PART I
INTRODUCTION
Within the State of Tennessee, and specifically at TEMA, the responsibility for
the development of the Tennessee Emergency Management Plan (TEMP) rests with
the Emergency Management Planning Branch. This
group is also responsible for developing planning guidance to assist local
jurisdictions with the development of local emergency management plans and
standard operating procedures. In those counties that receive Emergency
Management Assistance funds, the local emergency management director is
responsible for development of the local EMP. The Emergency Management Planning
Branch is responsible for developing EMPs for those
counties not receiving such funding to the extent that the local organization is
unable to do so, and will also lead a team that can coordinate the local
planning process to assist a local director if desired. Any state or
local government or quasi-governmental agency may receive assistance from the
Emergency Management Planning Branch in the development of such material.
Additionally, the entire TEMA organization is available to assist local
communities with any emergency management-related problem(s) they might have.
WHY SHOULD WE
PLAN?
There are several reasons why local jurisdictions and their respective
components should develop emergency management plans. First, having such a plan
will (hopefully) allow the community to more rapidly recover from the effects
of disasters. This will occur by allowing
participating agencies to see how the other agencies and jurisdictions will
respond given the same set of circumstances. Knowledge of how these other
organizations work together will reduce the inevitable confusion that erupts
following the onset of any major emergency.
A second reason for developing EMPs is the legal
requirement that it be done.
Finally, although major disasters are generally low-probability events, the
chances are excellent that each and every county within this state will be
affected by some type of disaster in the near term. Every year, several counties
are impacted by various types of disasters to one degree or another. This is
particularly true concerning severe weather. All of the state's major disasters
have been generated by Mother Nature, and she is just as random as the lottery.
You can never know where the next tornado or flood will occur.
WHAT SHOULD WE PLAN FOR?
The basic answer to this question is that you should plan for those hazards
that you have identified as being the most significant threat to your
community. As was stated earlier, almost all hazards present situations that
are common across the spectrum of emergencies (i.e., fire protection, emergency
medical services, etc.). In some cases, specific hazards can pose unique sets
of problems that must be dealt with as well (such as contamination in hazardous
materials incidents). Your plan should include provisions for dealing with as
many potential problems as you can identify.
WHO SHOULD
PARTICIPATE IN THE PLANNING PROCESS?
Any agency who has any role in disaster response in
your community should be asked to participate in the development of an
emergency management plan. This includes the obvious first responders (fire,
police,
The Emergency Management Director is responsible for coordinating the
development of an emergency management plan. It is his/her responsibility to
gather together those agencies who have a role in disaster response to begin
the work on the plan at the earliest opportunity. There are generally two ways
in which plan development can proceed.
First, a group of people representing those agencies tasked in a particular
annex (section) of the plan can be brought together and allowed to jointly
develop the actual written annex. The primary benefit of this method is that
each agency feels like it has had direct input into the planning process and
therefore tends to feel more comfortable with the end result. A major negative
point, however, is that all potential disaster-generated consequences may not
be addressed adequately. It may also be difficult to arrange for a time
to meet that is convenient to all who must be involved in such a procedure.
A second alternative involves the writing of an annex by the director or a
planner with an attendant review of the annex by representatives of those
agencies tasked within the annex. This has the benefit of allowing the director
to insure that all potential problems are addressed and, as long as the director
is open to and allows reasonable changes recommended by those tasked in the
annex, there is still the feeling on the various representatives' parts that
they had a hand in the development of their particular section(s) of the plan.
This method is particularly useful in communities that have limited personnel
available for planning from other agencies (or are served by volunteers). This
procedure requires that the director or planner be very familiar with the
capabilities and limitations of the agencies for which he/she is writing (which
perhaps he/she should be anyway).
Obviously, a combination of these two could be utilized to develop different
sections of the document as well. It is important that the jurisdictions' chief
elected officials (CEO) participate in the process to the maximum extent
possible, if only to have a working knowledge of what the plan entails and what
it is supposed to accomplish. If there is reluctance on the part of some
agencies to participate, consider asking the CEO to issue a "Planning
Directive," which requires those agencies with roles or responsibilities
in disaster response take part in the development of emergency management
plans.
You should not exclude those agencies in other cities/counties with which you
have frequent dealings as well as those agencies at the state level that you
deal with on a daily basis (there is a separate section on the tasking of state
agencies later in this document). Additionally, any organization with which you
have mutual aid agreements, including those in the private sector, should be
asked to participate in the development of your plan.
