FROM THE STATE VET’S OFFICE
Managing the Chaos of Disasters
It is commonly accepted that 70% of planning for disasters is the same. Whether it is a hurricane, a foreign animal disease outbreak, a terrorist attack, a forest fire out West or even a pandemic such as COVID-19. Planning and the response to these events should follow a pattern that provides some consistency, at least on a 30-thousand-foot level. One of the key components that disasters bring along with them is a certain level of chaos. That is just a fact of life. However, the chaos around these events can be managed using the Incident Command System (ICS). The ICS was developed by the United States Forestry Service in cooperation with a few agencies in California back in the 1970s after a wildfire that burned for 13 days took 16 lives, destroyed 700 structures and burned half a million acres. It was reported that the responding agencies did their very best to work together, but problems with communication and coordination hampered their efforts. The losses from that fire totaled $18 million. I don’t know if that was in 1970s dollars or today’s dollars, but it was still a 16
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devastating loss. After that, an effort was made to get everyone involved in fighting forest fires on the same page. I read about a group of people back in the book of Genesis in the Bible who decided to build a tower to Heaven. They got started but were unable to finish their project because of communication and coordination problems. Thus, the project was a complete failure. I don’t think the problems fighting forest fires ever rose to that level, but it is easy to see that if a group from Alabama fight fires one way and a group from Wyoming fights fires another way and a group from Vermont fights fires yet another way, there could be some issues when they all descend on California to fight a raging wildfire. The ICS was put into place so that wherever a forest fire was being fought, the way things were done would be consistent by all responders. Down through history, events have taken place that have changed the way things are done. Back in September 1982, some evil person or persons put
