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Unified Command on the NH/VT Border

2017-02-05T21:39:00.001-05:00

Spent this weekend teaching the National Fire Academy course “Introduction to Unified Command for All-Hazard Incidents” for the Cold River Area Chief's Association on the NH/VT border. A long two hour drive from Nashua each way but was certainly worth it and appreciated by the class participants.

Volunteer fire officers for communities with populations as small as 800 learned about the benefits of unified command, the value of bringing other agencies to the command post, and some of the tools ICS offers them for gaining control of a large incident. I really enjoy sharing lessons we've learned from the City and teaching them about the wealth of resources they have available from the state and how to access them.

We capped it off by playing the FBI video “The Coming Storm” which highlights the importance of unified command for a non fire centric incident and some of the resources that the FBI could bring to the situation.

The area had experienced a number of large incidents over the past decade including significant impacts from statewide ice storms, the Alstead flood of 2005 and most recently a large wildfire in Stoddard. I think we don't do enough in this profession to share lessons learned and I for one appreciated the opportunity to learn about their incidents and how they leverage the resources from their communities when they are cut off from the rest of society.

I always close it out by giving them my cell number and telling them not to call me in the middle of the night unless it's an emergency. There's no reason to deal with that once in a lifetime incident on your own.

What the hell is command or coordination anyway?

2013-07-11T00:21:00.000-04:00

Thoughts on the article: Command Vs. Coordination--In the EOC on Emergency Management Magazine

After how many disasters this country has seen, we still haven't agreed upon how to manage incidents? Command and coordination...what do they mean?

Command: "The act of directing, ordering, or controlling by virtue of explicit statutory, regulatory, or delegated authority."

Coordination: "A process that allows all levels of government and all disciplines to work together more efficiently and effectively."

Of course, somebody a lot smarter than me (or better paid than me) came up with these definitions, and occasionally you'll see them side by side in a class like "ICS/EOC Interface" or "ICS for Senior Officials". After the slide moves on, everybody scratches their head and doesn't understand the difference, or isn't paying attention because they are doodling or sleeping...you know like most classes.

If you actually spend more than five seconds thinking about both terms, you might realize that neither one really matters when it comes to incident management. People get their brains so wrapped around making sure that certain people are commanding and certain facilities are coordinating, with no real reason as to why. I remember asking a Fire Chief a few months ago during a discussion on this topic, what he thought the difference between Command & Coordination was. "Command is assertive and more "I'm in charge" and coordination is more like "kumbaya"...". Yea he had a tough time explaining what the terms meant, but he did an excellent job at explaining what people thought of the terms. Command is for the folks with bugles and stars on their collars, coordination is for the "office types". Close enough.

Here are a couple of observations around this topic which I've noticed in my brief stint in the emergency management profession:

While you can expect that a majority of work that would be done by the leader(s) at an "incident" would be "command" oriented, they are also likely "coordinating" in some fashion. Think about a large structure fire. The Incident Commander is likely coordinating with a Dispatch Center, or other agencies that don't directly work for them on a daily basis (police, utilities, canteen). The fact is that the Incident Command is in charge, has the overall authority and responsibility of a designated incident area (not managing incidents from across the other side of town) but is still "coordinating" with a lot of people. In Nashua we describe it for simplicity's sake as Incident scenes are 75% Command and 25% Coordination, where as the EOC is 75% Coordination and 25% Command. When you explain it like that, leaders start to realize that their responsibility is to determine who they are directing in a command role and who they are working with in a coordination role with the overall goal that they are sharing information and communicating with both.
We opened up our EOC for a major snowstorm this past year, and I spent a few minutes during a slow period mapping out the organizational structure at that specific time. We were managing the overall operation for our jurisdiction out of the EOC as an Area Command. A car accident on the highway was being managed by the Fire Shift Supervisor who had established Incident Command. A shelter was open at the local high school, being directed by a Shelter Manager that had established Incident Command. The person responsible for the Public Works was directing the plow operation from the EOC (that place that is supposed to be "coordinating"). And right next to him were folks from Fire and Police, that were serving in a coordination role by acting as a conduit to the various incident scenes that were popping up and being placed under control throughout the night. The State also had plow drivers out, in some cases driving through Nashua's jurisdiction on State highways, though not under our authority. The State Emergency Management was also providing assistance needed to locals that requested resources. And so on...
If one of the Nashua plow drivers decided they were going to plow their driveway instead of their assigned route, they were probably going to end up explaining themselves in the Superintendent's Office the next day. They weren't just driving around aimlessly because there wasn't a "Snow Command Post" set up. Those resources and staff were being managed under the authority of the Nashua Area Command. There was a level of directing, ordering, and controlling, in our EOC...when it made sense to do so! There are some "functions" which are better managed at an incident level, and there are some which are better managed at a jurisdiction level. That doesn't mean you have to dedicate it to one or the other. Make it clear as the operation scales up, which emergency functions are being managed at an incident level, and which are being managed at the jurisdictional level.
Recently with the introduction of the Core Capabilities, you might recognize that two of the Target Capabilities were merged into one: EOC Management & On Site Incident Management merged into "Operational Coordination". I'm only speculating, but I would guess that when the folks inside "The Beltway" were mulling over this new list of core items that jurisdictions should be able to perform during an incident, they lacked enough real substance to keep them separate. The key skill is being able to competently manage an emergency...not figure out whether you are commanding or coordinating it. Even with the most recent update to the National Response Framework, you'll see that ESF 5 has been changed from "Emergency Management" to "Planning", and ESF 7 has been changed from "Resource Support" to "Logistics". We're moving in the right direction, utilizing common terminology for those critical functions necessary in ICS. Now why don't we manage all levels of our emergency response with the benefit of those useful fundamentals of ICS and NIMS, modular components, unity of command, span of control, plain language, etc?
If we're only supposed to use Incident Command System out in the field and not anywhere else, stop making everyone take the days worth of ICS classes. I think its funny that we have such a hard time getting executive level fire, police, and EMS to go through the motions to get certified up to ICS-400, when they are the ones that are apparently going to be drawing up the organizational chart. And how many incidents out in the field do they have the whole damn structure built out with Finance/Admin Section Chief, Air Support Branch Director, and a Food Unit and all of the fixin's? Yea, likely never. You're more likely to find those types of functions in the EOC...you know where it makes more sense to manage them from the jurisdictional level in a facility with desks and internet access instead of out of the back of the "Fire SUV".
If you need any other way to visualize the difference between an Incident Command Post and an Emergency Operations Center, think of it this way. A Construction company has a large headquarters where they have offices and manage all of their business functions. At any one time, they typically have multiple customers, and with that multiple job sites. At each job site, they have a small construction trailer to handle the basic management of the area within the construction fence. The headquarters is our EOC, and each job site is a Command Post. When you think about it in that format, it's a bit more difficult to argue against both sites having command & coordination responsibilities.
And yes, the fact of the matter is, someone (with a clue) needs to be in charge. When I mention "with a clue", I'm referring to the fact that saying the lead political official can fill that role is not acceptable. You need a person (or small group of people in a unified format) who are experienced with the incident management structure at the jurisdictional level, and can develop the overall objectives and tactics from the "big picture" view.
At a fire ground, if someone didn't take command not only are you increasing the likelihood that you're going to kill someone, you're not going to have an idea whether you killed someone or not. The same concept is true when you're managing a disaster from the county or state level. But instead of being worried about killing a firefighter, you're more worried about killing a neighborhood or a town instead. When there's nobody in charge, the chances of things falling through the cracks increases. The chances of freelancing increases. Duplication of ordered resources and lack of situational awareness run wild. I don't want to sound like we're all going down the drain, but the examples are out there. Read the after action reports and you'll find that more times than not, someone was asleep at the wheel, or even worse, the incident was on auto-pilot. Even in a coordination setting...SOMEONE STILL NEEDS TO MAKE SURE THAT THE PEOPLE ARE COORDINATING!

We've recognized in Nashua that this disconnect in organizational structures is no way to manage an incident. Like most of us do in the emergency management profession, we steal good ideas from other jurisdictions who have learned from previous incidents. Seeing a growing number that have adopted the Incident Command System at both the incident level and at the jurisdictional level for their EOC, we have constructed our emergency plan to fit this structure. For more info on our project, you can see a presentation I gave on it from last years Emergency Preparedness Conference here.

But just the little City of Nashua adopting this format isn't going to solve the problem nationwide. In my opinion, we really rolled out ICS wrong after 9/11. Taking the tried and true system from the wildfire service without looking at it from the perspective of every discipline has left it open for everyone to interpret it how they like. Perhaps we should have lessened the "command" aspect of it by promoting it as the "Incident Management System" or "Incident Operations System"? Or maybe a cue from the military and name it IC³S? It all comes down to this: no matter what system you're operating in, you're going to both be commanding resources based on objectives, and coordinating with various organizations. To say that we should always be in "command" or "coordination" mode or that our emergency facilities should cater to one or the other is just plain stupid.

Hopefully I'm around for the next groundbreaking advancement in how we should organize ourselves during crisis. Maybe we'll just give up and wing it. Wait, most people already do.

Skill #4: Being Responsible With What You Have, Resourceful With What You Don't

2012-10-14T10:50:00.002-04:00

It's no surprise to any emergency manager (or in this day and age...anyone in government) that we're facing more and more challenges in funding our programs. Local support for funding gets cut back every year while the grant programs many of us rely on are drying up at the Federal level. Even though I was only 18 at the time, I remember the post 9/11 Homeland Security Grant bubble, and all of the "stuff" we got to buy. And now we're trying to find ways to replace or maintain that "stuff" a decade later...

What are we to do? We've promoted ourselves to the ones we serve that we're able to provide some level of service without having to rely on calling for assistance from others. "That Hazmat Team we formed in 2006 shaved nearly a half hour off response times instead of having to wait for the State team". Now that you can't find the money to replace the expired Level A suits, what are you going to tell citizens? That it was fun while it lasted?

And we can blame ourselves (and the bureaucracy we create) for this problem we encounter every so often. There's 8 Billion dollars of backlogged grant money right now in the system that hasn't been spent. Some is sitting because the money wasn't allocated for a pressing issue and in turn the municipality or State is taking their time to finalize the purchase. But in some cases, grant funded projects are being held up with historical and environmental evaluations along other red tape processes.

While we know that government is sometimes slow at completing projects, we have a duty to ensure checks and balances are in place to validate proper research, design, and implementation. We want to make sure we build that highway with 4 lanes instead of 3 if the traffic projections require it. But Public Safety is tough. If we don't have the capability now and we have been "safe", why do we need it tomorrow? It takes a major incident to open peoples eyes, and only then are they more than willing to appropriate funding to obtain that capability NOW.

But when jurisdictions cried in FY08 that they absolutely had to buy a marine rescue unit to ensure they met Target Capability 3, 7, 15, and 21...along with State Homeland Security priorities 2, 4, and 5, it was probably assumed that they needed it as soon as possible. We're vulnerable, we're at risk without it!

