All Hazards Planning Edward P. Richards Director, Program in Law, Science, and Public Health Harvey A.
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Transcript All Hazards Planning Edward P. Richards Director, Program in Law, Science, and Public Health Harvey A.
All Hazards Planning
Edward P. Richards
Director, Program in Law, Science, and Public Health
Harvey A. Peltier Professor of Law
LSU Law Center
[email protected]
http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cphl/Talks.htm
Topics
What is an All Hazards plan?
What are the elements of an All Hazards
plan?
Why is All Hazards planning necessary?
Examples
Preparing for bird flu
Evacuation of New Orleans for Katrina
Episode-based Plans
Plans to Plan
Episode-based plans
Bird flu plans
Anthrax plans
Bomb plans
Plans to plan
What you need to think about, not what you
need to do
No operational detail
What is an All Hazards Plan?
A unified plan that, as much as possible,
uses common strategies for emergency
response
Emergency response is built on day-to-day
procedures and resources
All Hazards plans are operational plans
They tell you what to do, not just what to plan
The public is fully informed and an integral
part of the emergency response
Elements of an All Hazards Plan
Analysis of common factors in the different
types of emergencies
Relation of these common factors to
routine procedures
Modification of existing procedures to
incorporate elements that will be needed
in emergencies
Public information and education
Example
Transforming a Bird Flu
Plan into an All Hazards
Plan
Episode Planning: Bird Flu
Plans for emergency quarantine
Plans for ethical guidelines on vaccine
allocation
Plans for stockpiles of PPE
Plans to work with public health, including
an MOU that says we will play nicely
Plans for how to plan to handle the SNS
Maybe some training on how to put on a
mask
All Hazard Planning: Bird Flu
What are core problems?
Protecting staff from infection
Assuring adequate staff for operations
What are related issues?
Yearly flu pandemic
Exposure to tuberculosis and other
communicable diseases in the workplace
All Hazards Recommendations:
Vaccinations
Assure vaccination status of employees
Mumps, measles, etc, which can disable a
force
Yearly flu
Benefits
Reduction in lost time from work
Readiness if there is an outbreak
Resolves individual and union opposition to
vaccination before there is an emergency
All Hazards Recommendations:
Working Sick
US culture and especially law enforcement
encourages people to work sick
Limits on sick days
Rules that you cannot be on special teams
Increases the spread of diseases such as the
flu in the workplace
Set up criteria for exclusion of contagious
workers
Change work rules to eliminate
punishment for being excluded so
employees will not hide illness
All Hazards Recommendations:
Personal Protection
Key personal protection
hand washing
behavior limitations - handshaking, etc.
goggles, masks
Recommendations
Train and equip all officers
Use these for regular flu and other possible
disease exposures
Make behavioral modifications so these
become routine
All Hazards Recommendations:
Public Information
There maybe a need to limit travel or impose
home quarantine
The public should be educated about all aspects
of these possible limitations
What is their role?
Why is it important?
How will essential services be provided?
How will you assure families will not be separated?
This will identify problematic areas and reduce
confusion in an emergency
All Hazards Planning:
Generalization
Staffing in emergencies
Any emergency that threatens the general
public will threaten the employees families
You have to provide for the families if you
want staff to show up
Develop a general plan for family issues
Evaluation:
Episode Based Planning
Episode based plans are invisible until
there is an emergency
These are very low probability events
The only testing is by artificial exercises
Quality control theory (Demings, etc.)
You can only achieve quality through iterative
improvement based on data analysis and
feedback
This is impossible with an episode based plan
Evaluation:
All Hazards Planning
All Hazards planning does fit the criteria
for proper quality control
Elements of the plan are in operation at all
times
This provides intermediate data, i.e., things to
measure short of a disaster happening
Improves routine operations
There is almost no data on communicable
diseases in the law enforcement workplace
Assumptions Behind All Hazards
Planning
Equipment and materiel that is not
routinely exercised will not be maintained
and will not function when needed
Emergencies are the worst time to change
procedures
Public cooperation depends on pre-event
education and buy-in
Political Reality
The public (legislatures) have a short
attention span and will not support
emergency response once they move on
to the next crisis de jure
Reality Check:
23 states, including most of the most
populous, have done away with mandatory
childhood vaccinations
We are in the middle of a mumps epidemic in
the Midwest - are your employees
vaccinated?
Lessons from Katrina
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Why the Evacuation Failed
Transportation Issues
Surface Causes
Evacuation not triggered until too late
No provision for moving folks without
transportation
When transport was available - school
busses - there was no provision for drivers
No provisions for jails and hospitals
No provision for secondary evacuation
form the Superdome and other facilities
Transportation Issues:
Surface Solutions
Better plans
More modes of transportation
Earlier evacuations
"Manditory" evacuations
All sound, but all miss the point
Transportation Issues:
Root Causes
New Orleans has flooded frequently
Most of the land that flooded is reclaimed
bay and swamp that is up to 20 feet below
sea level, not historic New Orleans
People lived next to levees with water 5
feet over street level every day
Flood insurance was not required because
it was assumed that the levees could not
break
The Implications of a Real
Evacuation
The only reason to really evacuate is if the
levees fail, which was ruled out
The Superdome and shelters of last resort
Delaying the call for evacuation
Why?
40 years of false alarms
Admitting the levees could fail would destroy
the real estate values in New Orleans
Routine serious evacuations destroy business
The Real Lessons from Katrina
Plans based on politically unacceptable
actions will not be carried out
Long term prevention loses out to short
term economic and political considerations
Do not build in dangerous areas
Require realistic risk analysis for insurance
Do not downplay risks that cannot be
managed
How Would All Hazards Planning
Have Changed the Outcome?
Focus would have been on the risks of living
below sea level, not just on the evacuation
Planning would have explicitly included levee
failure
Flood insurance
Business interruption insurance
Meeting appropriate life-safety codes for hospitals
Personal evacuation planning
Addressing these would have changed the
political dynamic, allowing a proper evacuation