Highlights of The Second Annual Forum on Public Safety 2006

Discussions in this year’s Forum work panels reflected the “lessons observed and lessons learned” of the participants in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the US Gulf Coast in August 2005, in the London bombings in July 2005, and in recent efforts to counter terrorism around the world. Admiral Keating, USN Commander, NORAD and US Northern Command, stated in his plenary address that it is critical “to reduce lessons observed to lessons learned and to further eliminate the chance of mistakes being repeated” when dealing with future emergency situations. Participants in the work panels agreed that this focus on lessons learned helped to re-focus the debate regarding public safety away from the conceptual and the politically charged rhetoric to the pro-active sharing of experiences so that we all can work together to determine “best practices.”

During the panel discussions in which the participants shared their emergency response experiences, a number of important public safety lessons learned emerged. Although many of these lessons were discussed in the first Forum’s work panels, participants considered these lessons to be even more compelling as they were accompanied by recent, first hand experiences of public safety personnel involved in the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the London bombings emergencies, and in recent efforts to counter terrorism around the world. Within two and a half weeks following the Forum, some of the participants were involved in the successful prevention of the mass terrorist attacks targeting flights from the UK.

Common Language Among North America and Europe

Panellists recognized the need for practical coordination among policy makers and first responders in North America and Europe to obtain a common language for defining public safety threats and standard operating procedures, including terminology, for incident management plans. The participants in several work panels, however, recognized the challenges for achieving practical coordination.

One of these challenges, as expressed by an EU participant, is agreeing on a common definition of “who we are fighting and why we are fighting,” without which panellists thought that Europe and North America could not agree on an effective policy for combating terrorism. The participants in work panels 1 and 2 debated the definitional issue of whether the world’s efforts against terrorism are more appropriately described as a “struggle” or a “war” on terror in light of the people engaged, their objectives and the efforts on both sides, as proposed by the Ireland Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, in his opening speech.

Following these debates, the participants recommended that for effective trans-Atlantic cooperation, responsible parties in Europe and North America should first identify commonalities and reach common understandings so that all involved may agree on a common language for incident management plans. Work panel 1 recommended that “[o]ur first priority is to address current issues confronting our nations and critical obstacles to effective cooperation through open discussion to reach common understandings.”Work panel 2 recommended that “by identifying the commonalities within United States and European threat assessment dialogues…, can we hope to define a common purpose and goals.”

Recognizing the challenges for achieving practical coordination at the senior policy levels across the Atlantic, the participants in work panel 2 recommended as a starting point that “we should strive for personnel at the incident level… to at least train and share lessons learned.” Through this commonality and knowledge sharing, panellists believed that public safety personnel in North America and Europe “will be better equipped to formulate effective public safety plans” and to advance discussions at the senior policy levels.

How to Plug in the Resources

In work panel 1, a US participant recounted that following Hurricane Katrina, of eight police precincts in hurricane-affected areas in Louisiana, Katrina destroyed seven, and to make matters worse, state and local agencies did not know what federal resources were available, while the federal agencies did not know local operating procedures for deploying their resources. As a US participant noted, the lessons learned by federal, state and local personnel during the Hurricane Katrina disaster concerned knowing “how to plug in the resources.”

The participants in work panel 3 recommended that for effectively plugging in the resources, there should be a “unity of effort” in both planning, response and recovery from local and national first responder personnel. The panellists agreed with work panel 1 that during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, “organizational issues related to incident management and management of intergovernmental agencies… hampered crisis management efforts.” This “unity of effort” requires involving local and national communities “for particularizing crisis management strategies for probable types of disasters and related consequences,” and “for regularly testing systems and procedures prior to any crisis to ensure that the systems and procedures will work as desired.”

The participants in work panel 1 recommended that for effectively plugging in the resources, “civilian and military agencies should understand resource requirements and operational procedures pre-incident through joint exercises so that incident and post-incident cooperation is more effective.” They agreed that government agencies should be more pro-active. According to these panellists, we are in a “need to know” environment today and we should move toward a more pro-active, “need to share” environment. To encourage this change in approach, participants recommended that public safety personnel “should engage in joint exercises, emphasize team cooperation building and crossagency ties, and utilize available advanced communications technology.” They also believed that interoperable communications would support this change in mindset.

Situation Awareness

Participants in work panels 3, 4 and 7 recognized that effective response and recovery in an emergency situation depends upon how rapidly and accurately first responders establish and regularly update situation awareness. Participants involved in the Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery stressed the importance of situation awareness as the key to successfully dealing with a crisis. With situation awareness, resources can be effectively deployed.

All agreed in work panel 4 that a vital precondition to establishing situation awareness is communications and information exchange utilizing common standards and procedures, and interoperable equipment. This work panel recommended that “…as demonstrated by Hurricane Katrina, the July 7th London bombings and various exercises, incident management plans should provide for establishing as quickly as possible the person and/or agency who is in charge, a common operational picture and channels for communication and information exchange.” Without this, situation awareness and responding to emergency needs is seriously impaired.