And now years later, they are actually buying the boat, and putting it into service. Don't you think that might be why citizens and politicians are questioning the reason for exuberant homeland security purchases. If you can wait years to actually purchase something approved years ago, why do we need it at all?

How are you ever going to be able to complete the next Local Hazard Mitigation Plan without the grant funded HazMit planner you hired 5 years ago. The grant dried up and you can't find money anywhere else. Last time I checked, FEMA doesn't accept the excuse "I'm just too busy!" when you apply for the HMGP with an outdated HazMit plan. You're just going to have to do it with the resources you have...

It hurts the emergency managers, fire chiefs, police chiefs, and other officials who over the past 10 years have placed a significant amount of effort in doing a cost benefit analysis for various capabilities in their jurisdiction, researching existing capabilities that they may utilize, and building regional capabilities that are much more cost effective in the long run. They are the ones who are losing out on the future opportunity to enhance their local capabilities using a well organized process.

This essential emergency manager skill is being able to stretch the money you have to run your EM program and being flexible with shared assets and partners to fill gaps. Even though we are struggling, there are ways to provide an acceptable level of service. A couple of ideas:

Consolidate - There's no need for every municipality in your state to run their own emergency management program. While duplication and redundancies in emergency management is sometimes a good thing, it isn't when it comes to trying to stretch grant dollars as far as possible. I observed a Shelter Exercise in Lynn, MA this weekend in which all of the equipment was purchased by a regional cooperative...the Northeast Homeland Security Regional Advisory Council (NERAC). Now instead of every town buying all of their own equipment, they've worked together to build a few shelter trailers which can be deployed to help establish regional shelters. Makes a lot of sense to me.
Only Buy Equipment To Fill Gaps - Rather than flipping through homeland security trade magazines like they are the Sears Christmas Wish Book, do a bit of research on gaps that your jurisdiction actually has. An easy way to complete this is to take a look at the last few After Action Reports or Improvement Plans and see what equipment really would have made a difference in something that went wrong. While we all want the coolest new toys, there are better and more basic pieces of equipment that can be utilized in any incident.
Long-Term Planning - In nearly every case, equipment that you buy now is either going to have to be replaced or retrofitted at some point. Nothing lasts forever. So now that you've bought a brand new Mobile Command Post, are you putting money away in your capital improvements fund to replace it in in a couple of decades? Or even better, look at updating the vehicle with new equipment mid-life, rather than buying something completely new.
Take Advantage Of Help - Staff time can't be easily replaced with equipment. If you lose a planner for your organization, you can't just buy a machine to draft up your emergency plans every year. And many feel that hiring consultants is an easy replacement for staff. While you can hire someone to write your plan, you can't hire someone to practice for you. It might be time to have some of your partner agencies take more of a responsibility in helping with the emergency management program. It shares the burden and also provides the opportunity for agencies to work together prior to disaster.
Free Stuff Is Good - FEMA provides a lot of good outreach materials through Ready.gov which are FREE to all jurisdictions. Now I've seen a lot of good custom brochures, but I've seen a lot that rehash exactly what you can get for free from FEMA. If the only reason you're printing something up is to have your logo on it, you might want to rethink your outreach program. Take advantage of plans, materials, and other support from emergency management organizations at the State and Federal level rather than recreating the wheel and spending lots of time and money.

This isn't the first time we've seen this cyclical process of funding the "hazard of the week". We saw tons of money thrown into public health preparedness after the scare of a pandemic. Money flowed during the Cold War to promote Civil Defense during a nuclear attack. Related to what Auf der Heide termed as the "Apathy Factor" of disasters, people only pay attention to the hazard shortly after it has affected them, and then support gradually fades as the memory of that disaster gets pushed into their back of their head. The same goes for the support of funding to our emergency management programs.

The ultimate solution to the problem is for governments at all levels to adequately fund comprehensive emergency management programs in a stable and expected measure without being based on elevated interest in a certain hazard or threat. Jurisdictions that are not relying on grants to fund over 90% of their program. That won't happen though. Knowing how to effectively use your funding is a critical emergency management skill as it will be the real emergency manager's responsibility to keep the program running during both periods of financial abundance and scarcity. Everyone else will just wait for the next catastrophic incident grant to put in a bulk order of water-purification-command-post-shelter-interoperability-detection-system gizmos.

Skill #3: Being an Emergency Manager When There's No Emergency

2012-10-04T19:23:00.000-04:00

Sometimes one of the more recognizable differences between a full time emergency management program and one that's a second job is the level of outreach to the community when there is no disaster. It's understandable that its one of the lower priorities on the list, as it can be time exhaustive and can be difficult to measure the return on investment. Today, I'm here to tell you that it's a required part of any emergency management program. If your emergency management program starts when the crap hits the fan, you may as well be any other responder.

It's ironic to say that as many of your typical emergency response agencies have significant outreach programs. Think or crime or fire prevention...a staple in even the smallest police and fire departments. So if everyone agrees that educating the public about fires and crime is important, why don't they educate the community on disasters?

While emergency management is still a relatively new field (though I don't consider it very new when you count the years Civil Defense existed), I'm still surprised how many people don't have any idea what it is. Or when you ask someone what FEMA stands for or actually does, the only thing they can think of is how bad Katrina went? Emergency Managers: You aren't doing a very good job of selling the program.

We just recently held the 1st Annual Family Emergency Preparedness Day at the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua for National Preparedness Month. I stole the idea from my old boss Bob George in Delaware who has held one for the past six or so years. After helping him coordinate a couple of them, and managing a couple of my own events I figured it was time to put on my own. I was actually surprised how easy it was to put the event on, even without much help.

The idea was to bring as many safety and preparedness displays to one location as possible, really driving the message to citizens that there are hazards to be aware of in the community. In addition to the standard police and fire displays, we brought in unique displays talking about flood insurance and poison control. Having a comprehensive list of exhibitors made the event a lot more interesting. I was also able to use the event to recruit CERT members for the City and promote the emergency management mission to residents. You would be surprised how many people young and old that have never thought about being prepared.

Using the mall had its benefits and problems. Obviously, holding an event on a Saturday in the middle of the mall was an easy way of ensuring you would have patrons. But with the mall comes strict rules on where exhibits can go and how they are set up. Overall it was very inexpensive with both the Mall and the city only spending about 600 dollars (most of which was used for preparedness related giveaways that we raffled off).

Not every jurisdiction has a large mall, and not everyone has the time to organize a large event. Everyone can start small and everyone can put effort into getting the message out about emergency preparedness. For those fire chiefs and police chiefs that are emergency managers, can't you integrate emergency preparedness training into your existing crime and fire prevention programs with little extra effort? If you're a volunteer emergency manager, you certainly understand the value of volunteer help in your program. Can't you have your volunteer CERT team or community group spread the message out about preparedness? And if you absolutely can't do it yourself, industry including your power and gas companies typically have initiatives to spread safety education to the community...what a great asset to utilize.

You aren't going to reach everyone by any means. But you can make a heck of an effort to get the word out, especially since it's pretty inexpensive to try it out. You don't need to budget for a plane flying a banner around with preparedness tips, just putting info on your jurisdictions website and attending the occasional community event and putting up a preparedness display will suffice to start getting the message out there.

I'm pretty passionate about this skill because it's one I recognized early on in my outreach work for the Delaware Citizen Corps. Many "emergency managers" were out there boasting about how comprehensive their programs were yet didn't do anything other than contract their emergency operations plan rewrites to beltway bandits and show up when the EOC needed to be activated. Now that I'm in Nashua, I'm responsible for a bit more than outreach, I'm a real emergency manager. I think I owe it to the profession to educate the public on what we do and how they can help.

If you don't take ranging away from this post, and still think that outreach is a waste of time, think about this. After seeing many people that came up to my display at the mall in wheelchairs, the ones who proclaimed they didn't have enough money for dinner, let alone a disaster kit, or the ones that came up to my display not speaking any English and just wanted to try and find the bathroom, I really got a true sense of the community I was responsible for. Those vulnerable populations that we talk about really are out there, and being out in the public really helps to enforce in my mind that I needed to plan for them before, during, and after disaster.

Skill #2: Staying Cool and Staying Neutral

2012-09-07T16:23:00.000-04:00

It's tough, but all emergency managers have to be able to be the steady, stable, and unwavering role in public safety. That's right kids, while Trooper Badass and The Angry Fireman are battling over strategies and tactics, it's absolutely critical that an emergency manager stays relaxed and doesn't step on any toes. The first time you take a side, expect being left out of critical emergency planning in the future. And if you blow up in argument, you're likely to be seen as someone who can't handle a crisis.

If you didn't know it already, everybody in public safety is an expert. In many cases after spending a couple of decades in a department to become fire or police chief, the idea of being wrong is not possible. And even better, many states, counties, and municipalities have passed a law stating that someone is right no matter what the situation (see "Chief's Laws") There's nothing else to learn right? Egos are certainly in the top 5 biggest hurdles to emergency planning and response.

The emergency manager must be the neutral factor. He or she must:

Support the idea that the agency most suitable based on the threat or hazard (and hopefully having jurisdiction for that threat or hazard) is in command of an incident.
Ensure that the right organizations having a stake in planning or the response to a hazard or threat are at the table.
Be sure that the priorities of life safety, incident stabilization, and conservation of property and the environment and taken care of before political battles.

And when people insist they don't want to work together, its important that the emergency manager not be the one to put their foot down. Emergency managers build relationships, not stress them. If no headway can be made on strengthening a collaborative environment, its best they step back. Provide insight to your supervisor (which may be an elected official) on the party or parties not willing to work together. Let them handle the backlash (if they aren't the cause of it themselves).

I thought this was an appropriate skill to mention today based on event planning during campaign visits to our city. If you didn't know it already, the political season is in full heat and both presidential candidates are making an effort to hit every possible location before November. The problem with these visits are they bring a lot of people together to create a target rich environment with about three days of advanced planning.

It's also one of those events where everybody wants to be in charge. Is it a local law enforcement function because of the traffic control and crowd gathering? Is is a Secret Service function because of the VIP protection component? Is it a local fire function because they're in charge no matter what based on state statute? If you haven't had the president visit your town, you're really missing out on an opportunity to re-live all of what we learned NOT to do post-9/11 with NIMS and ICS.

My recommendation was to get all of the players at the table, fire, police, EMS, Secret Service, transit, the venue, and go over concerns, potential issues, costs, and who is going to assume Command for the event. Preparing now avoids panic later. Everybody just wanted to do their own thing. I offered support and left it there. Better not being associated with the event, especially if all you know about it is what you've read in the paper.

There are many reasons people hold their ground on being in charge, strategies, tactics, bringing other groups to the table, or even the decision to plan or not plan for a hazard or threat. Some have been doing something a certain way for so long and don't want change. Some don't want additional responsibilities. Some don't want to be held liable for decisions made by others when they were the authority having jurisdiction. Some don't want the potential of another organization taking away responsibilities (and potential employees). Some just don't want to be bothered.

