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Controlling Disaster 05 July 2007 #98
Controlling Disaster
By Dr Dave McIntyre, Director, Integrative Center for Homeland Security, 05 July 2007
After years of trial and error, the Incident Command System, or ICS, has been adopted as the national standard for how first responders organize themselves in an emergency. But this system failed in Katrina, and there are some disturbing indicators that it might not produce a much better result today. Now a new report suggests why, and what we should do about it. I will tell you more if you will give me Just a Minute for Homeland Security.
I’m Dave McIntyre, Director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M.
Professor Donald Moynihan of the University of Wisconsin examined how leaders exercised control during four major American disasters: wildfires in the West; the bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City; the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11; and Hurricane Katrina. [1] His conclusions, published with the support of IBM, call for some important changes to the Incident Command System, before the next disaster.
During the huge California wildfires of 1970, officials discovered that there was no standard organization for local responders, so there was confusion over the simplest things – like who was in charge and where to get supplies. The Incident Command System insures that firefighters from New York, police from Portland and doctors from Houston can arrive anywhere in the nation and know what organization to expect. The Department of Homeland Security now requires every jurisdiction to teach and use this system to receive grant money.
But during Katrina, confusion reigned, and in the storm of blame that followed, few asked why. Moynihan’s study suggests that there are limits to organization alone as a solution. When a disaster is too big, the destruction of local facilities too extensive, the situation too unclear, when change is happening too fast and new players are arriving too quickly – especially volunteers and businesses that have never worked together before – then no mere organizational scheme is equal to the task. The key factor, it turns out, is trust. Both leaders and workers may be seized by inaction if they do not trust the information they have, the orders they received, and the hierarchy that issues them. And organization alone does not generate trust.
So what does generate enough trust to spur people to action in the face of danger and uncertainty? Well, there is no single answer. But information, practice and friends are all very important. And these come only from planning and exercising well before a crises.
So “organizing resources” is not enough, Moynihan reports. You must focus on preparing people – on how think, feel and act, if you want control in a disaster. Some would call this missing factor leadership.
This is Dave McIntyre, Director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M, inviting you to join us again next week for Just a Minute, for Homeland Security.
[1] Donald Moynihan, “From Forest Fires to Hurricane Katrina: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems,” IBM Center for the Business of Government, 2007. http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/MoynihanKatrina.pdf