Category Archives: CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS

5 Reasons Your Agency Should Have a Smartphone App

25 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by in #SMEM, CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS, CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION, HOMELAND SECURITY

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July 2013 IAEM Bulletin graphic

“There’s an app for that” has become a very popular phrase–and not just from teenagers. Apps (short for applications) are programs designed to run on smartphones and/or tablets–even without a phone or data connection. In January, Apple announced that they have sold over 40 billion apps for their iOS devices (such as the iPhone and iPad). Clearly apps are a huge part of information-sharing and reaching our target population, here are some reasons why your agency should considered designing and developing your own app:

 1. Apps are popular

In June 2013, the Pew Research Center reported its findings that 56% of Americans have smartphones capable of downloading apps–up from just 35% in 2011. Additionally, the number of Americans without a cell phone is down to just 9% of the population. According to research from New Relic, the average smartphone has over three dozen apps (forty-one to be exact) and the average smartphone user checks her phone 150 times per day with 127 minutes per day spent on apps. It is estimated that by the end of 2013, there will be 1.82 billion active smartphones globally and within the next two years, almost 100 billion apps are predicted to have been downloaded by smartphone users.

2. Keep your constituents informed

Unlike a webpage, when content or information is updated in an app, the app can send an alert to the smartphone user to acknowledge the update (also called “push” alerts). During an emergency, it is possible to also send direct messages to users through the app. While not robust enough for a sole means of emergency notification, push alerts or push notifications can be one of the tools emergency managers use for notifying the public. Additionally, if your agency includes plans in its app, app users will always have the most up-to-date plans. When posted on the internet, users can sometimes stumble upon an older version of a plan that has been saved by a search engine or re-posted by local groups, etc. With an app, there is unfiltered access to the most up-to-date information (without the fear of cached versions of older plans recirculating during an emergency).

3. Productivity without connectivity

When disconnected from wifi or wireless data feeds, apps can still function because they have the ability to save information to a user’s smartphone from the previous time an update was downloaded or a connection was available. If your agency wishes to provide any type of guidance for constituents if wireless connectivity is degraded, apps are a good solution. For items like evacuation routes, shelter guides, checklists, and other steady-state documentation, the apps can include those documents and simply update any of the documentation when the user connects to the internet–yet still maintains a copy on the user’s smartphone for when internet connectivity is unavailable.

4. Longer Reach

Since almost all smartphone users keep their phones nearby (how else would they be able to check their phones 150 times per day?), the smartphone is a better targeted device for distributing information than a laptop or desktop computer. Apps are built for ease of use–especially in transit or on the go. For emergency managers, our intended audience during an emergency are those constituents who can be empowered with the right information to help themselves and their community. Oftentimes, information is needed immediately–not when a person can find a computer nearby. Thus, the app is a perfect way of presenting actionable, executable information in a timely manner in a reliable format.

 5. Deeper Integration

As the operating systems (OS) of mobile devices become more advanced, apps are becoming better integrated with other programs on smartphones, such as maps, the address book, GPS, text messaging, and social media. The benefit of emergency management apps would be the deeper integration with other platforms. In a large-scale disaster, an emergency management app could open up a smartphone’s maps app to plot a course to safety. Once safe, an emergency management app could recommend using social media (rather than a phone call–which ties up limited bandwidth) to let family members and friends know that the user is safe. Deeper integration with reminders, calendar appointments, and other future mobile platform developments can serve to promote preparedness, enhance dynamic, safe responses, and encourage more robust recovery from disaster.

Screenshot 2012.09.07 12.06.45

While not every emergency management agency is ready to release their own app, agencies such as Washington, DC’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA), Virginia’s Department of Emergency Management (VDEM), and even FEMA have already released apps for specific use during emergencies. Will your agency be next?

Relocation After Evacuation: The Danger of Outdoor Evacuation

11 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE

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I frequently teach emergency management classes/trainings and the topic of evacuations comes up a lot. Even when I teach emergency managers, I’m often surprised by how few understand the concept. The objective of evacuation is to relocate to a place of greater-known safety (ideally to a location that permits continued sheltering-in-place).

