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Disciplined, concise messages
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Clear articulation of situations, status, and resource requests
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An effective understanding how messages are interpreted (FEMA, p. 3-42).
FEMA (1994) wrote that a written communications plan, using ICS Form 205, should be part of a written Incident Action Plan (IAP). “That communication plan should describe radio channels or frequencies that will be used for each element of the incident organization (FEMA, 1994, p. 3-6).
Salt Lake City Fire Department (1999), Mann (1993), Mikel (1998), Castillo et al (1992), and Eichelberger (1991) all wrote of the communications difficulties associated with mutual aid response to severe storm emergencies. The authors all cited lack of inter-agency planning, procedures, and training as the contributing factors to the problems that were experienced while managing the consequences of hurricanes and tornados that struck their communities.
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Another communications situation that should be addressed is what takes place when normal means of communications are not functional. “First understand that command should be aware of the situation by virtue of not receiving information. This should indicate a high priority to restore some type of communication as soon as possible” (FEMA, 1994, p. 3-43). In such situations, organizations should also have contingency plans that outline independent operational guidelines for field unit commanders (FEMA, 1994).
Develop an Incident Safety Plan
Emergency responders are not immune to the physical hazards to can be presented by severe weather. High winds, torrential rains causing flooding, lightning, and hail can create significant safety hazards for personnel and equipment.
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Medic/small vehicle unit operations will be terminated when sustained winds of 50 mph exist or local conditions dictate unsafe conditions, i.e., localized flooding, downed wires, etc. Suppression unit operations will be terminated when sustained winds of greater than 60 mph exist, especially if other local factors dictate unsafe conditions, i.e., localized flooding, downed wires, etc. (Myrtle Beach Fire Department, 1999, p.26).
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South Trail Fire Protection and Rescue Services District (1999) states that all operational units will return to their quarters and secure their apparatus and stations when sustained winds reach 70 mph.
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In the state of Florida, Metro-Dade Fire Department, Coral Gables Fire Department, and City of Miami Fire Departments all have written procedures by which these departments operate during incidents of hurricanes. Included in these standard operating procedures are orders to cease operations at fifty miles per hour sustained wind speeds (Hughes, 1998, p. 21).
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While high winds have the potential to certainly have the potential to overturn, or damage emergency response vehicles, the greater potential for damage comes from flying debris. This flying debris from loose objects, falling trees, disintegrating structures, etc., also poses a tremendous physical threat to personnel who are operating in such conditions (FEMA, 1994).
While high winds are certainly the most immediate safety concern of response during severe weather, other hazards such as lightning, flash flooding, and hail can be equally dangerous. The information contained in the literature review of the technical information relative to weather indicated that people in the United States do not have a clear understanding of the dangers presented by thunderstorms, especially the more powerful supercell thunderstorm. While tornados and hurricanes may garner the majority of the weather headlines, communities have a higher degree of exposure to thunderstorms if one looks at the gross numbers.
Segerstrom (1991) wrote that each year in North America between 200 and 500 people will die in floods and many more will be injured. The author stated that unless trained in swift water rescues, many emergency responders do not have a good appreciation, or degree or respect, for the hazards of moving water.
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Water moving down a gradient is incredibly powerful. At 3 mph, water presses against the legs of a person standing in current with nearly seventeen pounds of pressure. When the speed is doubled, however, the water pressure is quadrupled to more than sixty-eight total pounds of pressure. And when the speed increases to 9 mph, which is still not very fast, the pressure doubles again. In fact, water pressure exerted against a victim pinned against a storm drain may exceed several hundred pounds. A boat in similar circumstances would have several thousand pounds of pressure against it. Victims and rescuers alike are constantly being overwhelmed by such forces (Segerstrom, 1991, p. 21).
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Segerstrom also addressed the hazards associated with a rescue from vehicles caught in flood waters. Many drivers insist upon driving through flooded areas for a variety of reasons: they don’t want to waste time on an alternate route; they may view it as a challenge.
Regardless of the reason for crossing, the standard sedan will have approximately 600 pounds of water pressure against it in a surface current as slow as 6 mph. Each foot of water depth will displace approximately 1,500 pounds. So, only 2 feet of water and a few feet per second of surface current will wash away a car. Remaining air will keep the car on the surface for about 45 seconds (Segerstrom, 1991, p. 28).