Regardless, it's not the place of the emergency manager to make that call. Provide as much guidance and support as possible without shoving it down their throats and step away. While I hate to make it sound like you turn the other way and pretend that everything is OK, it's critical to to stay neutral so that the relationship is strong when an agency does ask for support...or realizes that they were wrong.

I love sitting in training, when Student A will provide their opinion in front of the class, sometimes strongly on the way something ought to be. Student B then has a stern rebuttal, twice as loud, as they too are an expert. The volume raises and voices quiver typically, but nobody ever wins the trophy. The instructor always says "Great opinions, you can tell you guys are really engaged in the content". Ahh...everybody's right...or are they?

Who would want either of these people involved in their incidents response? They have clearly shown during non-crisis that they don't play well with others. Let the other experts be those students, while emergency managers sit back and soak up the viewpoints.

It becomes difficult for those emergency managers that have more than one hat, and that might be affiliated (or formerly affiliated) with fire, police, the military, or even political parties. After all, this is enforced in our first responders in their training academies and throughout their careers decades before they are in an crisis leadership position. "Police is better than Fire", "Engine 3 is better than Engine 7", and "No other branch compares to the Marines".

Emergency managers are no better than anyone else. People shouldn't think of them as the person always sticking their head in another agency's business, or always siding with one organization over another. The only thing they should be known for is being confident, knowledgeable, and fair during incidents and planning.

Skill #1: Knowing Where To Get It and Who Can Do It

2012-09-02T18:46:00.000-04:00

The first critical skill for all emergency managers...in all jurisdictions: The ability to get a resource or skill to an incident without fumbling through 20 different people before accomplishing the mission. I've been there and looked like an idiot when I tried to track down a piece of equipment without doing my homework. I learned the lesson though, and made sure I added the contact to my mental address book...because if I needed it once, I'd probably need it again down the road.

I should note, having a stuffed Rolodex sitting on your desk doesn't count. You've got to be able to pull the contact out at a moments notice, in the middle of an incident scene and be able to make the call. I have a master contact list stored locally on my phone and synced in the cloud with the agencies I'm going to have to deal with. Paper copy? Absolutely, and stored in my go kit. And when I'm on vacation, my relief also has a copy.

They key however is not the contact list. It's knowing who to contact on the list. Just because you have everybody from a local lineman to the CEO of the power company in your contacts doesn't mean you can get the job done. You have to know which one of them is the first call. I suggest developing 3-deep contact procedures for every organization you might ever call upon.

A lesson learned from my perspective is that your superior will typically want you to call the highest person on the chart to expedite the process. That doesn't always work...and in many cases makes the problem worse. You'll hear emergency managers brag that when they want something done they just contact the Governor/President/CEO to get it done. Just think about that though...what happens when everybody does that? Now nothing gets done. Simply put, just know who call on the first try.

The emergency manager can uncover a lot of these responsibilities through the planning process. I know, we aren't always in the middle of a emergency operations plan rewrite. But going out and occasionally meeting with the obvious players will keep you up to date on any changes in their staff or capabilities. That's something the volunteer or busy emergency manager can find time for at lunch or coffee.

I had two immediate priorities when I started in the City of Nashua. The first was to as talk to as many of the acting emergency managers before me who filled the role before hiring a full time Director. They had the greatest knowledge about the people that had the equipment and could get things done. The second was to have a meet & greet with every agency I could think of possibly dealing with in the future. Getting current cell phone numbers and their perspectives helped quite a bit when Hurricane Irene barreled through New England a month later.

Of course, there's always the time when you need something or someone that you just didn't think of, or hadn't gotten the time to plan for. They say "Don't trade business cards during the emergency". Well, I can tell you from experience that I was in that position a couple of times during Irene. But with only a month in Nashua under my belt, there wasn't much I could do about it.

If you find yourself looking for a contact, resource, or piece of information you hadn't planned for, you have a couple of options. First, consult Google. It's likely you can find some way to contact the organization that has the resource needed, and if you don't know who might have it, a couple of keywords are likely to get you in the right direction.

If that doesn't work, check with someone who has been in your organization for a long time. I found here in Nashua, one manager was familiar with a completely unrelated resource just because he had been to an EOC activation more than once. It's tough to find as people spend less time at one employer than they ever have but you'll likely find someone who can pull it from the depths of their memory.

You might find yourself in dire straits, but you still have other options. The local political officials have an extensive network of contacts. While in many cases, the grand opening tour of that new equipment rental store in town went in one ear and out the other, but they likely know the person there who can get you something after hours. They are typically familiar with the legal responsibilities of various organizations...governmental and non-governmental...and can likely point you to the agency having jurisdiction if you need a mission completed.

In the event you just can't find what you need, your last effort is to send the request to the next emergency management organization up. While in some cases, a town or city can pass a resource request up to a county or regional entity, many jurisdictions will have to send their request to the state. This should be viewed as a last resort as I've found in most instances, the resource ordered isn't the resource you get. While typing for equipment and credentials for personnel are making things better, we still have a long way to go. It's better trying to find what you need locally with people that understand the situation before enlisting help from the next level of government.

If an emergency manager isn't that person you can turn to and say "What agency owns that dam?", "Who can feed 200 people by 0900?", or "Where can we locate 2 water tenders?", you probably don't need them. Any idiot can flip through a phone book for an hour before they find what you needed to know two hours before.

Simplifying Emergency Management

2012-08-28T19:52:00.001-04:00

An experienced emergency manager realizes after a while, they are expected to be experts at every random facet of society and how it works. You're expected to know how the expansive networks of infrastructure work within your jurisdiction. You're supposed to know the procedures in which government agencies do business, and what they are responsible for. You have to know the various demographics within your community, and what organizations provide services for those groups. You have to be aware of current events locally and nationally and be capable of handling the media when your community becomes the event you're reading about in the paper. You have to understand the history, the geography, and the political climate for the jurisdiction you are responsible for. And certainly the most important responsibility of the emergency manager is to know "who knows it", "who has it", or "who can do it" when you simply don't have the answer yourself. Emergency managers probably make good Jeopardy contestants.

Watson...smarter than most emergency managers?

I found myself in the middle of a tour of a local animal hospital this past week briefly watching a surgical procedure on someones pet. I sat there and thought, "What in the world am I doing here?". But, there was a reason, as I was there to discuss emergency planning for pet sheltering and learn about their facility and services. Thinking a bit more into it, I looked back at many moments in my career when I found myself frequently in places I never would have expected myself in (meeting with a church group, in the turbine house of a dam, showing a child the components of an emergency supply kit). I thought with the exception of the local political officials and county/city/town managers, there really is no person beyond the emergency manager that must connect with so many different groups in the community.

After all, we always say the key to successful emergency management programs is building relationships. It takes a lot of time to make these connections, especially if you work in a large jurisdiction. The question then becomes, do emergency managers get enough time to network in comparison to the extensive paperwork required to make state and Federal requirements? If you're an emergency manager for a large jurisdiction or a small one, you're still required to develop an emergency operations plan, a hazard mitigation plan, the same paperwork for grant applications, and typically need to keep up with the rest of the emergency management profession (anyone get THIRA'd lately?) And just when you think everything is up to date, there is a new requirement which must be added to one of your plans. Homeland Security Today just had a great article on the Mitigation Planning process, and the fact that it needs to be simplified.

Ahh...2006 era...when it was really getting crazy!

Over time, emergency management has become more and more complex. Anyone familiar with PPD-8 has seen the old Federal Response Plan morph into five different frameworks, five different Federal Interagency Operational Plans, not including all of the other supplemental documents. Sometimes you have to question, who is really reading this stuff? Has it gotten to the point where emergency managers can't keep up?

Having time to read through these documents, there are some good features which I believe could help simplify the emergency management field. We have went wrong by leaving them in the weeds with the billion other pages of rambling. For example, the new Core Capabilities (old Target Capabilities List) is a pretty decent idea. Allowing a jurisdiction to really determine the level of preparedness based on the types of all hazard capabilities put together in meaningful groups. It served as a platform to develop training and exercises through HSEEP and as a mechanism to apply for grants based on real need. The problem is that many don't even know about the Core Capabilities, or knew so little about it that they misused it. I can't think of how many times I've seen jurisdictions use the old Target Capabilities List to justify a piece of equipment just because it was easy to say that the purchase met Target Capability "X". The same piece of equipment was found in the jurisdiction one door over. Focusing on promoting the Core Capabilities should become a priority especially as grant dollars shrink. While not perfect, they are a good start.

Then there's the Whole Community. We're now including everybody in our emergency planning. Locals, State, Feds, Private Sector, and Non-profits supporting all citizens regardless of their needs. A great concept, but has anyone ever sat through a class talking about Whole Community? Have you heard the grumbling from emergency managers when the topic comes up? The fact is, "those" emergency managers want to be left alone. They are overwhelmed by the fact that they now need to purchase specialized resources for shelters and other support services. But can't we simplify it? Rather than complain, why don't we reach out to the support groups of those with functional and access needs and see what kinds of resources they already have? Then perhaps a regional approach can be developed to cache the necessary resources, and have agreements in place with vendors to provide services during an incident. Now you've planned for the Whole Community! Instead of annexes, just include the "Whole Community" in your plan. If they would have looked into collaborating with all levels of government and NGO's for specialized resources when it was promoted as part of Comprehensive Emergency Management in 1978, they might have built the capabilities out by now.

And it isn't just how we plan, it's how we respond. I participated in the Vigilant Guard 2012 exercise in Rhode Island about a month ago. It was one of those events where you had 30 incident command posts, plenty of freelancers, and about 10 percent of the responders actually making an impact on stabilizing the incident. If you can't draw up a command chart during an exercise, it probably won't be easy during a real incident. Granted, it was an exercise, but should we really be painting the picture that resources will be falling from the sky, all operating in stovepipes from their Commanders? It's a reason I like functional exercises...it allows you to test one "function" of your response and allows the facilitators, controllers, and evaluators to focus on one specific thing. You can make it realistic...and simple!

Picture from RI USAR of the overall exercise...which command post is in charge?

I'm trying to simplify things here in Nashua. We have a great opportunity as we're in the process of revising our emergency operations plan after nearly 10 years of no revision. The plan was approved pre-9/11, so you can imagine the changes we've seen since then. But after reading through the plan, the format and content was adequate to understand responsibilities and procedures. It was simple, before we tried to make emergency response a science.

With my current revision, I'm attempting to keep the same principles by organizing the plan based on how we really respond rather than a fairytale fantasy that never materializes during the disaster. The plan is now comprehensive, really showing how emergency planning encompasses mitigation, preparedness, and recovery along with response. The average citizen should be able to read the plan and get an idea of how the City operates before, during, and after crisis, without trying to understand the alphabet soup of emergency operations. The plan is based on best practices from emergency management organizations across the United States...like Florida, Texas, California, New York...agencies that deal with disasters all the time. Why write a plan just to fulfill a requirement when you can use the planning process to ultimately get everyone on the same page?

Everybody at the table during a Douglas County, Nevada LEPC Meeting...LEPC's are a great way to prevent a "beltway bandit" from writing your plan.

