PROOFMany FrontLine readers are directlyresponsible for emergency preparednesswithin their community, region, ornation. We recognize that our prepara-tions for catastrophe are based on oureducation and research, our best thinkingabout specific areas, and how best to useour (always limited) resources. We alsoknow that, when chaos finally strikes, thedrills and inventories and manuals thatgave us a reasonable degree of confidencewill prove inadequate in some fashion.We are aware that our populations maysomeday suffer in ways that, in retro-spect, might have been partially avoid-able. This understanding of the challengeswe face stimulates us in our tasks and

makes us more diligent – but there is anevolution in disaster preparedness thatmay alter our methods for preparation,perhaps enhancing our eventual effective-ness in a real-world disaster.

Exercises, usually the capstone eventin disaster preparedness, are frequentlyrigid, with pre-defined metrics and mile-stones to ensure that the team is coveringresponsibilities in the “real-world.” Theimplication is that if the team can do X in

an exercise, they’ll be reasonably sure ofdoing it during an actual event, a reflec-tion of the military dictum “train as you’llfight, then fight as you trained.”

There are minor flaws in that supposi-tion. It presumes that the entire team willbe present and functioning at peak; thatresources will flow as designed; that thereal-world problem will look like theexercise scenario you’ve chosen; and thatthe non-actors in your exercise (themedia, your neighbors, your national gov-ernment, local private industry, roads,waterways, civilian communications,civilian food and water logistics, and theweather, for example…) will also be non-actors in a real event. There are nowmodels for how several of these can be

13 I FrontLine Security I SPRING 2007

Principles of Resilience

An Evolution inPreparedness

I EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS I by Doug Hanchard and Eric Rasmussen

International cooperation,mandated “to learn” will

allow us to be truly prepared.

Strong Angel III demonstrated that using multi-media technology to collect and pushinformation to the outside world improves the team’s capability to solve problems.

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incorporated into a disaster responsedemonstration (quite different from anexercise) in a manner that forces flexibil-ity, adaptability, and the co-developmentof resilience within both the respondersand the communities at risk.

Policy and Procedures

Policies and procedures are a criticalcomponent of our disaster preparation,ensuring we’ve thought carefully about arange of possible eventualities and donewhat we could, physically and procedu-rally, to prepare for them. Those guide-lines, however, rarely offer the flexibilityto simply adapt to what’s working in thereal world when the event occurs.

Acquisition methods are often slow,and sometimes driven by a single individ-ual’s familiarity with current research inthe field – this can lead to missed oppor-tunities for making important connectionswith new capabilities outside of our exer-cise space. We all have regulatory andmanagement structures, but we also needto communicate frequently and effec-tively with each other and with anaffected population. Today’s methods arerapidly evolving, and bear serious review.

In our view, policies and proceduresoften restrict creativity-toward-success infavor of a more centralized and hierarchicalsecurity. First responders acknowledgethat such restrictions can impede life-

sustaining responses, and that a carefulhybrid of policy-and-procedure, coupledwith well-trained independence, is oftencloser to ideal.

Comms, Lift, and Power

There are a few core issues during thefirst phases of a disaster where mostresponders would expect shortfalls. Formany of us, those would start with com-munications, transportation logistics, andelectrical power. Without those three,comms, lift, and power, very little can beeffectively designed or implemented as adisaster unfolds. “Layering” is a termsometimes used to define a process forpreparing as many methods for the deliv-ery of each of these critical resources ascan be devised.

Strong Angel

Over the past seven years there havebeen three international disaster responsedemonstrations called Strong Angel – andeach Strong Angel has demonstrated theconsequences of shortfalls in comms, lift,and power.

The first, in 2000, was a displaced-population problem addressing civil-military co-management in the field. Thesecond, in 2004, was driven by problemsidentified in Afghanistan and Iraq, andlooked at communications, cultural edu-

cation, and core public health resourcemanagement in a post-event reconstruc-tion. The third, in 2006, looked at com-munity resilience in the face of a naturaldisaster (including an epidemic), whereall outside resources were lost for anextended period. Strong Angel III involvedroughly 800 participants from ninenations, including more than 70 nationaland international corporations, and sev-eral academic institutions.