NFPA (1990) wrote that between 1980 and 1989 29 firefighters lost their lives in 25 separate incidents while on duty. “As might be expected, the largest proportion of deaths occurred while performing rescues (41%)” (NFPA, 1990, p.29). Almost half the victims (13) were not wearing any protective or diving gear when they drowned and another four deaths occurred with the firefighters wearing structural firefighting gear.
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Four of the victims were wearing structural firefighting protective clothing when they drowned. One of them was placing flares along a roadway when he apparently fell into a drainage ditch. Another was assisting a motorist whose vehicle had been washed off the road in torrential rains. . . .The fourth firefighter was evacuating residents of a coastal area during a storm. He ignored orders to put on a life jacket at least four times. He also had been told to remove his coat and boots since they would act like anchors if he fell into the water (NFPA, 1990, p. 33).
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Ausmus (1994) wrote of the dangers of lightning and its associated hazards to human beings to prepare a foundation for a lightning safety awareness program at Norfolk (VA) International Airport. His research indicated that lightning is a powerful and unpredictable phenomenon that can lead to serious injury or death for its victims. “Statistical information provided in the literature review indicated that the majority of lightning strikes occur in environments in which prudent measures for self-protection were not taken” (Ausmus, 1994, p.3).
Mikel (1998) wrote that the lightning associated with severe weather posed a significant lethal threat to emergency responders during a storm. Included in his discussion of the issue was the need for emergency responders to obtain lightning prediction technology to more accurately determine what specific areas will be most susceptible to lightning from an approaching storm. “This equipment, when combined with an increased understanding of storm behavior, and good strong common sense, can enhance the safety and efficiency of fire operations during storms” (Mikel, 1998, p. 3).
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Safety hazards continue to exist after the storm passes. Buildings damaged by the storm, unstable utilities, downed trees, blocked roads, etc., present many hazards to responders. Eichelberger (1991) described the utter chaos that existed when a tornado demolished several blocks of homes in Plainfield, IL. That chaos was exacerbated by structural debris that was standing several feet high in the streets, live powerlines across streets, and nails puncturing the tires of the apparatus. Birden (1992) wrote of an even higher degree of devastation from a tornado that struck Chandler, MN. In that event, all but ten of Chandler’s 110 homes were demolished by the force of the storm. Missing street signs and missing landmarks made for difficult response of resources as even personnel familiar with the town were disoriented due to the lack of any navigational landmarks. Responders must be aware that hazards exist for some time after the storm passes.
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Many hazards will be encountered during the first 72 hours after a hurricane. These include, but are not limited to:
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Wires down
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Gas leaks
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Fires
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Unsafe structures
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Flooding
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Hazardous materials incidents
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Traumatized animals
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Heat stress (Myrtle Beach Fire Department, 1999, p.28).
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FEMA (1994) wrote that the development of incident safety plan and its communication throughout the organization are critical for safe operations during disaster situations.
This component assures personnel safety (by identification of hazards associated with the particular type of incident/disaster. This information can be transferred to ICS Form 202 of the written (IAP) and in an attachment page to the IAP, usually titled “Safety Message (FEMA, 1994, p. 3-6).
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Summary of Literature Review
The review of the literature revealed an enormous amount of technical weather information that should be the foundation of emergency response procedures to severe storm related emergencies. Emergency responders are not immune to the hazards that can be presented by high winds, torrential rains, lightning, and hail as they attempt to provide emergency services to the public. The literature contains a substantial amount of technical information concerning thunderstorms, especially the most powerful thunderstorm, the supercell thunderstorm. The potential for the supercell to inflict severe damage with straight line winds greater than, or equal to that of a tornado was not known by the author prior to this research.
The literature review revealed that the knowledge of basic weather observation skills, i.e., cloud types, cloud formations, wind direction and speed, and prevailing weather patterns for a jurisdiction, can be of great benefit to emergency responders, especially when operating in the field, to avoid being surprised by violent weather. The ability of emergency managers to use this visual information to anticipate severe weather was also brought out in the literature review.