I'll be posting a bit more about our new plan in a future post, so I won't go much farther. The objective of this post is, what really are the fundamentals of emergency management? What do emergency managers have to be experts in beyond anything else? What are the skills that an emergency manager can provide...that a fire chief, politician, or rocket scientist can't? You can search "fundamentals of emergency management" on Google and find all kinds of stuff. College courses, scholarly papers, lectures, etc. But I've found time and time again, the skills listed are not needed and/or we aren't actually developing them to be realistic. I'm going to attempt to answer this question over the next week but I'm interested in perspectives from practitioners and academics on this subject.

These fundamentals are critically important, as they might be the only things the "doing it on the side as a volunteer" or "emergency management as a second or third responsibility" official will be able to hone in on and perfect before the next big one hits. Or perhaps, if we can keep it simple, we can sustain interest from all players instead of only grabbing their attention during the next "Civil Defense, then Natural Hazards, then Homeland Security, then Bioterrorism, back to Natural Hazards, and then to Contagion" buzzword every time we have a disaster.

Welcome to Nashua

2012-06-16T15:53:00.001-04:00

So two months after the last post on this blog, I was hired by the City of Nashua, NH as the Director of Emergency Management. Yea crazy huh? After spending a year wasting my time applying for a job as a police officer or career firefighter in nearly every Mid-Atlantic state, I get hired to do exactly what I want in the field that I actually went to college for. Not only that, but it was a job offer to be the first Director of Emergency Management for the City, and I could build a comprehensive emergency management program...the way I wanted to. A dream come true?

It was certainly worth the wait. On first visit, Nashua looks like one of those normal "small" cities. A real downtown, occasional industrial parks, and the normal big box retail corridors. A little bit of everything. But after spending six months here, you see much more. Vast downtown spaces on the cusps of redevelopment, the introduction of commuter rail to Boston, and extensive new opportunities for high tech industries - all within reaching distance. And it's been quite a thrill to see all of this happening from the inside of City Hall.

While my responsibility within the City is to develop emergency plans, coordinate emergency operations, and build partnerships between agencies, I've taken a vast interest in the overall management of the City (and the region). We have the potential to do some really neat things in the upcoming years if everyone comes together to build a progressive and sustainable Nashua.

While you see the blips of contention between parties in dealings at the New Hampshire General Court and Governor's Office, people generally seem willing to work together. And I say "generally" because you always have a couple people in every state that want to stand in the way of progress. It's nice not reading the News Journal and seeing the rabbling between the Good ol' Boys at Legislative Hall in Dover or the fact that we uncovered yet another DelDOT screw up. Oh, and did I mention it's tax free here as well?

Now that I'm coming up on one year here in Nashua, I'm starting to look back at the projects we started and where we are headed. One of the major projects was the full redevelopment of our City Emergency Operations Plan which hadn't been revised since 2001. If you've been keeping up with emergency management over the past year, I'm sure you've seen all of the changes being brought to us with PPD-8. It's been difficult trying to rewrite an emergency plan and then having a new guidance document by the Feds pushed out the next week. Needless to say, there was a point where I determine we were going to develop the plan around Nashua, rather than waiting for the next piece of guidance from DHS. I'm happy to say we're about 80% done with the plan, and it's been developed around the Incident Command System. I'll be presenting on our new plan at the NH Emergency Preparedness Conference this summer and I'll make sure to put the PowerPoint up here.

Another major project we're currently in the middle of is the establishment of a Community Emergency Response Team program here in the City. Coming from Delaware's Citizen Corps Program, this was a project I was particularly interested in. I'm trying to imitate the format of CERTs out in Los Angeles (where the program originated). Rather than a citywide team, I'd like to have multiple teams in each of the neighborhoods around the City. For those that are interested in volunteering beyond CERT, we're going to provide opportunities for that as well. I have an intern from the Daniel Webster College Homeland Security program working to help me develop the CERT program over the next few months.

While we've made significant progress on the emergency management program in Nashua, I'm certainly not as far along as I would have liked to have been. Two federally declared storms within the first six months of being on the job here diverted most of my attention to completing the necessary paperwork and documentation for the Federal Public Assistance process. I never would have guessed how complex the process really was based on my limited experience with it in Delaware. Now I'm practically an expert in all of the various regulations and stipulations involved in getting reimbursement.

I'll try to post on the blog but don't expect it. I've found that I don't really have the time or interest in developing long blog posts anymore. Even this post started a month ago, and then I decided to revisit it today randomly. If you really want to keep up with what's going on, follow my account on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/101611343944021359164/. Posts from Blogger automatically get posted over there, so you won't miss out. Plus, Picasa picture albums and other posts get compiled there as well providing a much better experience.

Random Hacks of Kindness Philly

2011-06-09T11:19:00.000-04:00

Full speed ahead as always. Wanted to make a special post to talk about a pretty exciting event I was able to take part in this past weekend. It was called Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), a project that started in 2009 to help build open source solutions to a variety of community problems to include disaster risk management and climate change. Every year, cities across the world host events where subject matter experts and programmers get together to help develop tools to solve hundreds of problems. I was fortunate enough to participate in this years event in Philadelphia at Drexel University.

Amos Scott and I made the trip to Philadelphia Saturday morning with no intention of producing any ideas for projects, simply to observe and learn something from the participants. During the breakout sessions to determine groups and projects, we noticed that there was a lack of ideas in the disaster management field. I provided an idea for a online tool for a person to enter their address into a app which would then poll a variety of open datasets and display the variety of hazards one may live near. Essentially they would see a map of all the historical tornadoes, hurricane tracks, nuclear plants, etc around the location they decided to search. Programmer Adam Hinz joined our group and would be the sole programmer on the team.

Obviously the first thing our team needed to do was come up with ideas and a rough idea on how the app would work. I was lucky to have come up with a decent project on the whim, especially since Amos and I didn't come with anything on our mind to the event. Adam decided to write the program with the programming language Ruby, a language he was very proficient with. We then had to find datasets.

Our team encountered numerous issues with the data we wanted to utilize. One of the first problems we encountered was inaccurate data. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had a dataset of Nuclear Reactors with the incorrect coordinates. A dataset we couldn't use. Second, we needed to know how to interpret the data and convert it into a format that our program could understand. We had text files, shape files, KML files, and numerous other formats that we had to convert and parse. That took the most time of the weekend, and if we had just had simplified data that we didn't have to convert, we would have gotten much farther along.

One problem with the data that didn't really have anything to do with the actual format was how we would determine which sets would be useful and which would not. For example, how would we measure an area that was prone to major snowfall? Would we just provide pinpoints of historical major snow events? Would we just measure total amount of snow over the past xx years? Would we provide a risk map determined by NWS or some other government agency? We had to determine if we were going to just provide raw historical data to let the citizen decide the risk, or actually provide risk maps developed by agencies on the applicable hazard. Each had their advantages and disadvantages.

Adam programmed away and by the Sunday morning, we had a pretty decent looking mockup of our app. We rushed to complete a few sample modules on our program for Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Handlers of Hazardous Materials, Nuclear Facilities, Flood Plains, and Earthquakes. Each had to be developed differently and took a lot longer than I thought. Adam was able to complete the program by the judging period in which event facilitators looked at the complete projects by the six teams and chose the winners. I did a short briefing for them to give them a background on the project and our purpose.

Each team presented their project to the 50 or so people that attended the event. Judges made their decisions and surprisingly enough, our project "Disaster Mapper" was a winner. Not bad for a team in which two of the members didn't even plan on participating, and a team with only one programmer! We won a gift package of Amazon Gift Cards, cell phone solar chargers, Make Magazine subscriptions, and four bottles of Club-Mate (apparently the European Hacker beverage of choice).

The idea of RHoK is a brilliant one. Gather the interest of subject matter experts and programmers by putting them in one place with some problems to solve. We had great food throughout the entire event and the facility was great. Additionally, I believe our team (as well as the others) has the momentum to continue their projects and make them into viable products for the community. I've already demo'd Disaster Mapper to our Preparedness folks at DEMA and they love it. As our team continues to build out the features and decide how we will roll out the project, we will likely make the app a part of PrepareDE.org. Hopefully other emergency management agencies will follow suit. There are plenty of other features that I have in mind that I really would like to see implemented.

Interested in trying out Disaster Mapper? Type a Philadelphia address in to www.disastermapper.com. There are still a couple bugs, but I'm sure Adam is working on them!

Regards

Help Wanted

2011-04-18T18:06:00.000-04:00

Occasionally, something inside me remembers I have a blog, and that I haven't posted to it in a very long time. I'm not sure who reads this thing anymore, though I'm sure if one searches a variety of different keywords in Google, one of the posts will come up. Today was one of those days and I have the urge to give an update on where I stand in the world.

The last time I posted, I gave a bit of a review of my four years at college. I sat there in a chair outside of Station 9 watching the 2010 school year wind down and students go back home for the summer...or go back home for good. It was a time of reflection as well as a time to think about the potential options for the next stage in my life.

At that point I may have had a couple of job applications in to a variety of agencies, and I certainly know I placed many applications in after that summer. These ranged from lengthy processes in fire or law enforcement agencies around the Mid-Atlantic region, to jobs in emergency management agencies, to jobs in the private sector. All jobs that I wanted to start, put in time for the long haul, and have a career I could look back on. Unfortunately, all have come back unsuccessful.

Thankfully, they have not been because I am unqualified for the position of question. I have continued to get e-mails to the effect: "Due to loss of funding, we are currently unable to fill the position you applied for." With the current state of the economy, it is extremely difficult for government agencies to maintain staffing, especially within public safety departments. They simply can't justify positions that citizens don't want to pay for.

It's across the board. Fire departments are closing stations, police departments are cutting officers from the streets, emergency management organizations are simply closing. It has come to the point that citizens just don't care. Just as many feel with insurance, they feel they aren't at risk to justify the insurance of having a fully funded and staffed public safety department. "A fire truck will show up eventually, and the police officer will get here at some point...plus I've never had to call 911 before, why would that change in the future?"

As I stated in my last blog post, I questioned if I would have went to a different university if I had known I would be interested in the pubic safety field. Now I question if I would have went in to this field. It seems as if public safety is on its way out, even as major catastrophes in countries like Japan pan out and show how resource strapped any nation can be. Even the private sector jobs in the public safety sector are dwindling. Government agencies are contracting less consultants, and industry is shutting down fire brigades and safety departments. Where costs can be cut, costs are cut.

As I've done all my life, I try to incorporate long term planning in to all of my decisions. My career is certainly one of them. In a society where people spend about 4-5 years at a job and go somewhere new, I respect the values of a long term career at an agency. I've found in the people that I've worked with, that the ones with the most knowledge and respect towards their career are the ones that have worked at one place for 20-30 years and retired. I'd like to see myself in the same position one day. It is a trait that is difficult to convey during job interviews, especially as many of the people that interview me have only been there a few years after leaving their previous place of employment. Even at DEMA, I'm a veteran. I can compare the organizational chart from 2006 when I was hired out of high school with the chart from today. It's impressive to walk in the building and not know who many of the people that work there are.

