EMERGENCY PLANNING AND EXERCISE

Beverley Osborne

Are You Ready??

It would never happen to us ……

• 11th March 2011– At 2:46pm a 9.0 magnitude earthquake takes place 231 miles northeast of Tokyo,

Japan at a depth of 15.2 miles– The earthquake causes a tsunami with 30ft waves that damage several nuclear

reactors in the area

• 12th March 2011– Overnight, a 6.2 magnitude aftershock hits the Nagano and Niigata prefecture

(USGS). Another aftershock hits the west coast of Honshu - 6.3 magnitude.– At 5:00am, a nuclear emergency is declared at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power

plant. Officials report the earthquake and tsunami have cut off the plant's electrical power, and that backup generators have been disabled by the tsunami.

– At least six million homes - 10 percent of Japan's households - are without electricity, and a million are without water.

• 14th March 2011– Rolling blackouts begin in parts of Tokyo and eight prefectures. Downtown Tokyo is

not included. Up to 45 million people will be affected in the rolling outages, which are scheduled to last until April.

• 6th April 2011– Honda halved production at its Swindon car manufacturing plant due to a shortage

of components. 3,000 workers in Swindon work a 2 day week, and full production does not resume until 1st September 2011.

Emergency Planning

Emergency Planning

Catastrophic

5

Pandemic

Influenza

Significant

4

Coastal

Flooding

Effusive

volcanic

eruption

Moderate

3

Major

transport

accidents

Major

industrial

accidents

Other

infectious

diseases

Inland flooding

Severe space

weather

Low

temperatures

and heavy

snow

Heatwaves

Minor

2

Animal

diseases

Drought

Public disorder

Explosive

volcanic

eruption

Storms and

gales

Insignificant

1

Severe

wildfires

Disruptive

industrial

action

Between 1 in

20,000 and 1 in

2,000

Between 1 in

2,000 and 1 in

200

Between 1 in

200 and 1 in 20

Between 1 in

20 and 1 in 2

Greater than 1

in 2

Relative likelihood of risk occurring in the next 5 years (excluding terrorism)

Emergency Planning

Five conditions for Guidance and Plans to fail:

1. If people don’t know about it, they can’t read it

2. If people don’t read it, they can’t follow it

3. If people can’t understand it, they can’t follow it

4. If people can’t remember it, they can’t follow it *

5. If people don’t like it, they might just ignore it* This one applies to recall under pressure and time criticality

Emergency Planning

Exercises – What Should You Expect?

• An exercise is a simulation of an emergency situation.

• Exercises have 3 main purposes:

– To validate plans (validation)

– To develop staff competencies and give them practice in carrying out their roles in the plans (training)

– To test well-established procedures (testing)

• Exercising is not to catch people out – it tests procedures, not people. An exercise should make people feel more comfortable in their roles and build morale.

• There are 3 main types of exercises:

– Discussion Based

– Table top

– Live

Emergency Planning

“Every time history repeats itself the price goes up”

[1966] The Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan (The AberfanDisaster Tribunal of Inquiry)

[1988] Senior management were too easily satisfied that the PTW system was being operated correctly, relying on the absence of any problems as indicating that all was well … (Piper Alpha Inquiry)

[2000] Despite the existence of relatively clear rules, the Southall accident revealed widespread failures of compliance with fault reporting procedures. (Southall Rail Accident Report)

[2003] The foam did it … the institution allowed it (Columbia Accident Investigation Board)

[2006] The Nimrod Safety Case process was fatally undermined by a general malaise: a widespread assumption by those involved that the Nimrod was ‘safe anyway’ (because it had successfully flown for 30 years) and the task of drawing up the Safety Case became essentially a paperwork and ‘tick- box’ exercise (Haddon-Cave Report into loss of Nimrod XV230)

“Every time history repeats itself the price goes up”

[1966] The Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan (The Aberfan Disaster Tribunal of Inquiry)

[1988] Senior management were too easily satisfied that the PTW system was being operated correctly, relying on the absence of any problems as indicating that all was well … (Piper Alpha Inquiry)

[2000] Despite the existence of relatively clear rules, the Southall accident revealed widespread failures of compliance with fault reporting procedures. (Southall Rail Accident Report)

[2003] The foam did it … the institution allowed it (Columbia Accident Investigation Board)

[2006] The Nimrod Safety Case process was fatally undermined by a general malaise: a widespread assumption by those involved that the Nimrod was ‘safe anyway’ (because it had successfully flown for 30 years) and the task of drawing up the Safety Case became essentially a paperwork and ‘tick- box’ exercise (Haddon-Cave Report into loss of Nimrod XV230)

Organisational Resilience

Organisational Resilience is the capability of an organisation to anticipate, prepare for, and respond and adapt to:

• Minor everyday events;• Acute or sudden shocks; and• Chronic or incremental changes

British Standard BS 65000:2014

Additional Benefits of Organisational Resilience

• Competitiveness

• Coherence

• Efficiency and Effectiveness

• Reputation

• Societal/Community Resilience

Baseline Attributes of a Resilient Organisation

• Governance and Accountability

• Leadership and Culture

• Common Vision and Purpose

Developing Organisational Resilience

Leadership

Governance & Accountability

Culture

Common Vision & Purpose

Be Informed

Set Direction

Bring Coherence

Develop adaptive capacity

Strengthen the

Organisation

Validate and review

Are You Ready?

• Ask yourself:

–Do we test/flex our strategic plans against future scenarios?

–Do we audit, exercise and test our resilience capabilities?

–Does our top management team know exactly the procedures to follow in a crisis and what else happens across the organisation? Do we rehearse this?

–Have we independently validated our performance within the last 3 years?