Managing the Chaos of Disasters

BY DR. TONY FRAZIER

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 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 some cyanide into some bottles of Tylenol in a store in Chicago. Nine people died from taking the capsules. As a result, the way over-the-counter medications are packaged changed forever. They began making the containers childproof, which at times makes it almost impossible for me to open a bottle of ibuprofen. In September 2001, the incident known as 9/11 prominently brought the ICS into play outside the forest fire fighting world.

I had only been State Veterinarian for a few months when 9/11 took place. It really brought home the importance of responders being able to integrate and communicate within a system that managed the incident or event response. As I watched the response to 9/11 unfold, I realized that our animal health workers would be first responders if an event involved animals. I was familiar with the ICS, but knew we needed to become much more familiar with that system and do it quickly.

We were able to have someone come to Alabama and teach our animal health workers the fundamentals of the ICS so that we would be able to fit into the framework of the ICS when the need arrived.

In the ICS, all the response assets are put into five categories. They are command, operations, planning, logistics and administration/finance. Suppose we have an outbreak of bird flu. The boots on the ground folks are tasked with euthanizing and disposing of the chickens on several poultry farms. Operations oversees the daily activity on the farms. Today’s operations were put into place by the planning group yesterday. Operations lets logistics know that they need backhoes and bulldozers to dig holes to dispose of the carcasses. Logistics makes arrangements to have the equipment on-site when needed. Administration/ finance makes sure that assets can be purchased or rented that are needed for the response, including the workers being paid, housed and fed. And command signs off on the entire operation.

It is truly a thing of beauty when worked properly. In the ICS structure no one has more than one person to report to up the chain of command. There is one public information officer position that is part of the command staff. That person, as part of the command staff, has the factual information concerning the response and is able to get necessary and accurate information out to the public. I know we sometimes see reporters find some unhappy worker who thinks the whole operation is not being run properly. But I believe media generally wants to get accurate information to the public. And on occasion, the command group may need the media to get important information out to the public. The public information officer allows information to be funneled through one voice to reduce confusion during a chaotic time.

We often see people with good intentions self-deploy tohelp respond to disasters. But you know what they say about good intentions and the road to hell. Those who try to work outside the ICS sometimes become a liability rather than an asset. Suppose someone drives from Montana to the Gulf Coast of Alabama to help clear debris after a hurricane. When that person arrives at the Gulf Coast area with their chain saw, they find they have no place to stay because no hotels are operating. There is no convenient place to buy fuel for their chain saw after they run out. And there is no place to buy food and water. They now become a liability, not an asset. Those are just a few of the issues that go along with someone not working within the ICS.

On the other hand, a person that is credentialled and working within the system will have assigned work under a supervisor, a place to sleep, and food and water. The safety officer, who is part of the command staff, assures that workers are not put in unsafe situations, as well as assuring that the workers are getting enough rest. Those issues are not addressed if a person self-deploys outside the Incident Command System.

Recently, after nearly 20 years, our workers were trained or retrained on ICS 100 and 200. We have several workers that have retired and several new workers that have not been trained. One thing that is for certain, there is a time down the road when we will face another disaster. Whether here in Alabama or in some other state, our people will be able to plug and play within the ICS. We continue to do our best to be prepared to respond to whatever disaster, event or incident may come our way.