There are reasons that I haven't gone in to high stress mode when it comes to my career. Thankfully, current healthcare legislation allows for me to remain on my parents insurance until I'm 26. That said, I'd like to hope that I'd have my own career (with benefits) by the time I'm 26. Let us hope our economy has at least gotten itself together to a certain degree by that point.

Second, my current employer and supervisor have made extensive attempts to keep me as employed as long as possible on my current contract. My boss, Bob George, has been a real blessing to work with over the past four years, and I'd hope that even if I were to get a job somewhere else, I could continue to work part time for the program that he has built from the ground over the past decade. Citizen preparedness has been a great initiative to work on in Delaware and it feels great to actually go out and "touch citizens" to explain the importance of preparing yourself for disaster. Certainly with the resource strapped agencies we deal with today, it's important for everyone to take a bit of responsibility for themselves.

So I'm still covered by insurance and still getting a paycheck. Things aren't so bad. Plus I still feel like the work I do is actually making a difference out there in the community, and that certainly is one of the better feelings out there. One aspect that I continue to think about is where are the rest of my college peers currently?

I look at them on Facebook and have found that many have decided to go on to Grad School or they're working at servers in a local restaurant in their hometowns. You went to school for four years and you work as a waiter at Ruby Tuesday's? It's a shame that many of these bright individuals can't find a job that they can't excel in. Grad School was certainly a logical decision for many, as they will obtain their Master's while the economy settles and hopefully recovers.

My job interviews continue and I'll remain optimistic. If anyone out there knows of something that I should be looking into or knows of a position (with benefits) that I should apply for, let me know. I'll certainly be grateful!

Regards

I'm still here.

2010-05-29T19:31:00.000-04:00

I'm still here. A very early morning four Augusts ago, my mother, grandfather, and I traveled to the City of Newark with a truckload of Rubbermaid bins, microwaveable food, ridiculous colorful folding chairs, and kinds of electronic equipment. I was going to be moving into a dilapidated dorm (which has now been completely renovated) on the East side of the University of Delaware with no air conditioning, bare cement walls, and cold ceramic tiles. In this room, I'd live with another guy that I had never met, and had really no interest in ever meeting. Originally, I thought I had an idea of how the next four years of my life would end up, and I made every attempt possible towards the beginning to create a detailed plan of how I would stick to my life goals. I found that every bit of planning I did to try and create a life course went right out the window every minute that went by over the next four years. I learned in college that for the most part, long term planning doesn't always work out the way it's supposed to.

I don't know if I was just pissed off that morning because it was early or if I really was angry about being there at the University of Delaware. Looking back, I don't really know how I could have been that angry about the University at that point, maybe with the exception being that they placed me in a room with someone I didn't know, especially when I wanted to really move in with a high school friend of mine who was also attending the University. As I would find out, every year of the three years I lived in University housing in Newark, I ultimately ended up having dealings with UD Housing in either trying to get my roommate out of my room or me trying to move to another room. I learned in college that people are inconsiderate, will press their snooze button six times when you don't have to get up for class, throw all of their crap around the room, and that I had a hard time dealing with it.

Another defining moment of that first day was the fact that I had to leave my parents and really take care of myself for the first time in my life. I didn't really know how that one was going to work out. I had no idea how to cook anything for myself, how to do laundry efficiently, or clean on a daily basis. And I found that for myself within a few days of being there. The University added items to their "how can I piss Justin off list" by closing the dining halls on Memorial Day...which took place only a few days after I had arrived there. Because of that I couldn't use the meal plan or the dining hall that was near my dorm. I remember instead, I went to a place called Lettuce Feed You up off of Main Street, since I was looking for a sandwich or something. If you can't tell by the title, Lettuce Feed You sells salads, not really anything else. For some reason I was so angry, I just got some salad or something there (I hate salad) ate half of it, and threw the rest away. I learned in college that I probably shouldn't make irrational decisions, and go to a place that sells salad looking for sandwiches and then be angry about it.

And Mom was upset that I was leaving as well. She cried when she dropped me off that first day and she cried today at Graduation. I always like to tell the story on how ironic it was that she was so upset that I was leaving, yet I ended up coming home that next weekend. But, I understand it. Without my parents, I certainly wouldn't have went to college. I more than likely would have joined the military or done something else. Even to this day, I'm still not sure UD was right for me, or that the decisions I made here were right, but I do know that the direction my parents led me in, and the support they were able to provide were certainly better than anything I could have come up with myself. I learned in college that your family is absolutely critical to your success in the future.

And just like that first weekend that I went home to the place I was familiar with, I went home often. UD was convenient, that it allowed for me to get from Newark to Lewes within about an hour and a half. It got to the extent freshman year that I went home every single weekend. I wanted to get back to all of my friends from high school and the people I was familiar with. My negative attitude that freshman year kept me tied to the same people I had been tied to for the four years earlier. And when they went off and did different things, moved different places, and continued their lives, I was stuck in an era that no longer existed. I learned in college that you shouldn't judge every single person around you as someone you don't want to meet, especially when they make a considerable attempt to meet you.

But there was hope. I remember that first day in Newark, a friend from high school and a adjunct professor who I had known well from my professional career went to lunch at a restaurant on Elkton Rd. We sat there and talked about technology and a variety of other subjects, in a leisurely fashion over lunch. I thought to myself, this is really what college can be like. I'm going to be able to work on fun technical projects as an electrical engineer, and have intelligent conversations about things that interest me with people that have the same interests as me. I was wrong. The engineering candidates that I met that first year couldn't tell you what a capacitor was from a peanut and didn't have nearly any hands on experience with electronic equipment. However, they were very smart with math and science leading to why they graduated today from the College of Engineering. I learned in college that engineering doesn't have much to do with anything except math and science. And that it wasn't for me.

Crazy enough, I thought I could do it that first semester. I studied hard, worked my ass off, and really made an attempt to be an engineer. What made it tough was the fact that none of the classes that I found myself in had anything to do with engineering and I was doing absolutely horrible in them. And then add the fact that I had all of the additional useless activities that the UD Residence Life program wanted me to participate in (which thankfully don't exist anymore due to a lawsuit) I had just about enough of it. I felt like I was learning absolutely nothing, and that I was making no progress towards an engineering degree. I knew that I had to switch my major. I learned in college that the University has no incentive in helping you switch from one major to the other, and that it's probably a less painful to light yourself on fire than switch majors.

I figured since I liked what had done in my career at DEMA the summer prior to college, I would look into the emergency management profession. The University of Delaware had a program in the emergency management field through their Disaster Research Center that seemed to fit my interests. After hours and hours of aggravation working with the Academic Advisement Office, Dean's Office of both engineering and arts and sciences, the Registrar, and my advisors, I finally was able to switch to a new major. Looking back, I rather would have had a more in depth emergency management program involved in the degree, but I feel that I've learned most of what I know in this field through self-study and my employment over the past four years. I learned in college that experience is sometimes much more valuable than the education that's provided at a university.

It really started looking up. During spring semester of my freshman year, I was taking three political science courses which I really enjoyed, and found much more interesting than anything I took while in engineering. Two of the courses were in the 300 level (Junior), and I still found them much easier than the intro level math courses I was taking. There's still a D- in College Pre-calculus (a class which I never needed) on my transcript which completely screws up my GPA. I started really getting the hang of college and the process required to study for exams. Over the next four years, I learned what classes I actually needed to attend, and what ones were a waste of time. In some classes, buying the books were a complete waste of money, and I believe I saved quite a bit of money by refraining to purchase books in many cases. I learned in college to not waste time doing things that really don't have to be done, and not to waste money buying things that don't have to be bought.

I finished my first year of college with a new vision of where I was going. I felt like I was on the right track to a career in emergency management and that I probably would be able to keep up with the amount of school work required in the upcoming years. Sophomore year I would move into some of the brand new dorms on the north part of Newark with someone I knew. I really felt like I had a good handle on what was going on around me and I made the best attempt to have a positive outlook for the upcoming year. Unfortunately, that year held so much promise that I never was able to take advantage of. Sophomore year really brought out some hidden problems in my personal life that I continued to ignore up until that point. I learned valuable lessons about trust, friendship, and maturity. It's obvious when I observe the way I acted in the past, that I never really matured when I thought I did. I acted like a moron, in the way I treated people and the way I portrayed myself. I don't know if I wanted attention or if I was just completely clueless. I really found that those around me hadn't matured either. I questioned their morals and I questioned mine. I don't know if I have ever been as lost in my life. I learned in that trust, friendship, and maturity are something to cherish, and if lost may never be regained fully again.

I realized that I had made no effort to meet people, understand people, or even introduce myself. If there is one thing that a potential college student reads in this blog, this is by far the most important part. It is absolutely critical that you find something to do with your spare time while at college. This allows for you to relax and find new hobbies or interests, and also helps to act as an interface to meet new people. Whether it be going out to house parties every weekend, joining clubs, joining fraternities or sororities, or playing a sport, you need to find something to do with your extra time. Even as ridiculous as one might find the usefulness of drunken house parties to ones life, it's much better than sitting in your dorm room for hours on end playing guitar by yourself. Just do whatever you can to meet people and learn about them. You'll probably meet a lot of really good friends along the way. I learned in college that no matter how well you can play the blues on guitar, if you don't have someone else playing with you, you're just wasting your time.

Though I didn't react fast enough to the fact that I was wasting my free time in college, I did find something to spend a significant amount of time meeting people and helping the community at the same time. Months after I had joined the Lewes Fire Department down at home, I joined the Christiana Fire Company in New Castle County during my Junior year to both learn more about incident management and meet people who were interested in helping the community during an emergency. I started riding during the day at Station 3, then spending the night a lot at Station 3, and eventually ended up moving in there completely during the first half of my Senior year. The friends from high schooI that I had moved in with at the Christiana Towers during my Junior year never understood how I could spend so much time at a firehouse. I really feel like the fire department helped me keep my sanity the last two years I was at the University and I respect the people I've met at both Christiana and Aetna for keeping me involved and interested in the fire service.

After four years, I realized Newark was changing around me. Through sophomore year into the time I graduated, I realized that the place I came to on my first day was evolving every second. Businesses were changing, new buildings were being built, others being torn down. Even the restaurant on Elkton Rd. that we went to that first day freshman year was torn down and replaced with stores and apartments. I really got to know Newark well and even as it changed I liked it. It's strange looking back at pictures from 2006 and looking at the landscape of a town that is completely different today. I learned in college that the environment around you may evolve faster than you evolve yourself.

And I'm not sure how much I evolved. They say in college, that you're brainwashed and made to think differently about your morals and political views by the college administration. I'd have to say, the students here at the University have changed my perspective on more things than the actual administration has. Really just seeing how these people operate in society has really shown me what goes on in real life, and what to expect in the real world. I never once had a professor who could change my opinion, but in many cases provided an extremely unique perspective on something. Though some professors didn't do a good job, I had a few that impressed me and will be getting good reviews from me on "ratemyprofessors.com". Weird that I waited four years to fill out reviews on that website? I learned in college that it's absolutely imperative to look at every possible outcome and variable to a situation or you might not really know the truth about it.