It is a widely held belief that the actual process of planning in and of itself
is more important and more productive than the written document that is generated
as a result of the process. In other words, by getting all of the players
together to decide how they collectively will respond to a potential hazard
allows them to see not only what their role is, but the roles, capabilities and
limitations of the agencies and organizations with which they will be expected
to interact as well.
In many cases, these agencies begin to work together and will form an alliance
that will dramatically improve the response to everyday emergencies in addition
to improving the community's ability to respond to major disasters.
DECIDING WHO DOES WHAT
In many cases, it is obvious who has the responsibility for a particular set of
actions. For instance, no one has to decide who is responsible for arresting
criminals--that function belongs solely to the police and/or sheriff's
department(s). There are situations where the decision to assign a particular
task to an agency is not clearly defined, however. The easiest solution to this
is to assign an action to an agency who daily routine
most closely fits the identified task. In other words, if you are trying to
decide who should be responsible for procuring fuel for county vehicles, to
whom do you turn. The Finance Director is responsible
for all procurement activities, but the County Public Works Department actually
goes out and picks up the fuel on a weekly basis and can access this supply on
at any time of the day. The decision as to which agency to assign this function
to must be made based on the local situation--it may be different in your
jurisdiction than it is in the next city or county over. These types of things
must be resolved in the planning process BEFORE the onset of a disaster.
There may be cases in which a state agency is responsible for a particular
function or set of functions that you have identified as critical during a
disaster. Generally speaking, it is acceptable to task a state agency in a
local plan if that state agency performs their assigned function on a routine
basis in your jurisdiction. For example, it would be acceptable to task the
Tennessee Highway Patrol to provide assistance with traffic control on the
interstate and state highways. You could not, however, task the Division
of State Parks with restoring one of your parks to operational status because
that is not one of their normal functions. The state does the same thing with
federal agencies to the extent the federal government allows. Please note that
local plans cannot task federal agencies to do anything (with an exception
specified in the Warning subfunction of ESF 2). If
you have any questions concerning a state agency's role in a local plan you can
contact the district office of the state agency or you can contact TEMA for
suggestions.
With respect to the Emergency Support Functions (ESFs),
each has one or more agencies tasked within it and its various subfunctional groups. You must therefore identify a single
agency to act as the lead agency for the ESF. This agency will be responsible
for coordinating the development of SOPs and other guidance associated with the
proper functioning of that group during emergencies. During emergencies this
agency should be responsible for acquiring and delegating the resources
necessary to meet the demands imposed by the situation. The lead agency should
be the one whose daily function is most closely allied with the major
function(s) associated with that particular ESF. Part III of this document
gives you some ideas on which agencies to assign lead and support
responsibilities to.
In some cases, there may be functions that are necessary, but for which there
are no obvious choices in terms of local agencies that have the capabilities of
handling such requirements. In that case, you will have to try to identify
someone (or agency) from the private sector or other non-governmental or
voluntary agency to handle the task(s). An example of this would be the
utilization of a local radio personality to act as the county's Public
Information Officer (PIO) during a disaster.
WHAT SHOULD
WE DO AFTER THE PLAN IS WRITTEN?
The most important thing you can do following the
development of a new plan is to test it. In most cases this involves
conducting an exercise to determine whether or not the concepts contained
within the document are sound and actually operable. One of the worst things
you can do is assume that since you have a written plan you and your community are prepared for a disaster. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency has an Exercise Officer whose primary
purpose is to assist local governments with the conduct and review of
exercises. Preplanned scenarios are available as is the ability to custom-write
scenarios to fit any given community. The exercise officer is available to
assist you in any way necessary to help you identify shortfalls in your plan
development.
Public education is another mechanism through which you can improve your
community's ability to respond to a disaster. There should be a specific
section of your plan dedicated to public education and this should include
educating the general public as what role they play in disaster response and
what is expected of them should they find themselves in the position of being a
victim in any given disaster. Education of the general
public as to how your community's disaster planning takes place and what the
capabilities and limitations of the local, state, and federal governments are
also serves to make your community better prepared to deal with the effects of
disasters and emergencies.
THE ESF CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS
During most smaller emergencies, each agency in
state/local government performs its specialized tasks according to the agency's
in-house SOPs. During a major emergency, however, there is an increased need
for the coordination of all activities relevant to the emergency response as
they relate to the event as a whole. This operation takes place at the EOC. The
Emergency Support Function (ESF) Group is composed of a lead agency and one or
more support agencies. The lead agency is responsible for the coordination of
the ESF group as a whole, with individual agencies
performing their emergency missions as they otherwise would, except that they
are being coordinated by the lead agency. Conflicts that arise during emergency
operations will be resolved by the Central Direction and Control Group.