From that very large, week-longeffort, in an isolated and challenging envi-ronment (a cold, dark, hazardous buildingabandoned for fifteen years), came a setof lessons and pragmatic tools that havealtered disaster preparedness discussionsat the highest levels of several govern-ments, and are worth reviewing.

• Collaborative Layering

On the list of early considerations is theconcept of layering (used in the samesense as when the weather cannot quitebe predicted). It implies designing forresilience and a graceful degradationmode, even when the most unexpectedevents occur.

For most of us, some sections of ourplans have assumptions that seem sofundamental that we simply accept them,but is that wise? At Strong Angel weworked carefully to remove some ofthose assumptions. We eliminated, at odd

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Daily briefings are key to thesuccess of any exercise. Webriefed three times a dayduring Strong Angel.

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intervals, power, light, radio waves, trans-portation, wireless clouds, staff, hierarchi-cal structures, and expectations.

This intermittent and unpredictableloss of fundamental resources led to aresponsive and highly collaborative effortthat, in turn, led to some very creativesynthesis and a degree of success that sur-prised virtually every participant. It wasalso a superb team-building demonstra-tion – it led to very high morale and agenuine sense of earned self-confidence.We had, for example, Bell Canada andSprint Nextel sitting at the same tablewriting configurations together to maketheir systems work seamlessly becauseneither could meet a new and urgent taskindependently and (in the scenario) liveswere at stake.

In any Strong Angel demonstration,failure is an occasional and accepted out-come – though not encouraged. However,failures become fewer and the creativeinitiatives more admirable over time. It isimportant to note that the more often abroad-based team faces unexpected chal-lenges that push toward collaboration-across-boundaries, the more readily they reach forinteresting solutions. Each begins to lookat other agencies, organizations, andinterests as a common pool from whichto draw life-sustaining support whenresource silos and stovepipes collapse.

• Leadership

In Strong Angel, the initial conditions wereset with no hierarchy and no one incharge. Mid-way through the first day,several hours into the response, a CDCphysician, coincidentally in the newly-iso-lated city for a conference, was appointedScene Commander by the US President,completely bypassing all standard proto-

cols. In the scenario, the Commanderknew nothing of the Incident CommandSystem and asked no organizationaldevelopment questions of the assembledteam. He simply determined what he, agenuine expert in the circumstances butwho knew nothing of the community,needed from the crowd. He thendemanded those things to be accuratelydetermined on a scheduled basis – nomatter how the information was derivedas long as it was trustworthy and accurateto a sensible degree. The information wasthen built into further requirements forassessment and action and the develop-ment of a plan. That plan, in turn, wasimplemented throughout a large geo-graphic area with only ad hoc communi-cations that yet needed close coordina-tion. Tough problems.

It became readily apparent to partici-pants that a system of flows was needed– information, decision, and action. Somerough starts over 24 hours led to thedevelopment of a fairly complete IncidentCommand System, on the current model.The reasons for such a system were clearto the large number of non-EmergencyResponse participants and it seemed well-designed for a domestic response.

• Redundant, Diverse, Resilient,and Open-source

Questions asked by the Scene Com-mander were both basic and complex.The answers required rapid assessment ofcritical information from many sources,and collection, analysis, and reporting tooldevelopment soon took on a life of itsown. The Scene Commander was veryclear about the accuracy and reportingrequirements – the teams on the groundhad specific guidance on what and when,but not how! They were left to their owndevices for solving problems, using anytools at hand.

The teams soon realized that a work-ing directory of who was doing what,where and with what resources was acritical component of effective and timelywork. A “Dynamic Directory” was born,and several individuals were givenresponsibility for maintaining it – dedicat-ing valuable staff resources in the middleof an emergency because they determinedthat capability was absolutely necessary.

The participants also found thatproprietary tools were… unhelpful. Toolsbuilt on open-standards that interoperategracefully saved time and irritation dur-

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Medical teams learned how to interoperate with other groups and technologies.

