizen calls 9-1-1, and the department responds resources. There is no systematic method identified for fire companies to evaluate their response areas after the storm to determine what the problems are, where they exist, and what are the most critical needs (J.E. Graham, personal communication, September 16, 1999).
The department has no policies or procedures in place for the extensive documentation that is required for storm related response. The county’s EOP identifies the need for documenting incurred expenses for fire and hazardous materials related incidents and the need to continue such for the duration of the incident. These expenses may include items such as: (1)overtime costs for recalled personnel, (2) apparatus expenses during operations, and (3) contract costs for additional materials and services. There is an additional need to document the response of organizational volunteers and their role in providing resources to the incident. The extensive federal and state documentation requirements for reimbursement of disaster related expenses make the need for accurate and complete documentation a necessity if the county is to receive post-incident reimbursement. Historically the fire department has had to spend days, and some times weeks, obtaining the necessary information after the incident. This usually involves the collection of handwritten notes, scattered receipts, copying employee timesheets, and verbal interviews with key participants.

Chesterfield Fire Department’s senior officers do not have adequate training and experience working with the county’s Emergency Operations Plan and the Emergency Operations Center, when that facility is activated. This situation creates confusion, redundancy, ineffective operations, and inefficient use of available resources. The fire department historically has assumed the majority of the burden for managing emergency and non-emergency situations resulting from severe storm response even when the EOP placed that responsibility with another department, or other departments were responsible for providing resources as support agencies under the plan.

This project will analyze Chesterfield Fire Department’s current policy for response to severe storm related emergencies and make recommendations to improve that policy. For the purposes of this project, severe weather is defined as meteorological activity that produces straight-line or rotational winds, i.e., thunderstorms or tornados, or is tropical in origin, i.e., tropical storms or hurricanes.

The project will use the information gained from the National Fire Academy course, Executive Analysis of Fire Service Operations in Emergency Management, to systematically evaluate the fire department’s roles and responsibilities in severe storm response, how it currently approaches those roles and responsibilities, and how it can make improvements in those areas. That course presented material covering: (1) emergency operations; (2) the Incident Command System; (3) community risk assessment; (4) incident documentation; (5) capability assessment; (6) media relations; (7) damage assessment; (8) the Emergency Operations Center; and (9) contemporary legal issues for the fire service. This project will focus its analysis and recommendations for improvement on items 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7. Though the remaining items all have significant influence on Chesterfield County’s response to severe storm related emergencies, they are areas currently addressed in the county’s EOP. Analysis of that document is conducted regularly by the county’s Emergency Service Coordinator, the Fire Chief, and county government staff.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Each year in the United States fire and EMS agencies respond to thousands of incidents that result from severe weather. These incidents result in death, injury and property losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. For example:

July 11, 1990 - Denver, CO, the worst hailstorm in U.S. history injured more than sixty people at an amusement park. Hail, up to baseball-size, caused more than $600 million in damage.

July 1, 1985 - Cheyenne, WY, a slow-moving supercell brought eight inches of rain that resulted in a flash flood and hail one foot deep. Sixteen people were killed and damages exceeded $67 million (Vavrek, Holle, Allsop, Davies, and Hoadley, 1995, p.3)

Emergency responders are not immune from the hazards that severe windstorms present. Perhaps they are even more exposed as they frequently respond during the event when the hazards from wind, rain, and lightning are at their greatest. It is probably a safe assumption that most responders are not knowledgeable about the hazards and therefore do not take the necessary precautions. Many departments have probably not addressed this issue through policy, procedure, or training because of that lack of knowledge.

The National Weather Service’s publication, Spotter's Guide for Identifying and Reporting Severe Local Storms (www.nws.noaa.gov/om/tstorm.htm, 1999), provided much information that would enable emergency responders to make accurate observations about developing weather. This information could be critical for responder safety and would enable responders to communicate vital and accurate information to senior emergency managers for decision making.

The geography of the U.S. plays a major part in thunderstorm development. The most important geographical feature is the lack of any major mountain formations running east-west across the country. The lack of such a physical divide allows warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to move northward where it frequently collides with cold, dry air flowing southward from Canada. This meteorological collision, frequently occurring over the Midwestern U.S., results in the severe weather indicative of that region of the country.

Ebert (1988) described thunderstorm development as a four-stage process.

Mature Stage- Has both updrafts and downdrafts. Downdrafts usually occur in connection with precipitation falling from upper portions of the cloud dragging cooler air downward. Cloud tops usually reach beyond 30,000 feet.

Cumulonimbus Stage- Huge cloud with cloud tops reaching 40,000 to 60,000 feet with updrafts of 40-60 feet per second. These storms have massive downdrafts that can equal the updrafts. This is the most violent stage of the storm with torrential rains or hail, incessant lightning, and possibly tornados. These cumulonimbus clouds may prevail for at least one hour in contrast to ten or fifteen minutes for smaller cumuli types.

Dissipating Stage-The storm has expended all of its energy and only downdrafts occur. Most lightning stops and only steady rain persists (Ebert, p.92).

Vavrek et al. (1995) wrote that more than 100,000 thunderstorms occur every year in the United States. Of these thunderstorms, meteorologists estimate that 2,000-3,000 each year achieve the status of “supercell” thunderstorm. They wrote that east of the Rocky Mountains supercells are most frequent in spring and summer during the late afternoon and early evening. Here, weather systems with favorable wind conditions have access to warmth and moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.