Each agency is responsible for developing its own respective Standard Operating
Procedures (SOPs) for carrying out its assigned missions. The lead agency,
however, is also responsible for the following:
1.
Coordinating
the development of an ESF SOP that governs the functions of the various
organizations assigned to that ESF during activation.
2.
Conducting
planning sessions during non-emergency periods for the purpose of developing
policies, plans, and procedures for coordinating the response to a disaster
(with respect to that particular ESF).
3.
During
emergency activation, coordinating the flow of messages into and out of the ESF
group, providing direction and control for the ESF group, and coordinating the
activities of that ESF with the activities of other ESF groups.
4.
Compiling
documentation relative to the ESF group's
activities during the emergency.
This model of the ESF
group allows the utilization of many Incident Command System concepts in the
EOC during activation. An effective span of control is maintained by
consolidating all of the agencies with emergency responsibilities into groups
with an internal management structure, with the ESF Manager (Lead Agency
representative) being responsible to the Central Direction and Control Group at
the head table during EOC activation. At the state level, for the purpose of
further defining roles and responsibilities, each ESF group is also assigned to
a Branch as follows:
A.
Response
Branch
§
ESF
4 - Firefighting
§
ESF
8 - Emergency Medical Services (8.1)
§
ESF
9 - Search and Rescue
§
ESF
10 - Environmental Response
§
ESF
13 - Law Enforcement
B.
Human
Needs Branch
§
ESF
6 - Human Services
§
ESF
8 - Public Health & Crisis Intervention Support (8.2 & 8.3)
§
ESF
11 - Food
C.
Infrastructure
Support Branch
§
ESF
1 - Transportation
§
ESF
3 - Infrastructure
§
ESF
7 - Resource Management
§
ESF
12 - Energy
§
ESF
14 - Donations and Volunteers
D.
Communications
Branch
§
ESF
2 - Communications
E.
Intelligence
Branch
§
ESF
5 - Information & Planning
F.
Recovery
Branch
§
ESF
15 - Recovery
Each of these Branches
is consolidated in the EOC during activation to insure coordination among the
various organizations. Attachment 1 provides a graphic representation of the
EOC organization for emergencies.
Each Branch has an Intelligence Officer assigned to it whose primary function
will be the coordination of intelligence information between that Branch and
the ESF 5 workgroup. This information flow goes both ways during emergency
operations. This is to insure that the ESF 5 workgroup is able to maintain an
accurate assessment of the disaster situation and is able to develop
short-range and long-range planning guidance for use by the Central Direction
and Control group and potentially affected ESFs.
ESF STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES
Each ESF Group is required to develop a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for
use during ESF activation. The primary responsibility for the development of
this document lies with the lead agency in the individual ESFs.
The SOPs should, at a minimum, include:
A.
Procedures
for notification of ESF agencies/organizations,
B.
Mechanisms
for communications between and among the various ESF components
C.
Procedures
for establishing ESF group(s) at the EOC, alternate EOCs,
and other worksites,
D.
Identification
of emergency capabilities of agencies tasked in the ESF,
E.
Descriptions
of the relationships of the lead and support agencies assigned to the ESF,
F.
Procedures
for carrying out tasks and responsibilities assigned to the group,
including:
1.
Logistics
and resource requirements
2.
Communications
requirements,
3.
Requirements
for the development of specific agency implementing procedures (or agency
SOPs),
4.
Procedures
for coordinating ESF group functions/tasks with other ESFs,
5.
Procedures
for tasking non-resident ESCs located in the EOC or
other location with assignments related to the working group,
6.
The
collection and dissemination of intelligence information to ESF 5 and other ESFs with a need for such information,
7.
Procedures
and policies for acquiring needed facilities, vehicles, and other resource
support from ESF 7.
G.
Procedures
for relocating the ESF workgroup (or components thereof) to a DFO, alternate EOC, or other location as might be dictated by the EMA
Director.
H.
Procedures
for the coordination of planning sessions and guidelines concerning the
development of the SOP and various implementing procedures.
Each individual agency
is responsible for developing specific SOPs and implementing procedures for use
in deploying that agency's assets and resources in times of emergency. Each
agency shall maintain control of its own personnel and assets during emergency
operations. Further guidance concerning agency SOPs may be found in the Basic
Plan. The Emergency Management Planning Concept described here is graphically
depicted at the end of this section.