Participants also discussed the type of information required by first responders for responding to emergency situations, coordinating actions and making timely decisions. In work panel 7, the participants agreed that first responders do not require each and every piece of information about an emergency the moment that it develops; more importantly, it is critical that the right information is shared with the appropriate first responders “at the right time.” They agreed that the right information at the right time is critical for situation awareness. The panel recommended “developing a categorization protocol for ascribing hierarchies of value to information so that the relevant information can be identified from the hordes of data collected and accessed by those first responders who are searching for the information.”

Interoperable Communications

As in the first Forum, the Second Annual Forum’s participants expressed great concern regarding the fundamental lack of reliable, interoperable communications, particularly among first responders. The participants considered the lack of interoperable communications to be a critical gap seriously impairing public safety awareness, prevention, protection, response and recovery measures in and among North America and Europe. This critical gap widens further within countries, according to the panellists, because national and local military and civilian personnel cannot generally interoperate. For example, a US panellist stated that following Hurricane Katrina, the emergency personnel, including police and fire, that deployed from other US states could not interoperate with each other or with local Louisiana emergency personnel.

The reality that public safety agencies in North America and Europe have made little progress to achieve interoperable communications, which was highlighted as a gap in US homeland security in the 9/11 Report, continued to disappoint many participants. These participants noted that current cellular technology is many generations ahead of the technology generally employed by public safety agencies. In work panel 8, participants noted that “interoperability is achievable through current cellular technology, which is deployed within the private sector.” After discussing the experiences of those following Hurricane Katrina where the deployment of cellular communications to disaster areas greatly aided the efforts of first responders, the participants in work panels 4, 5, 7 and 8 recommended utilizing current off-the-shelf cellular technology. Specifically, the work panel 5 panellists recommended governments to “implement and maintain interoperable communications utilizing current off-the-shelf cellular technology to… enable first responders to share information real-time and interoperate.”

Military Support

Participants throughout the Forum discussed the appropriate role of the military in emergency situations. The Forum participants, who served in first responder roles following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, acknowledged the tremendous service provided by the US Coast Guard and the security provided by US National Guard personnel. In his opening speech, Rear Admiral Duncan, Former Commander of the US Eighth Coast Guard August 2006 District, described the operations of the Coast Guard, which rescued over 30,000 people and contained several environmental situations. Participants involved in hurricanes relief noted, however, that civilian authorities did not utilize all available military resources to the detriment of the disaster response and recovery.

The work panel 5 panellists recognizing that “the military is the best equipped and trained force for deploying in a disaster-affected area to provide disaster response, recovery and relief ” recommended that we “should consider how to effectively use available military resources in a disaster.” The panellists were mindful that this recommendation to leverage military resources included challenges unique to the US. In the US, any utilization of military resources requires formal authorization by civilian agencies pursuant to applicable law. Some EU panellists noted that the same command and control does not exist in their countries, stating that military resources can be leveraged as necessary for the safety of the citizenry. Accordingly, participants in work panel 5 recommended that government authorities, particularly in the US, should work together to “clarify and approve military support under civilian
agency oversight.”

Neighbourhood Participation

Participants in several work panels agreed that public safety personnel at all levels should reach out and engage civilian communities in the development and the execution of incident management plans. In work panel 3, the participants noted that if the local neighbourhood is involved in the planning process, the resulting sense of ownership will increase the likelihood of successful implementation of the emergency plan. As stated by a US panellist, it is essential to “engage players that are actually going to be in the trenches” to ensure that plans are carried out successfully.

Panellists in work panel 5 also agreed that a plan, once formulated, cannot be successful unless it is widely disseminated and understood by the civilian public. A UK Forum participant who was familiar with the Hurricane Katrina disaster stated that the “problem lies in the fact that plans do not exist for the public to follow.” Work panel 5 recommended that “national governments [should] offer incentives (e.g., tax credits) to local governments to implement and disseminate such plans.”

Participants also recommended the utilization of the civilian sector in protection, response and recovery measures. Regarding border security, the work panel 8 participants recognized that in addition to addressing the varied concerns of the affected population on both sides of the border, “any measures implemented for securing a border must involve… [the]… active participation” of the civilian community. The participants recommended that “[w]ith regard to enforcement, local resources, for example, should be harnessed for assisting public safety personnel through a ‘neighbourhood watch mentality’.” In addition, the participants in work panel 5 discussed how civilian and commercial resources could be utilized as force multipliers for response and recovery in an emergency situation. The panellists recommended that we “should utilize civilian and commercial resources regardless of jurisdiction or command structure for creating force multipliers to assist first responders.” The July 7th London bombings were cited as an example where emergency services utilized buses as ambulances and private property as temporary locations for treating the injured.