Most folks think of evacuation as just getting out of dodge. Essentially, we have quite an elementary mindset of evacuation. Literally elementary. The standard we seem to have adopted is that we all simply file through the exits and make our way outside. Seemingly, that’s when most emergency management plans end. Fortunately, that is not when our duty as emergency managers ends.

Just like the captain of a ship, the duties of an emergency manager don’t end once we leave the building. Our duty extends until the folks we serve are safe (and that is not synonymous with outdoors!)

Of course, we recognize that sending folks outside isn’t always the safest course of action (if that were the case, we would just always evacuate). For instance, if we suspected that there were anthrax in the air outside, we wouldn’t evacuate outdoors. Similarly, if there were evidence of HAZMAT outdoors, we would shelter-in-place rather than evacuate.

 

Too frequently we neglect to consider the effects of outdoor evacuation posed by inclement weather, potential for secondary attack/sniper, damages/injuries caused by secondary improvised explosive devices (IED) intended for responders/evacuees, and lack of accommodations for those with functional/access needs as well as those with medical issues.

For example, in 1998, two students activated the fire alarm at a middle school and took up shooting positions around the outdoor field. The result was the Westside Middle School massacre with five people killed. In 1974, five people were killed and 11 injured when a student in New York fired on his classmates as they evacuated Olean High School.

I propose an evacuation decision-making process that begins with notification of a hazard and concludes with a rapid assessment to relocate to an alternative indoor location or return quickly indoors to the primary location. You’ll notice that evacuation is the HALFWAY point of the process, not the terminal activity. It is vitally important for emergency managers to understand that safety is not intrinsically linked with the outdoors.

Indeed, when folks have evacuated outdoors, there are many safety and security concerns present. For individuals with medical conditions, will they be able to take medication outdoors? What if they require privacy, drinking water, or a sharps container? Is there perimeter security for an outdoor evacuations (also known as “force protection”)? If the weather is severely cold, is ice accumulation a hazard? Is there the threat of frostbite? During severely hot weather, individuals outside for extended periods of time may become victims of heatstroke, dehydration, and other medical problems associated with exposure. When individuals are forced to evacuate and stand outdoors for extended periods of time, the potential for secondary medical emergencies and abandonment (the act of one or more individuals abandoning the evacuation effort) increases.

During an evacuation, discipline and accountability are crucial. Poor communication, inconsiderate attitudes towards those with special needs, and discomfort due to environmental conditions are all issues that plague evacuations and can lead to discord among the evacuated masses. As emergency managers, we must recognize that an outdoor evacuation should be planned to be as rapid as possible. If immediate return to the affected building is impossible, emergency managers must have a plan to immediately relocate personnel to an indoor evacuation rendezvous point. 

Hopefully, if we rebel against an “elementary” mindset of evacuation and plan for immediate relocation after evacuation, we’ll reduce the collective risk of injury or death due to outdoor safety/security concerns.

Active Shooter Training Isn’t Just for Cops and Teachers…

21 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS, HOMELAND SECURITY, PREPAREDNESS, PUBLIC HEALTH, RESPONSE

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The first active shooter exercise I witnessed (in 2002) ended with the shooter starting to open fire on his victims, the SWAT team appearing from nowhere then throwing a flash-bang device, and taking the suspect into custody. Before the controller yelled “ENDEX”, the last thing I heard was one of the police officers calling on his radio to send in the medics.

In Tucson, Arizona last year, deputies arriving to the scene of the Rep. Giffords shooting gained notoriety for using special medic kits to provide first aid to the injured. In Tucson, a SWAT medic had assembled $99 kits for police officers based on the military’s Improved First Aid Kit (I-FAK).