I failed at that in many cases. I never looked at the outcomes of the many decisions I made in college and how they would effect me and my long term plans. I made irrational decisions, some of which worked out, most of which didn't. And over the past four years I've had a lot of time to think about those decisions and what I would have done differently. Even my decision on major or what college I should have went to could be disputed. Should I just have went to DelTech for two years and got an associates for free with the STEM program? Should I have applied to transfer to a different school when I decided to get out of engineering? Should I have planned my major out better when I applied in high school? Should I have just joined the military and gotten an ROTC scholarship? I learned in college that hindsight is always 20/20.

When I arrived at the Russell B dorm on that first day, I severely miscalculated the outcome to having a negative attitude about the next four years. That negative attitude resulted in a catastrophic failure to enjoy any sense of a professional and social life here at the University. Just that simple fact that I was pissed off that morning created a chain reaction which drastically destroyed any potential recovery of my college experience. This has been a tough four years, with work, with friends, with family, and with school. The reason it's been tough has been due to the causal relationship between that first day and the next four years. I learned in college that one bad mistake can haunt you forever.

Regardless, I'm still here. Still here in Newark as 4,000 of my graduated peers have went home with memories and experiences that they will never be able to recreate. Off to start their lives, probably settle down, and move on. I've got a piece of paper that says I attended college. The key lesson I learned in college, is that the defining moment of any chapter in life is the start of it. For this next chapter, I'm going to make the best of it and not be pessimistic on what could potentially be the best chapter of my life.

Rejuvenating Interest

2009-08-14T13:40:00.000-04:00

The past two weeks I've spent in Bethany Beach at the National Guard's 193rd Regional Training Institute in the Emergency Operations Communications Course. The course went over a variety of things from operation of a variety of radios, interoperability gateways, and the theory behind radio communications. This past Thursday we included a trip to the Smyrna Readiness Center which houses the Joint C4 Coordination Center as well as DEMA, which I'm all too familiar with. I was the only civilian in the course which was pretty neat as I got to learn a lot from the Army and Air Force personnel who were my classmates. The 193rd RTI is the US military's school for interoperability and I was lucky to get a spot in the class.
During the course, I got to play with a lot of radios that most civilians have never heard of including the following:
Harris AN/PRC-150 HF ALE Radio

Harris AN/PRC-117F VHF/UHF Radio

Thales AN/PRC-148 VHF/UHF Radio

ITT SINGCARS VHF Radio

Harris RF-350 HF ALE Radio

Motorola Micom-2E HF ALE Radio

Motorola Micom-3R HF ALE Radio

Motorola XTL-5000 and XTS-5000 Radios

In addition to learning the operation of each of these radios, we were given instruction on patching the various systems together using the Raytheon ACU-1000 and the various components available including the Wide Area Interoperability System (WAIS) and NXU radio extensions. It was great getting some hands on time with the ACU software and programming since we rarely use it within the state. We also got some time to learn about the Joint Incident Site Communications Capability (JISCC) packages that both the Army and Air National Guards are able to deploy during a disaster which includes a satilite mobile data terminal, VOIP phones, laptops, LMR's, repeater, an ACU-1000 with various public safety radios, HF radio, and video teleconference equipment all in one trailer. It is quite an impressive setup. The 193rd has a specific course just for the JISCC which I plan to take next summer.
Working with some of these guys on the military side, I really got to see some of the major issues we are going to run into during a disaster. First, I don't think the National Guard realizes how crucial these JISCC packages, and the other assorted commo equipment will be during an incident. These packages rely on little infrastructure compared to civilian systems and are versatile to where they can be placed.

I also really was able to learn a lot about the requirements that the Guard needs at an incident site when it comes to a detailed plan about where communications links need to be placed. They could really care less about how you want them to do it, they just need to know where the links need to be made and they will do it. I gave them some info about how they can fit in to the incident command structure and that their go-to person would be the COML of the incident. Also it helped when I provided them copies of the ICS-205 communications plan, which they were very unfamiliar with. The military has their own forms and format as we all know, but it helps when they become familiar with the civilian side.

We took part of a couple of commo exercises during the two weeks. One where we set up an HF base station at our location, programmed the frequencies and callsigns for ALE, and then required five manpack HF kits to deploy around the installation while they programmed their radios via the keypad. Trust me, it's not easy trying to program one of those things from the keypad, it's much easier just hooking it up to a computer and using the software.

The class helped to rejuvenate my interest in RF. Unfortunately my job at Delaware State Police takes me away from the RF side of things that I'm familiar with and I don't get to play commo stuff that much. This class refreshed my memory and gave me a few "I remember that!" experiences as we were going through some of the material. I can say it gave me an insight to how military commo works and how I'm going to have to interface with them during a disaster.

This is all starting to get really interesting.

2009-07-09T02:44:00.000-04:00

First as I do in every blog post, let me apologize for the length of time since the last post...which in this case was multiple months ago. I'll be quite honest, blogging isn't really all that interesting anymore. I started "The Logbook" to provide more timely updates to my life that I was not able to do by updating my website. Unfortunately with the blog, I never really gained any dialog with anyone and it was never very interactive. Additionally I always had to put aside a lot of time to make a post that I really liked and that gave a good update to what I was doing.

I'm going to continue maintaining the blog with posts every month, but I suggest that you add me as a friend on Facebook if you are looking for even more up to date information. It's more interactive and I keep it more up to date. If I wouldn't know you and you are just a reader of the blog, just mention who you are and that you were a subscriber to my blog when you add me.

http://www.facebook.com/justinkates

And no, I don't use Twitter except to track when a disaster happens within Delaware which actually came quite in handy a week or so ago when we experienced a small earthquake in New Castle County. I found out about it an hour before the rest of DEMA did just using the tracking features on Twitter.

So what has happened since the last post? Some pretty big news was the fact that I finished my Junior year of college, which is fairly hard to believe. I remember just yesterday when it was my junior year of high school. This was also the first semester I graduated on Dean's List which I was pretty surprised with. This semester was really filled with a lot of disaster based sciences (Meteorology, Natural Hazards, Earthquakes & Volcanoes, etc) and was much different than previous semesters. I'm on track to take 12 credits next fall, and 12 credits in spring to graduate. I'm extremely excited to get out of college, yet also not thrilled with the fact that the job market has hit rock bottom. I have a few things in mind to hold me over if things don't work out.

Speaking of jobs, I have changed positions since the last post. I now work for Delaware State Police in a place called the Delaware Information Analysis Center. I can't really speak about what they do because it is a sensitive operation, but you can get the idea that it is a fusion center where intelligence information flows in and back out to various agencies after it has been vetted and confirmed. Since I have come from the response side of emergency services, it is interesting to see this perspective of trying to "find" the disaster before it happens and get the information out to the right people. Once again, similar to DEMA I'm a consultant working on special projects. Currently I'm working on a public alerting system which will allow for information received by the DIAC to be broadcast to various levels of users based on their security level.

I've been involved in a variety of activities over the past few months including working with the Incident Management Team for the Dover International Speedway NASCAR races, participating in various fire school training during pretty much every weekend this year, and of course the constant flow of meetings I need to go to. As the motto says, "Securing the Homeland, One Meeting at a Time".

Today I made a response with the Lewes Fire Department to a working structure fire near Midway. I was officer on Engine 82-2. I try as much as possible not to be in the officer seat but with a volunteer service at a rural station, sometimes it's difficult to get more people with experience on the truck. As with every incident it got me thinking about the various things that make the fire service in Delaware interesting.

First would be the fact that Rehoboth's fire department beat us on scene from their Station 2...which is geographically closer to where the fire was from any of Lewes's stations. District lines sure are interesting. Kudos to Station 86 for making a quick response.

Another thing was staffing. I know on Engine 82-2 we had two cadet members in the back. Cadet members are volunteers that are under the age of 16 and are unable to attend Delaware State Fire School due to their age. Rescue 82 had three cadet members in the back. I believe there were cadet members from Station 1 on scene as well. Even with the lack of training these guys have, they make a significant difference on the fire scene helping out. They are by far some of the most active members in the fire department, and it's great to see a continuation of a younger generation in the volunteer fire service as volunteerism is down across the nation. Lewes is doing an excellent job on bringing junior members in and keeping them active.

One of the issues I had during this fire was literally trying to find the place. I had a familiarization as to the development that the fire was located in but none of the streets. Our fire department mapbook didn't have a page for this development, nor was the street name listed in the glossary. Thankfully we keep an ADC mapbook for Sussex County in the engine which allowed me to get a location of the street, but without street numbers. When we got to the street we had the choice to make a left or right. Of course with the luck of both the Driver and Officer we made the wrong turn ultimately requiring us to make another loop around the block. We didn't lose more than a minute of time but it definitely opened my eyes up for the need of up to date maps in the mapbook and how spoiled we are at Christiana with computer aided dispatch and computer mapping in all the trucks. As always I need to keep up with the new developments and make sure I'm familiar with the district.

I do believe after that incident I'm going to go through the map book and see if there are any developments that we haven't added yet. I believe I can use my GPS to make a waypoint map drawing out the streets to make new map pages. Then I just need to either look for hydrants or get the info from the water company to add them to the page. It shouldn't take too long but it will definitely allow for a more up to date mapbook. Just another thing for me to do.

I'm waiting on Google to transition the Google Page Creator system over to Google Sites. They have said it's going to happen for the past year now. When it happens I have some updates to do to the website and more additions. Keep an eye out for pictures and other things in the future.

A New FEMA Director

2009-03-04T18:28:00.005-05:00

First I should note that Dunkin Donuts coffee has saved the day again. Delicious and it woke me up.

President Obama has nominated Craig Fugate of the Florida Division of Emergency Management to be the new FEMA Administrator. Many in the homeland security/emergency management field have been questioning when Obama would come out with a decision and finally we see his choice. Fugate has a long experience in the emergency services field starting in the fire service like many emergency managers. Director Fugate has served as the State Coordinating Officer in 23 Declared State Emergencies, 11 of which were Presidential Declared Disasters. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

My personal opinion is that Obama couldn't have picked a better person. Anyone should know that Florida has an extremely large number of disasters and has gathered a large amount of knowledge when it comes to dealing with them. Florida is the 4th most populated state in the US which helps to cause even more challenges! I wouldn't mind spending a summer down in Florida working in the emergency management field just to actually get some experience seeing some real incidents. Many of you know that Delaware has been spared far too many times...

I have a similar viewpoint on many issues with Director Fugate. Below is a quote from the Associated Press article on Fugates nomination:

After Hurricane Katrina, Fugate said there was too much focus on blaming the federal government for the botched response. He said in a 2006 interview with The Associated Press that it was the state's responsibility to prepare for such disasters, and the state should only turn to the federal government for help when the disaster is larger than the state can handle on its own.

Agreed.

