Are You Prepared for the Next Catastrophe?

Benjamin Almquist, Director of Emergency Management at City of Charleston

One of the biggest challenges facing emergency management today is our ability to prepare for catastrophic events. We’re seeing this play out now in Hawaii, where a wildfire was fueled by an offshore hurricane that caused the flames to spread much more rapidly. It highlights something that far too many jurisdictions haven’t planned or prepared for: a cascading or supplemental event that exacerbates the effects of an emergency or disaster. While these events are rare, they must still be prepared for.

The factors in creating catastrophic events are many: climate change, sea level rise, urban sprawl, deforestation, infrastructure failure, logistics delays, civil unrest, lack of planning and support, and many more. These are the unseen factors that make us more susceptible to these types of incidents. There is also, of course, pure bad luck and timing. That is why it is all the more important to be proactive in our planning for these types of events.

Hurricane Katrina, the Joplin EF-5 tornado, the Fukushima tsunami and reactor failure, Hurricane Maria, and many others are all examples of catastrophic events. In each case, there was something different that took an event from disaster to catastrophe. Something that just wasn’t planned for. That begs the question, though, how could they have prepared for that?

“We aren’t doing our citizens any favors by doing anything less than preparing for the worst.”

Nearly every jurisdiction has an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP). Many also have a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP). However, those plans often don’t go far enough to prepare for a catastrophic event, and many of us know that some of these plans are only written to get a “check in the box” for FEMA and other grant funding. Have you reviewed these plans? Have you thoroughly tested them on a regular basis? Did you go outside professional opinions and recommendations?

Preparing for a catastrophic event isn’t easy. It requires time, money, and buy-in from both internal and external stakeholders. It also requires a culture where your key decision-makers and subject matter experts are constantly looking for ways to improve. Nobody can have an ego when it comes to preparation. That can sometimes be difficult for professionals and decision-makers. That’s also why it is so important to make training a regular part of your organization’s culture.

There is still more to do beyond that training. There should be constant evaluation and progress in our emergency plans; identifying new partnerships and enhancing old ones, updating our equipment and personnel standards, and ensuring our plans work in coordination with those of our stakeholders.

Learning! Growing! Evolving!

We also must constantly hold honest self-evaluations as individuals and organizations. One of the most common failures in emergency management is when we put our blinders on. We tend to focus our efforts on those disasters and emergencies that seem most likely or common to our jurisdiction. While it’s understandable that you want to be prepared for the most likely scenario, it should not mean overlooking less obvious situations.

I’ve had these conversations myself with various leaders and decision-makers. When assessing an emergency operations center, I’ll always ask if it is rated to Category 5 hurricane winds and storm surge (or other appropriate disaster conditions). Far too often, I have heard a response along the lines of, “Well, what are the odds of that happening?” Emergency management and disaster preparedness aren’t about the odds. The whole reason for the existence of our field is to be ready for the major events that don’t happen all the time. So why wouldn’t you be preparing for the worst-case scenario?

It is our job as public servants in the field of emergency management, as well as of those senior and elected officials we report to, to ensure our jurisdiction is as ready as possible for the worst-case, especially at the local government level. That is where everything begins and ends. We aren’t doing our citizens any favors by doing anything less than preparing for the worst.

So while we are watching the events in Maui unfold, or those of the next catastrophic event, start asking questions of your emergency management team. What are your mission gaps? What are your blind spots? What is the extent of your capabilities? How do you improve upon those areas? Make it your mission to identify what you can do better and then find a way to get it done. There is always something more that can be done, and it might just save your community from being the next big disaster headline.

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