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PROOFing a period of crisis, and our initialchoices of software and radios providedreassuring evidence of a pre-conceivedwillingness to cooperate with partners.

We also noted repeatedly that per-sonal, face-to-face communications savedtime and improved efficiency. Personalrelationships also help reduce the risk ofsmall errors becoming inflated, distractingissues. In our view, using every conceiv-able opportunity to meet, chat, sharea cup of coffee, work through practicaland strategic issues over dinners, andarranging tabletop exercises that gavegood reason for everyone to participatecollaboratively, all helped to cement acoherently smooth emergency response.

We were careful to include all of theactors who might potentially affect thosein the field, not just EMS – power, water,light, schools, airport authorities, citycouncils, vets, mosques, churches, syna-gogues and more were all on our invita-tion list.

One tool proved exceptionally effec-tive. The use of internet-based chat andVoice-over-IP (VoIP) through tools likeSkype cost very little, are commonly usedby a very large number of people, aredependent only upon internet connectiv-ity of any kind, and can call any phone onthe planet. We also found that off-the-shelf resources like Skype continuallyimprove through market pressures and all

we needed to do was download the mostrecent version (at no charge) periodically.

Social Interoperability Networking(SIN) events, one term for such designedand metrics-based mashups of people andtechnologies, like Strong Angel, are usefulfor many tasks, not just disasterresponses. Capabilities like Skype (orGroove, or Jot, or MySpace, or wikis, orblogs, or…) are most beneficial when usedfrequently. It’s sensible for any EmergencyManager to ensure his staff has the tools(and reasons) for frequently reaching outto other responder agencies, offeringrelevant assistance and keeping the multi-lateral flow of information smooth.

Frequent communication over non-standard and ad hoc methods keepseveryone aware that, when bad thingshappen, policies and procedures shouldbe known and used where they fit, butthere should be little hesitation inempowering far-forward personnel tomake independent judgments that get thejob done intelligently.

Media ComplicationsOne frequently overlooked trainingrequirement in disaster response is mediamanagement. There will be more mediaand more politics than preferred – and theconsequences of a poor interaction ineither can be disastrous, even if the actualresponse is performed reasonably and well.

It is not always possible for your staffto avoid the media, despite perhaps care-ful instructions to do so, therefore, prepar-ing them for that interaction is a fair andsensible part of their training. We use athree-day course at Strong Angel, called theMedia Crucible, and the role-playingthere, under multiple scenarios andincreasing pressures, has reportedly beenmost useful later for its participants in anumber of real-world events.

Resources Improve

Strong Angel III started with roughly 50disaster-response tasks to perform, andmost were completed successfully. Somewere simple, some complex, some trivial,and some impossible. Each was designedto meet a real-world problem experiencedby one of the eleven Executive Com-mittee members. Each proposed scenariowas evaluated on the likelihood that sucha problem would re-appear again in thefuture. If we agreed it would, we includedit as a task for which we’d pursue solu-tions. In doing so, we found that the adhoc resources available to an emergencyresponder in 2007 are more useful thanmost realize, and the tools in the commu-nity, both technical and social, are becom-ing paradoxically more sophisticated andsimple all the time.

Strong Angel IV is in planning stages for2008. Further information, and the resultsof the 50 or so demonstration tasks pursuedin Strong Angel III, can all be found atwww.strongangel3.org

U.S. Navy Commander Dr. Eric Rasmussenis Chairman of the Department of Medicineat the U.S. Navy Medical Center outsideSeattle, Washington. He is also Directorof the Strong Angel series of humanitariansupport demonstrations, and is currentlydeployed to Afghanistan working on medicalreconstruction.

Doug Hanchard is Director and Architect,Solution Management Practice at BellCanada. He was an Executive Committeemember, Technical Communications Advisorand civilian leader for United States MarineCorp MCI-West RSS unit at Strong AngelIII. In addition he serves as TechnicalCommunications Advisor for World WideConsortium for the Grid (www.w2cog.org)– U.S. Northcom.

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Equipment has to operate and beuseable 7/24. Teams learn how tooperate in extreme environments.Temperatures here were regularlyover 30°Celsius.

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