His experience at the State level will help him bridge the gap when it comes to the State/Federal relationship during emergency management response, as well as help him create a model plan for states across the US to follow in order to better prepare themselves and their response plans. I can say that I feel pretty good about the future of emergency management under his supervision.

He also has a personal website like me. Check it out:

http://www.disastersrus.org/

By the way, Governor Charlie Christ has nominated me as Craig's replacement in Florida. Just kidding, I'll keep that one in my dreams!

Also Obama nominated a new FEMA Chief of Staff. Look where he got his Masters Degree from!

Jason R. McNamara
Mr. McNamara serves as an Associate Vice President and Director of Emergency Management/Homeland Security in Dewberry’s Emergency Management, Disaster and Mitigation Services Group with a focus in emergency management and homeland security preparedness, planning, interagency and intergovernmental relations, and congressional relations on the local, state, and federal governmental levels. Mr. McNamara holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Psychology from the Johns Hopkins University, and a Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware.

Regards

Delaware Online News Video: Fire hits Ogletown house

2009-02-24T21:24:00.001-05:00

I was there this morning for this alarm. More pictures available:

http://flickr.com/photos/disasterphotog/3307031601/ (scroll through)
http://flickr.com/photos/afirefighterscamara/sets/72157614389868002/

Surprise

2009-02-21T17:24:00.000-05:00

Well where do I start? Haven't posted to this blog in a while have I?

I've been doing a major shift in just about everything in my life over the past few months, and a lot that you see on this blog and website probably doesn't describe my daily activities any longer.

First of all, I'm about to adjust my position at DEMA. My contract to support the design and purchase of interoperable radio kits is coming to a close. That's right, the equipment that I've been waiting for since 2006 is finally being delivered to DEMA and will be distributed across the State in the next few weeks. I thought the day would never come but the processes required have been completed and the project is nearing completion. Along with the delivery of the radio equipment, we will start transferring the responsibility of coordination between volunteer communications groups back to the groups themselves.

Because of this change, I'll continue as a part time employee with the Citizen Corps program at DEMA maintaining their website and the development of media for citizen preparedness. Though I have an interest in citizen preparedness, I still enjoy the response and planning side of emergency management and will probably try and find some other opportunity to fill that gap. Anyone with opportunities is welcome to get in contact with me!

Now that this project is coming to a close, my activity in amateur radio will be coming to a close. I expect that I'll stay active with the WD3EMA (DEMA) and W3DSP (DSP) amateur radio stations in a support role as well as continue to support the Mobile Communications Unit.

The fire service has taken up most of my time over the past few months. I spend any possible time at Christiana Fire Station 3 while I'm up north taking advantage of the many opportunities to learn skills in this trade. While I'm down at home in Sussex County I respond to every call possible for Lewes and Rehoboth's fire departments. I can say that I've learned quite a bit since I started this past summer and will continue my training in the spring as fire school opens back up.

Spring semester at UD has started. I'm taking two online courses, as well as two Geology courses, and a Geography course. I'm trying to get these stupid breadth requirements completed for my major. I only have one more year of opportunities to get all of the classes I need in. Last semesters grades were pretty good so I'm looking forward to another successful semester.

Tonight, is Christiana Fire Company's annual banquet. I'm not going because I hate fire company events, and because everyone will be at the banquet, we have coverup crews from Odessa, Elsmere, and Clayton covering stations 3, 6, and 12. Of course that means I can't ride any fire trucks tonight. I've been hanging out at UD all day and realized that I have spent about no time here this school year. Because I've been out at the firehouse all of the time, I haven't been around the campus, and really was surprised to see how much has changed around here.

I need to figure how this blog will operate in the future. I also need to do some major updates on the website! I'll probably try to work on all of that as soon as possible.

Midtown Misfits Fire Rescue 2008

2009-01-04T17:17:00.001-05:00

Here is a video that we just made for Christiana Station 3, my fire local while at school.

Lewes Fire-Rescue Boat

2009-01-04T10:53:00.001-05:00

Out on new Lewes Fire-Rescue boat for training

2008-12-04T18:48:00.001-05:00

You can see me peering into the Jeep in this video!

The Busiest Time In My Life

2008-10-24T23:48:00.005-04:00

I've honestly gotten myself into so many things that I just don't have the time to blog. Right now, I should be doing something but since I had such a busy week I figured I would just relax and unwind by writing a blog.

August was the last time I blogged so lets start there. I didn't really do much in August other than ride fire trucks for Lewes Fire Department and work as much as I really could for DEMA before summer was over.

September was when things started getting extremely busy. Of course I started school. I'm living in Christiana Towers this year, home of an 800MHz repeater site, as well as the W3UD APRS node. It's most certainly the tallest structure in Newark which is more than likely the reason the State decided to use this as a site for their system.

It's set up in an apartment style with a kitchenette, bathroom, and living/dining room, and two bedrooms. I'm living with a random roommate this year which compared to other years has been great. The other two roommates in the other room are friends from down in Sussex County. This has been the best room arrangement that I've had since I've been at the University of Delaware. I'll take a picture of the room and post it up here on the blog at a later date. Because I've been so busy (and because I haven't been around much) I haven't been able to clean.

Classes have been sort of ridiculous. Because I've taken all of my mandatory classes freshman and sophomore years, I'm now taking all of the stupid classes to fill up my breadth requirements. This is by far one of the most pointless things I've experienced at the University of Delaware...the requirement to take classes about subjects I'm not interested in, that aren't related to my major, and that are quite honestly a huge waste of time. A great example is the History of Rock and Roll. Sound like Basketweaving 101? Well, it is. I decided to pick this class since I'm very knowledgeable in music history, and since it counts as one of my required breadth requirements. My junior and senior years will be filled with classes like this unfortunately.

The only class that I'm taking this semester that even relates to emergency management is Disaster and Politics 456. The class is just like every other emergency management class I've ever taken, all a bunch of information I already know. We go over things like the history of FEMA, and the differences between mitigation and preparedness. I'm sorry but after working in this field for even the little amount of time that I've been involved, I already know things like that. It doesn't help that I'm required to write a 2-3 page paper in this class every week on material that I already know. I guess that I'm supposed to make sure that the professor knows what I'm talking about.

So I'm taking a bunch of classes that I'm not really interested in during the day, and at night I spend my time at the firehouse. I was accepted into Christiana Fire Company and I ride out of Station 3 on Salem Church Road. I must say that this has been a great experience. Lewes was a lot of fun but I didn't really get to learn much down there due to the lack of fire calls. Surprisingly enough, Lewes is one of the busiest departments downstate. New Castle County is completely different, we are constantly running to accidents or fires. The more calls I go on, the more I learn.

Not only have the real calls been learning experiences but they have been very interested in training at Christiana. For example one of the days some of the members taught me how to hit hydrants, run the hydraulic rescue tools, and throw ladders. It seems at this company that people are just plain interested in bettering their skills and making sure everyone knows what they are doing. I haven't been part of a volunteer organization that has been this interested in getting me involved.

The training experiences have been great but the atmosphere is also very enjoyable. I've noticed in New Castle that people actually hang out at the firehouse, rather than respond when we have an alarm. The trucks get out a lot faster this way. We watch TV together, eat together, and hang out. The past few weeks I've actually been spending the night at the firehouse during the weekdays, something I never did at Lewes. We tend to get a few accident calls early in the morning before I go to my first class at UD. What an action packed way to wake up!

Also during September I participated in a press conference with one of the programs I work for, Delaware Citizen Corps. The press conference was put on to kick off the start of a new project to get our preparedness video out to the schools through the Delaware State Police school resource officers. My participation in this project was that I helped put the video online for schools, students, and parents to view. The conference attracted a lot of high level officials including Secretary of Safety and Homeland Security David Mitchell, Secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff.

My contract for DEMA was also renewed in September which allows me to finish a few of the projects that have been going on over the past few years. One of the major projects that thankfully should be completed within the next two months is the ACU-T interoperability project. Finally we've awarded a bid to a vendor and are waiting for delivery of equipment. I will say that I'm completely against the bidding process as we did not save any money using it, it did not make the market for those items any more fair, but instead took an extremely long amount of time to complete and included far too many different agencies and organizations to coordinate. Because of this, I believe many of those who were supposed to be supported by the equipment in this project became skeptical of what we really were trying to do. I guess this is a first hand lesson on the red tape involved with government. Hopefully as I progress up the ladder, I'll be able to help change some of these processes in order to speed up government. I have a dream.

This post has already grown large enough. I'll start talking about what October has brought into my life tomorrow.

73

The New Interoperability

2008-08-10T11:00:00.001-04:00

My favorite buzzword. And many vendors favorite buzzword as well. Interoperability. Many folks out there in the public safety communications field have a skewed vision of what interoperability really is, and those who rely on public safety communicators (firefighters, police officers, and politicians) have an even more skewed vision of this commonly misused term. Not only do they believe they need a "magic box" to solve all of their issues relating to why one radio can't communicate to another, they believe they need to use that "magic box" to tie EVERY radio on scene together. That isn't interoperability folks.

There are so many tools to our disposal when it comes to interoperability. Technology is obviously one of them, thanks to our "partners" (read: vendors & manufacturers) but what else do we have? You have standards, shared frequencies, and even the simple capability to hand someone with a "different hat" one of your radios. Each of those might be able to solve your interoperability problems, without the cost of one of these "solve all problems" interoperability gateways like the SyTech RIOS, Raytheon ACU, or CA-T ICRI. Don't get me wrong, these are excellent tools, but should not be your solution to every issue.

The start of interoperability planning really should be a critical look at the organizational structure, both formal and non-formal, of your incidents. Do you operate using Incident Command System or some crazy system where everybody just does whatever they want? Who really needs to talk to who? Just like the incident command system, your interoperability needs should be scalable. You should be able to add functionality and remove functionality as the incident expands or starts demobilizing.

I really learned during my Communications Unit Leader training this past week that it's important for the COML to be the one to take this critical look at the communications system in question, and to consult the leaders on the ground as to what they need to accomplish their goals. You can talk about communicators, but you can't talk without them! The key is the partnership and cooperation between these entities to decide how the final overall communications system will work.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of Emergency Communications has put together a great chart called the interoperability continuum which helps planners understand the many options they have to solve the interoperability challenges of today. The continuum shows the variety of methods that you can use to help various users communicate including the sharing of radios, creation of radio mode standards, and system interconnects using gateways. Unlike some documents that DHS has created, this one is actually a pretty clear and understandable one that puts interoperability in a good perspective. It also notes that all of these solutions are created equal, and that a technology product isn't always the answer. You will notice older versions of the chart which have an arrow stating minimal to optimum interoperability which has now been removed thanks to some smart thinking by officials at DHS.

The reason I'm writing this article today is because of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials Conference that just recently passed this week. Both Motorola and Harris showed off new multi-band radios that are able to put a new interoperability tool right in the hands of responders. Thales also showed off their Liberty handheld multi-band radio which I've written about here on the blog about a month or so ago.