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The literature also emphasized the increase in sophistication of radar technology, especially the advent of Doppler Radar, and its impact on the ability of forecasters to issue severe storm advisories. This has increased the amount of warning time for the public and emergency responders, but often that time is still measured in minutes, not hours. The advent of weather related websites on the Internet provides emergency response organizations with the ability to put that technology in fire and EMS stations within their organizations.
From an emergency response to severe weather perspective the literature review was found to be lacking in some areas, while plentiful in others. The books and academic papers reviewed tended to focus on the more general topic of weather related disasters, i.e., the large scale situation such as a hurricane or tornado that inflicts catastrophic damage and casualties on a community. The author was able to locate very few sources that addressed the smaller scale thunderstorms, supercells, and microbursts that a community would be likely to encounter on a more frequent basis.
After action reporting of the damage inflicted on communities by severe weather and efforts of emergency responders to response and manage those incidents was plentiful in the literature, and tended to be the more current sources. Most of those sources reviewed for this project told the story of problems encountered, how those problems were solved, and lessons learned by the responding organizations.
The author was unable to find published documents, either in hard copy or on the Internet, of fire department procedure for managing severe storm related emergencies.
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The majority of the technical information came from the National Fire Academy courses, Command and Control of Natural and Man-made Disasters, and Executive Analysis of Fire Services Operations in Emergency Management. The author did obtain and reviewed seven unpublished operational plans from fire departments, the majority of which came from Florida and addressed hurricane response. The manual review of more than 100 fire department websites on the Internet found that while this new media is being used extensively for public education and marketing of fire department services, it has not yet become a medium for the sharing of operational policies and practices among fire service organizations. The sole exception was that of the City of Tallahassee (FL) site that contained the city’s basic hurricane response plan. Another excellent site, though it dealt exclusively with earthquake response, was that of the Los Angeles County (CA) Fire Department.
PROCEDURES
The research procedures for this project began with a review of available literature on the subject of fire department response to severe storm emergencies. This search took several forms. First was an electronic review of the resources of the National Fire Academy’s Learning Resource Center using the STAR computerized “card catalog” system while on campus for the course, Executive Analysis of Fire Service Operations in Emergency Management. During this search the author searched on the term, “emergency response to thunderstorms.” The author reviewed books and periodicals for pertinent information on the topic.
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Upon returning from the Academy, the author made a second search of the card catalog using the Learning Resource Center’s Internet website, www.lrc.fema.gov, searching on the additional terms of “emergency response to hurricanes, floods, tornados” and “emergency response to lightning, hail, storms.” The former yielded 102 sources and the later produced 112 sources. After reviewing the card catalog entries for those sources that appeared to have relevance to the research, the author requested those materials for review from the LRC through the use of the Inter-Library Loan program with materials sent to the Chesterfield County Library, Meadowdale Branch.
A third search for research material was made on the Internet using the Microsoft Internet Explorer software between August, 1999 and November, 1999. That search used the AltaVista search engine using the search term, “fire department response to severe storms.” That search yielded more than 300 fire department websites that the author manually reviewed for relevant content.
The author conducted a search for applicable fire department operational policies using the Microsoft Outlook Express software to send electronic mail requests to fire departments across the country. Using a list of 50 former National Fire Academy classmates, the author requested copies of operational policies and procedures related to response to severe storms. Respondents were asked to send such policies via electronic mail in the WordPerfect or Microsoft Word file format, or through the U.S. mail. A total of seven responses were received, three via electronic mail and four via regular mail.
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The author interviewed individuals with experience and knowledge in severe weather and emergency response to severe weather emergencies. These individuals work for local, state, and federal agencies. Lynda Price, Emergency Services Coordinator for Chesterfield County, VA, was interviewed on October 1, 1999. William Sammler, a weather forecaster with the National Weather Service Office in Wakefield, VA was interviewed by telephone on October 14, 1999. Tim Armstrong, a weather forecaster with the National Weather Service Office in Wakefield, VA was interviewed by telephone on November 16, 1999. Senior Battalion Chief James Graham, Chesterfield Fire Department, Emergency Operations Division with 22 years of experience in Emergency Management, was interviewed on September 16, 1999. Richard McDonnell, Information Services Manager, Chesterfield Fire Department, conducted the incident history search of Chesterfield County’s Computer Aided Dispatch System (CADS) archives between November 1, 1999 and November 28, 1999 to obtain statistical data relative to severe storms in Chesterfield County. The author also reviewed written memorandums of storm related activity that battalion staff officers completed and forwarded to the Chief of the Department from January, 1995 through November, 1999 to obtain information on smaller scale storm incidents.