Many law enforcement agencies see their job as done once the scene is rendered safe. The Giffords shooting directed national attention to the valiant medical aid the deputies provided after handcuffing the shooter. More agencies are realizing the need for advanced medical training, equipment, and preparedness for all first responders. A recent article in Rialto, CA profiles a emergency room physician who joined Rialto’s SWAT team (they call him the “SWAT Doc”). In the article, Dr. Neeki is quoted saying “it is important for SWAT team paramedics to have advanced training in wound care, airway management techniques, and procedures for spinal injuries.” The doctor is right.

From my personal experience, few fire departments and emergency medical services folks are trained in active shooter response alongside law enforcement. Thus, in my opinion, the response is often disjointed (such as the scene I described where the police capture the bad guy and fail to assist in triage/first aid).

Arlington County, Virginia realized its fire fighters and EMS were not able to be as proactive in response to active shooter scenarios as they desired to be. An excellent, must-read article in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS), describes what Arlington County found to be the problem. The article explains: “The current standard fire/EMS response to the active shooter is to stage in a secure location until police mitigate the threat and secure the area to create a scene safe for fire/EMS operations. But there’s a basic problem with this response: While waiting for a secure scene, those injured inside the building aren’t receiving care and are dying from their injuries.” To address this issue, Arlington assembled task forces of medics and police officers to improve safety for their responders while also improving the quality and speed of care for survivors of active shooter incidents. The task force developed protocols for responding to active shooters based on the Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) school of thought. The TCCC concept was developed in 1996 and was first released in Military Medicine by CAPT Frank K Butler, Jr., MC USN, LTC John Hagmann, MC US, ENS E. George Butler, MC USN.

The major differences between traditional care and TCCC care during mass casualty incidents (with combat-like mechanisms of injury) cited in the JEMS article are the following:

  • Airway control is not the first priority. Not only are exsanguinating extremity wounds far more common than airway injury, but a person can bleed to death from a large arterial wound in two to three minutes, while it may take four to five minutes to die from a compromised airway.
  • Because supplies and resources are limited in combat and austere environments, medical treatment and stabilization must be done expediently with minimal supplies. Tourniquets are emphasized and prioritized as a quick and effective method to control extremity hemorrhage.
  • For non-exsanguinating hemorrhage, mechanical pressure dressings with wound packing are used. Some wounds, including those in the femoral triangle or in the neck, are not amenable to tourniquets. These wounds are controlled using hemostatic agents, such as Celox, QuikClot ACS and HemCon, in conjunction with direct pressure.
  • For airway control, nasopharyngeal airways are emphasized over oropharyngeal or endotracheal intubation; nasal airways are fast, stable and effective in all unconscious or altered mental status patients, regardless of the presence of a gag reflex. Intubation is de-emphasized because it requires extra equipment and loss of situational awareness.
In Arlington, the fire department established Rescue Task Forces (RTF) to incorporate TCCC principles into active shooter response. RTFs work in the following ways:
  • The first one or two RTF teams that enter the building move deep inside to stabilize as many victims as possible before any one victim is evacuated. As victims are reached, the RTF police officers provide security in place while the medics treat the victims. Using the concepts of TCCC, they stabilize only the immediately life-threatening wounds on each patient they encounter, but leave these patients where they are found and move on.
  • Medics are outfitted in ballistic vests and helmets to further mitigate the risk of operating in this environment. Based on daily staffing in Arlington County, a total of seven RTFs can be formed at any time, each equipped to carry enough supplies to treat up to 14 victims, depending on their injuries.
  • The number of victims that can be stabilized by these initial RTF teams is limited only by the amount of supplies carried in. Once out of supplies, teams start moving back out of the building, evacuating patients they’ve treated. At the same time, additional RTF teams are formed as personnel become available; these teams are brought in with the primary mission of evacuating the remaining stabilized victims.
  • A supply depot is set up near the entry point to the area of operations to allow for quick re-supply and turnaround for RTF teams. If needed, an internal casualty collection point will be set up near a secure entry point, where casualties can be grouped to allow for faster and more efficient evacuation by non-RTF EMS personnel.
  • All patients are eventually evacuated to an external casualty collection point well outside the building in a secure location where traditional EMS care is initiated.
While definitely sophisticated, I believe the system Arlington County developed is excellent at providing a confident response to an active shooting. Recently, in the District of Columbia, medics near a shooting actually hid rather than respond (DC ambulance hides after mass shooting). A confident and safe response is necessary in all jurisdictions. And please, next time you have an active shooter exercise, don’t stop the exercise when the cops take out the bad guy–real life consequences demand that we train to continue providing care to the injured after the threat has been terminated.