The Harris Unity XG-100 and the Thales Liberty handhelds do VHF, UHF, 700MHz, and 800MHz analog, and digital including P25 trunking. They are both designed using software designed radio (SDR) architecture which enables them these wide transmit capabilities. It's important to note though that even though these radios have tons of capability, they still don't operate in the many proprietary systems that operate today including the M/A-Com OpenSky or Motorola Smartzone systems. For example, these radios would be useless in the State of Delaware because of our reliance on the 800MHz Motorola Smartzone system we operate in the State.

Motorola introduced two radios at this years APCO Conference which are a lot more appealing to me called the APX 7000 portable and APX 7500 mobile. These radios are capable of VHF, 700MHz, and 800MHz analog and P25 digital trunking operation as well as the proprietary Smartzone protocol. This is a lot more useful within Delaware when we can actually operate on the main system we've created in this state.

These radios offer you a whole new tool during an incident. Rather than worrying about trying to patch various systems together, an individual can access another agencies communication channel at his or her leisure with just the flick of a switch. It provides a unique opportunity for those who need direct communication with outside agencies on different systems.

It's important to remember that these radios are not interoperability, but a tool that can help you establish interoperability. If your responders need communications with someone with a different radio system without having to tie up or being loaned a radio, these might be the solutions for you. If you don't think you need that capability, it may be time for you to consider the many other options to solve your interoperability issues.

73

My Third Trip To Kansas City

2008-08-09T21:20:00.000-04:00

Just got back from an elevator rescue. Once again another busy month without any updates here on the blog. I apologize for those of you who enjoy reading my ramblings, and I'm going to make it up to you with a commentary on the "new interoperability" that I'll be writing this evening and automatically posting tomorrow courtesy of the Blogger scheduled posting feature.

July was a lot of fun and I was able to get a lot of things done. Of course, I did my work for DEMA as always and got to be involved with a lot of really neat things. The start of the month included a disaster preparedness press conference with U.S. Representative Mike Castle at the Red Cross building in Seaford. I went there with my boss Bob George to listen to the Congressman and Red Cross representatives as well as to say a few words about preparedness on behalf of DEMA. My job was to take pictures!

I was able to help take part in Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Training this past month for the Division of Public Health. We had a variety of great instructors with plenty of experience when it comes to emergency preparedness. The students really enjoyed it. For those of you that haven't taken CERT training, it's definitely a great class, especially in Delaware!

I also spent a significant portion of this month continuing to work out issues with our interoperability grant that I've been dealing with since 2006. The amount of people that have had to be involved in this process was far too many, and the amount of checks and balances involved have been ridiculous. I'm all for a accountable government, but when it stops all activity that the government is responsible for, something is definitely wrong! The equipment should be advertised and bid on in the upcoming weeks and hopefully purchased soon after.

I also finished my the internship (which was working for DEMA) for a couple credits at UD. I had to complete a weekly journal, as well as a 10 page paper at the end of the internship on what I learned. After being there for about three years, I was at quite an advantage when doing this internship. At least its done and out of the way now! Soon enough I'll be back up to Newark taking REAL classes again.

One of my major projects currently is planning for the communications side of an upcoming FEMA exercise which will be testing emergency managements response to a prolonged power outage. I've been involved in the planning meetings and have gotten a good idea of what all of the players involved hope to accomplish during the exercise. Specifically for amateur radio we hope to test the equipment at the alternate EOC location, as well as a communication link between DEMA and MEMA in Maryland. Since this exercise will be the entire FEMA Region III (DE, PA, WV, VA, MD, DC), I hope to see some amateur radio involvement from the other states. I've started talks with our MARS, ARES, and RACES folks in Delaware to look at their goals as well.

Also this month I mailed in my application for Christiana Fire Company up in New Castle County. It's obvious I won't be able to respond to fire calls in Lewes while I'm at UD so I knew it would be important for me to join a company up north. I've heard a lot of good things about Stations 3, 6, and 12 which is the reason I joined. I should be hearing from them soon now that my background check is complete and being sent to them. Below is a shot of me and my fellow firefighters from Station 82 for a standby at Millville Fire Company Station 84.

Probably the most important thing that I was involved in since I last posted was my trip to Kansas City, MO to take part in the DHS Communications Unit Leader (COML) training as part of the APCO Conference. DEMA paid to have me sent out to be one of the first in the nation to have this certification. This course was probably one of the best I've been involved in. It went over a variety of issues facing emergency communications and interoperability. What was great was the amount of emergency communications specialists from all across the country involved. Interestingly enough about 70% of the class were hams that were involved with public safety communications as their career.

What ticks me off is how I still can't rent a car because I'm not 21 yet. I had to rely on taxi and bus transportation while I was in the city, which I'm not so fond of. Oh well, I survived and am back in Delaware.

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Month in Review

2008-07-06T22:44:00.001-04:00

I try to post more than monthly, but this month it didn't work out that way. I'll try and give you a recap of the major things that have been going on.

The majority of my days have been spent going on fire calls, and working for DEMA in the remainder of the time. I've been taking this whole fire thing pretty seriously and probably have only missed 2 or 3 days in the past month. It's kind of interesting to learn a new skill from scratch, and the past month has most certainly been a learning experience. We normally average about one fire call per day, and maybe 5 to 7 EMS calls. I don't go on any EMS calls and really have no desire to.

I've been to everything from water rescues to structures fires to wires arching to motor vehicle accidents. Each range a different set of skills needed, and I learn something during each incident. This July 4th we did a cover up for Rehoboth Station 86 which was fun. Rehoboth set a piece of apparatus on nearly every street in town in order to provide better service with the increased traffic volume during the holiday weekend. We had two calls on our street including a transformer fire and ambulance transport. This morning I was up in Newark so I missed the five fire calls we had within a two hour period because of the storm that passed through. I guess I can't catch them all!

The majority of my time when not spent at the firehouse is doing my work for DEMA. I'm working on doing some major changes on the Delaware Citizen Corps website, www.delawarecitizencorps.org in adding more preparedness information for a variety of hazards. I'm also still doing all of the communications related stuff. My major project over the past few weeks has been moving along our communications interoperability grant. The grant process has been one of the most slow and painstaking things I've ever done, and the amount of people involved makes it very difficult to manage. If I was doing it all myself I suppose I could have had it done by now, but that just isn't the case.

I found out this past week that I'll be going to Kansas City, MO to take place in the first Communications Unit Leader training in the United States. This will be taking place on August 1st through 3rd. I'm pretty excited to be a part of this special class that will eventually be rolled out across the US. I wanted to take this class now for my Incident Management Team training in order to have it done and over with before school starts back up.

Tomorrow I'll be at a press conference with U.S. Representative Mike Castle on Disaster Preparedness in Seaford, DE. This is similar to the one we did on Lewes Beach about a year ago. I'll take pictures and let you all know how it went.

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Delaware Mobile Command Post Exercise

2008-06-05T16:27:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I participated in an exercise at the Summit Airport in Middletown, DE to test interoperability between the Delaware State Police, Kent County, and New Castle County Mobile Command Posts. During this exercise we hooked up the phone and video systems between all three command posts, as well as did radio checks on 800MHz between all three vehicles. Additionally I worked with Ed Aragon N3YDN to get the amateur radio equipment up and running on board the DSP Command Center to demonstrate the capability to the two counties.

Also during this exercise, we tested video downlink from the Delaware State Police Aviation Section helicopters. This is the first time I've seen this system in person and I was very impressed. The video from the copters is extremely clear even from quite a distance. I also got to see the new Bell 412 that DSP has purchased in action. It's much larger than the Bell 407's that DSP owns! Above are some videos and pictures of the event throughout the day.

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Busy Week

2008-05-31T21:26:00.005-04:00

This past week has been extremely busy. This has been final exam week for school so I've been busy studying and getting my stuff packed for the ride home. I've only gotten two final grades back so far which is Emergency Management (A) and my Spanish III class (B). Needless to say I was pretty happy with the grades.

Thursday afternoon I packed my truck up and was on my way to College Park, MD. Amos Scott and I planned on spending the night at the College Park Volunteer Fire Department the night before the Command & Communications Vehicle Rally. The Chief of CPVFD, Ty Dickerson, is on the Delaware IMT and is a really sharp guy. I thank him and the rest of his team for the hospitality Thursday night.

College Park runs a really cool program at their fire department called the Sackroom. Since the station is so close to the University of Maryland, they have a live-in program for students who are interested in riding with the fire department. They literally have a separate wing in the building which is dorm rooms for students. And let me tell you, these rooms are just like the new dorm rooms that UD is building...very spacious and with bathrooms! What's great is they are at the firehouse all the time, and can get to calls a lot quicker than being on campus. I was VERY impressed by their program!

We planned on going on calls with the fire department throughout the night but they never got any except two medic calls. We woke up the next morning and made the trek to Chantilly, VA for the Command, Control, & Communications Vehicle Rally. Arriving at about 8am, we didn't leave until 3pm. There were tons of command posts there to look through, at least twenty more than last year. What was nuts was how some of the command posts from last year weren't even there, yet they still had more!

The great thing about this command post rally is that you get a close up view of the newest technologies, and you get to see them in use. James Wadsworth and James Grant of the Fairfax County, VA Radio Services Center put this show together every year to bring out the command posts from the National Capital Region in order for them to get together and meet each other. Throughout the rally, they do interoperability testing on radio, as well as collaboration software like WebEOC, and also live video streaming to the command posts from the Fairfax County Police Helicopter.

I enjoy going out and getting ideas that I can bring back home. There are always some unique ideas that some of the agencies put together that we could use in Delaware. Hopefully for next year's event, we can get a Delaware vehicle out there!

Today, I drove to the Dover International Speedway to work with the Incident Management Team for the NASCAR Series race there this weekend. We developed the Incident Action Plan for the Sunday Sprint Cup Race, as well as for the Saturday Busch Race. Our new travel trailer for the IMT was located next to the Dover International Speedway Joint Operations Center which is a facility built to help coordinate all of the agencies responsible for emergency operations at the track. This includes everyone from DelDOT, DSP, Dover Police Department, Dover Fire Department, FBI, ATF, Kent County 911 Center, DSP KENTCOM, Public Health, and the list goes on. They use the building as an EOC and it brings them all in one place in order to effectively manage an incident.

The trailer is really intended for IMT members to sleep in use for logistical purposes like cooking and a bathroom. We were able to use it for actual operations though, and it kept us out of the commotion inside the JOC. The trailer was spacious and suited us well. Of course with this being our initial shakedown run, we have things to improve upon for next time.

In addition I got to see the FBI's communications trailer out of the Baltimore office which was parked next to our trailer. Onboard they had a whole suite of radios on VHF, UHF, and 800MHz as well as an JPS ACU-1000 and were able to patch their onboard VHF P25 repeater to our State 800MHz system. This is the first time I've ever been involved in an incident that has included something other than our State 800MHz or amateur radio so it was important to note this when I was completing the ICS 205 form (Incident Communications Radio Plan) for the agencies. The FBI guys definitely had the equipment to do the job!

Time for me to relax now. I've just had too much fun the past few days!

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