Situational Awareness for Water Agencies: A Conversation With Officer Phil Ball
Officer Ball teaching water district employees in Qincy, Washington.
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s the lead instructor at the Situational Awareness Institute, Officer Phil Ball educates and trains professionals in government agencies and businesses on security and emergency preparedness. A former SWAT officer and a certified police officer in four states, Ball has over 25 years of law enforcement experience. Officer Ball’s seminars are designed to identify organizations’ and businesses’ vulnerabilities and provide specific advice on how to eliminate them to deter potential attackers from without and within. The businesses and agencies that Officer Ball has worked with include irrigation districts and municipal water districts. In this interview with Municipal Water Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly, Officer Ball discusses how water agencies need to think about and prepare for security situations. Kris Polly: What should water agencies be mindful of when thinking of the security of their facilities?
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MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PHIL BALL.
Phil Ball: Generally, you will be dealing with two human factors: the people inside your site and the people visiting your site. Just as in a school, you want to have a single point of entry; buildings with multiple points of entry are very hard to defend and control. Having a single point of entry allows you to control the flow of people. Active shooters, for instance, generally plan to gain access to a large group of people. Preventing them from doing this frequently deters them. It is also a good idea to screen the people coming into the building. If there is a problem, the receptionist should
be able to press one button and use the intercom system to notify those in the building. That allows people to lock the doors, turn off the lights, and silence their phones. A lot of lawenforcement and government agencies have a difficult time screening potential employees. They Officer Phil Ball, lead instructor at the are tempted Situational Awareness Insitutute. to lower their standards in order to fill empty positions. But inviting a bad employee into your operation could end up being a negative thing for the rest of your employees and your operation as a whole. Once you have a problem employee, you have to document his or her problems, especially anger-management issues, and deal with potential lawsuits. The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. There needs to be strict limitations on what you permit. The shooter who killed several people at the Navy Yard