The author reviewed the Emergency Operations Plan, Basic Plan, Part 1, for Chesterfield County to obtain information on severe storm history in Chesterfield County. A computer search of the County’s Computer Aided Dispatch System (CADS) was done to obtain information on emergency calls for service during selected severe storm events. A second search was completed using a comparable time frame for each selected storm for three days before the event and three days after the event. This information was used to determine the impact of severe storm activity on the number and types of calls for emergency service received by the department.
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To determine the readiness of Chesterfield Fire Department officers to manage severe storm emergencies, the author developed a written survey (See Appendix C). The survey was designed to assess the two levels of officers that would be involved in managing emergency response to severe storms: company officers (Lieutenants and Captains); middle managers (Senior Battalion Chiefs, Battalion Chiefs, and Senior Captains). All officers of those ranks were sent surveys, those assigned to the Emergency Operations Division and those officers currently assigned to staff positions in other divisions of the department. The survey was sent to those officers on October 28, 1999 through the department’s electronic mail system. Officers were asked to print the survey and return the completed hard copies of the survey to the author through the department’s internal mail system by November 15, 1999. The author felt that by compiling the results from the survey a profile for Chesterfield Fire Department Officers could be developed that would be useful in developing a policy for response to severe storm emergencies.
A total of 86 surveys went to the total officer population and 61 surveys (70.9%) were returned. For the company officer population, 65 surveys were sent out and 44 surveys (67.7%) were returned. For the middle manager population, 21 surveys were sent out and 17 surveys (81.0%) were completed and returned. Both the response of the total survey population, and that of the individual officer populations were below that which would indicate a 95% confidence level as described in the Research Section of the Executive Development curriculum at the National Fire Academy. The total officer population sample of 86 surveys would have required a return of 70 surveys. The company officer population sample of 65 surveys would have required a return of 56 surveys; the middle managers would have had to return 19 of the 21 surveys.
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The author tabulated the survey results manually using a simple matrix and then entered the data into the computer graphics software Microsoft Powerpoint to produce the charts and tables used in this project to answer the research questions.
The author wrote the text of this Applied Research Project using Corel WordPerfect software, version 8.0. The charts and figures for the project were developed using Microsoft Powerpoint 97 software. The Internet browsers, Microsoft Explorer and Netscape, were used to conduct on-line computer research on the Internet computer network.
Limitations
The literature review revealed a very small amount of material directly related to the response to severe storm emergencies in the context of training and operational procedures. There was sufficient material on the characteristics and hazards of severe weather, i.e., hurricanes, thunderstorms, flooding, etc. The primary deficiency was in how fire departments respond to those emergencies and how they train their personnel to respond safely, effectively, and efficiently. An extensive on-line computer search of the Internet computer network, and the Learning Resource Center’s On-line Card Catalog at the National Fire Academy was unable to yield significant sources of such operational polices and procedures.
The small size of the officer survey population limited this research in Chesterfield County. The lower than desired number of survey responses, especially for the company officer population, could affect the results of the survey. However, one of the issues identified in the literature review was the lack of training that officers receive for response to severe storm emergencies, and the lack of policy and procedure in organizations to guide officers in the management of such emergencies.
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Both of these points could lead one to conclude that officer apathy, as indicated by the survey return results, is a resulting attitude for officers. Since they have not been exposed to concepts and practices for managing severe storm emergencies in training, and there is not well-defined policy or procedure for the same in the department, they may feel that their daily emergency management skills and experience will be sufficient.
RESULTS
The problem examined in this Applied Research Project is that Chesterfield Fire Department has no system for managing the extraordinary demands for service that a severe storm can enact upon its resources. This study used the historical, evaluative, and action research methods to answer the following research questions.
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