| Donald Root |
Expanding Your Horizons:
When The Creek Becomes A Raging River
| Training Tactics is a guest column about public safety dispatch training issues. |
| Donald Root has been in Emergency Management communications since 1971, serving as a Communications Coordinator with the Governor's Office of Emergency Services since 1984. He is a Director of the Northern California chapter of APCO and a former President of the Southern California Chapter. Since 1992 he has been an appointee to the FCC's Emergency Alert System National Advisory Committee, and is on the Editorial Board of 9-1-1 Magazine. |
This article can be found on
page 60 of the Mar/Apr 1998
issue of 9-1-1 Magazine.
It's a fact of life today in the Emergency Management (EM) world that staffs are much smaller than they were during the 1960s. While a number of large cities and counties enjoy having moderately sized EM staffs, most jurisdictions have an EM staff consisting of one professional and a part- or full-time clerical support person. Frequently, the professional's EM duties are assigned as part of another job in the jurisdiction (i.e., Deputy City Manager; Assistant Fire Marshal; Patrol Lieutenant; Communications Director). And with the changes in staffing patterns over the years, many times the "institutional knowledge" has disappeared from both the EM agency and the Comm Center.
In almost every case however, when it comes to staffing and operating an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on a 24-hour basis, your Emergency Manager needs assistance. The pro-active Communications organization will work with the EM staff to identify needs in the EOC, and fill them.
First, meet with your EM staff and review what their expectations of your Comm Center are. Are they looking to you to fill some need you don't know about? Do they expect you to staff the radios in the EOC? (What radios in the EOC?! Is your staff familiar with them?) Do they expect you to have the equipment in place and be able to voice Emergency Alert System warning messages to your broadcasters? Do you have radio circuits with other jurisdictions around you (and/or the next level of government up) and do they expect you to use to pass messages on then when the phones are out? Did your center have that radio circuit sitting there unused for years, so you took it out during the last re-build? It's much easier to identify these needs, correct them (as required), and train on how to provide the services now, before the disaster hits.
Next, "think outside of the box." More and more EOCs today use the Incident Command System (ICS) model in their layout and staffing patterns. Remember that ICS staffing is based on an individual's skills, not their day-to-day position or rank. So sit down with your Emergency Manager, and look at your Center's staff for the skills used on a daily basis. Then go back and look again for those skills your individual staff members use outside the center, or have used on a prior job. Consider the following:
In many jurisdictions, the Comm Center and the EOC are adjacent or co-located. In most instances, the need to activate the EOC will take place outside `normal' working hours. The on-duty Comm Center staff can assist in start-up activities.
Many Comm Centers have their staff act as Public Information Officers. All Comm. Centers have staff answering public calls for service and inquiries. Look at supporting the EOC PIO section, and/or a "Rumor Control" desk if your EOC has one.
Your staff keeps track of your field units as a part of the daily grind. Staff the Plans Section, Resource Unit.
Your staff keeps track of the situation at a number of locations simultaneously. Staff the Plans Section, Situation Unit.
Your staff finds items needed at all hours of the day and night. Staff in the Logistics Section, Supply Unit.
Assistance to your Emergency Manager is not limited to the EOC, either. Most EM agencies get requests for speakers to make presentations to community groups, schools, etc. Many Communications Centers have an outreach program for dealing with 9-1-1 education to the same audience. Develop the win-win scenario: your staff will expand their public presentation horizons to assist your Emergency Manager, and the EM staff will help deliver your 9-1-1 message.
Of course, many of you are now saying "yeah, right. Me and what extra staff? Our center barely covers the dispatch shifts, much less have spare people to put staff into the EOC." Frankly, this is a valid point of concern. At the same time, most jurisdictions do not have the luxury of being able to sustain 24-hour EOC operations using 3 shifts on an 8-hour basis, so they operate with 2 shifts of 12-hours. (Overtime funding becomes much easier during disaster operations, also).
How does your center handle disaster operations? Are your shift times tied at all to the shift times in the EOC, or does your center operate in it's own little world? Can you staff those previously-unknown radios in the EOC? Can your center support even 1 person in the EOC each shift? Can your Center take on the Rumor Control or Public Information function, and ease the burden in the EOC? Do you have staff that may be on "limited duty" from a dispatch standpoint that is able to handle `non-conventional' tasks in the EOC? Any of these tasks will require training in advance.
Working and training with your EM agency will provide many things for both of you, including:
A better understanding of your jurisdiction's EM organization, their duties, and the role of your Comm Center in their eyes.
A cohesive EM organization through better working relationships between all of the participating stakeholders.
Advance knowledge of the Comm Center's role in the overall EM organization leads to smother operations during times of disaster.
