EMERGENCY PLANNING AND EXERCISE
Beverley Osborne
Are You Ready??
It would never happen to us ……
• 11th March 2011– At 2:46pm a 9.0 magnitude earthquake takes place 231 miles northeast of Tokyo,
Japan at a depth of 15.2 miles– The earthquake causes a tsunami with 30ft waves that damage several nuclear
reactors in the area
• 12th March 2011– Overnight, a 6.2 magnitude aftershock hits the Nagano and Niigata prefecture
(USGS). Another aftershock hits the west coast of Honshu - 6.3 magnitude.– At 5:00am, a nuclear emergency is declared at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant. Officials report the earthquake and tsunami have cut off the plant's electrical power, and that backup generators have been disabled by the tsunami.
– At least six million homes - 10 percent of Japan's households - are without electricity, and a million are without water.
• 14th March 2011– Rolling blackouts begin in parts of Tokyo and eight prefectures. Downtown Tokyo is
not included. Up to 45 million people will be affected in the rolling outages, which are scheduled to last until April.
• 6th April 2011– Honda halved production at its Swindon car manufacturing plant due to a shortage
of components. 3,000 workers in Swindon work a 2 day week, and full production does not resume until 1st September 2011.
Emergency Planning
Emergency Planning
Catastrophic
5
Pandemic
Influenza
Significant
4
Coastal
Flooding
Effusive
volcanic
eruption
Moderate
3
Major
transport
accidents
Major
industrial
accidents
Other
infectious
diseases
Inland flooding
Severe space
weather
Low
temperatures
and heavy
snow
Heatwaves
Minor
2
Animal
diseases
Drought
Public disorder
Explosive
volcanic
eruption
Storms and
gales
Insignificant
1
Severe
wildfires
Disruptive
industrial
action
Between 1 in
20,000 and 1 in
2,000
Between 1 in
2,000 and 1 in
200
Between 1 in
200 and 1 in 20
Between 1 in
20 and 1 in 2
Greater than 1
in 2
Relative likelihood of risk occurring in the next 5 years (excluding terrorism)
Emergency Planning
Five conditions for Guidance and Plans to fail:
1. If people don’t know about it, they can’t read it
2. If people don’t read it, they can’t follow it
3. If people can’t understand it, they can’t follow it
4. If people can’t remember it, they can’t follow it *
5. If people don’t like it, they might just ignore it* This one applies to recall under pressure and time criticality
Emergency Planning
Exercises – What Should You Expect?
• An exercise is a simulation of an emergency situation.
• Exercises have 3 main purposes:
– To validate plans (validation)
– To develop staff competencies and give them practice in carrying out their roles in the plans (training)
– To test well-established procedures (testing)
• Exercising is not to catch people out – it tests procedures, not people. An exercise should make people feel more comfortable in their roles and build morale.
• There are 3 main types of exercises:
– Discussion Based
– Table top
– Live
Emergency Planning
“Every time history repeats itself the price goes up”
[1966] The Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan (The AberfanDisaster Tribunal of Inquiry)
[1988] Senior management were too easily satisfied that the PTW system was being operated correctly, relying on the absence of any problems as indicating that all was well … (Piper Alpha Inquiry)
[2000] Despite the existence of relatively clear rules, the Southall accident revealed widespread failures of compliance with fault reporting procedures. (Southall Rail Accident Report)
[2003] The foam did it … the institution allowed it (Columbia Accident Investigation Board)
[2006] The Nimrod Safety Case process was fatally undermined by a general malaise: a widespread assumption by those involved that the Nimrod was ‘safe anyway’ (because it had successfully flown for 30 years) and the task of drawing up the Safety Case became essentially a paperwork and ‘tick- box’ exercise (Haddon-Cave Report into loss of Nimrod XV230)
“Every time history repeats itself the price goes up”
[1966] The Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan (The Aberfan Disaster Tribunal of Inquiry)
[1988] Senior management were too easily satisfied that the PTW system was being operated correctly, relying on the absence of any problems as indicating that all was well … (Piper Alpha Inquiry)
[2000] Despite the existence of relatively clear rules, the Southall accident revealed widespread failures of compliance with fault reporting procedures. (Southall Rail Accident Report)
[2003] The foam did it … the institution allowed it (Columbia Accident Investigation Board)
[2006] The Nimrod Safety Case process was fatally undermined by a general malaise: a widespread assumption by those involved that the Nimrod was ‘safe anyway’ (because it had successfully flown for 30 years) and the task of drawing up the Safety Case became essentially a paperwork and ‘tick- box’ exercise (Haddon-Cave Report into loss of Nimrod XV230)
Organisational Resilience
Organisational Resilience is the capability of an organisation to anticipate, prepare for, and respond and adapt to:
• Minor everyday events;• Acute or sudden shocks; and• Chronic or incremental changes
British Standard BS 65000:2014
Additional Benefits of Organisational Resilience
• Competitiveness
• Coherence
• Efficiency and Effectiveness
• Reputation
• Societal/Community Resilience
Baseline Attributes of a Resilient Organisation
• Governance and Accountability
• Leadership and Culture
• Common Vision and Purpose
Developing Organisational Resilience
Leadership
Governance & Accountability
Culture
Common Vision & Purpose
Be Informed
Set Direction
Bring Coherence
Develop adaptive capacity
Strengthen the
Organisation
Validate and review
Are You Ready?
• Ask yourself:
–Do we test/flex our strategic plans against future scenarios?
–Do we audit, exercise and test our resilience capabilities?
–Does our top management team know exactly the procedures to follow in a crisis and what else happens across the organisation? Do we rehearse this?
–Have we independently validated our performance within the last 3 years?