The Need for Campus Emergency Planning Scenarios

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, PREPAREDNESS, RECOVERY, RESPONSE

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In March 2006, the Federal interagency community released its updated fifteen all-hazards planning scenarios entitled the “National Planning Scenarios” or NPS. NPS are planning tools that are representative of the range of potential terrorist attacks and natural disasters and the related impacts that face our nation. The objective of the NPS was to develop a minimum number of credible scenarios in order to establish the range of response requirements to facilitate preparedness planning at the Federal level.

NPS were used in the implementation of Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-8, “National Preparedness,” including the development of the National Preparedness Goal and National Exercise Program (NEP). In helping to develop the National Preparedness Goal, NPS provided the foundation for identifying the capabilities across all mission areas and the target levels of those capabilities needed for effective prevention, response, and recovery to major events, such as those outlined in the NPS.

While documents like NPS, the National Preparedness Directive, and National Preparedness Goal constitute the foundation of planning and preparedness for Federal planners, very few foundational documents exist for our Nation’s most vulnerable citizens: our children.

With that in mind, I propose (in draft form) the following Campus Emergency Planning Scenarios (CEPS), sorted by natural hazards and man-made hazards:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the perfect world, each school would have an Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) with hazard-specific annexes (taken from the aforementioned CEPS). Schools would design and develop plans that include protective measures, pre-scripted public information products, initial actions, coordination requirements, and tactical-level checklists for the incident commander and campus ICS positions.

While many schools may have plans for one or several of the CEPS hazards, few schools have comprehensive emergency management programs that address all of the CEPS hazards. By developing industry-accepted Campus Emergency Planning Scenarios, schools and school districts might be prompted to develop plans, policies, procedures, and protocols for preparing for, responding to, and recovering from the hazards in CEPS. Based on CEPS, perhaps school administrators would be motivated to reach consensus on designing and developing a campus preparedness goal, campus preparedness system/framework, or even lobbying the Secretary of the US Department of Education to release a Campus Preparedness Directive.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, the scenarios I propose are in draft form and I would greatly appreciate any comments, feedback, or suggested changes.

The Economics of Information during Emergencies

09 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in #SMEM, CAMPUS SAFETY, SECURITY, & PREPAREDNESS, EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION

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Unfortunately, the Virginia Tech community suffered another tragedy yesterday with the news of the murder of a police officer and the subsequent suicide of the shooter on campus. Campus officials did their best to communicate with students, faculty, and staff–and I’m aware of no complaints about the campus response. The New York Times has an interesting article regarding the intrepid journalism of VA Tech’s newspaper via Twitter.

As those of us in the Social Media in Emergency Management ( #SMEM ) circle know, Twitter and other forms of social media are quickly becoming major competitors to more established sources for information (such as the NY Times/print media). During emergencies or otherwise notorious events, the Internet can slow to a crawl in the affected area, but Twitter and other forms of SMEM are often unaffected and continue to spread the word. In an emergency, information can be viewed as an economic problem–overwhelming demand with a slow trickle of supply. If that supply is impeded (like VA Tech’s student newspaper–which had to relocate), other pathways to supply are likely to be developed in an ad hoc fashion using mobile technology (namely, social media). Thus, I’ve developed the Jasper model to help visualize the point at which social media overcomes traditional sources of news and guidance during an emergency. Please feel free to leave comments with suggestions, corrections, or modifications to improve this model…