This can be every commander’s nightmare – the emergency incident occurring within a planned event\incident. These can occur at any place and time, and hopefully not by your design. The location, size or intensity will vary. You hope only to manage it and not make matters worse. You probably will not have time to plan or rehearse your response – “heck with it, we will do it live”. Your life experience, which is a personal data bank for solutions will come into play. The seasoned veteran commander will often have strategies pulled from their experience files. ‘Seen this before, this is how we handle this’ comes to mind. However, the younger or inexperienced commanders will have to figure it out via training and limited life experience. I remind them that hope is not a strategy.
When your incident goes from small to large, it could develop into a dysfunctional incident. Some affectionally refer to this as a “Charlie Foxtrot”. No matter what you call it, it is not going as planned. Whether you are working in a law enforcement capacity or an all-hazards environment, these challenges are similar. As the day progresses, you expect abnormal issues and challenges to pop up. Our goal is that we just want to keep the bad days that are not going well from getting worse.
Situational awareness
Often times the seasoned commanders will speak of a ‘canned response’. Yes, there is another acronym – CAN Response. They are trying to build their strategies towards the conditions that are existing and what they are evolving or dissolving into. Next, they have to decide what actions are required to contain or manage this incident. With this said, they now focus on needs (personnel and logistics) called for to address, maintain and restore to normal operations. The size, scope and complexity of an event (planned or emergency) will define your objectives. The incident’s potential, both its size and how technical are truly the unknowns. Sometimes we ask ourselves - just how big and bad this thing is going to become?
When you plan and/or manage a preplanned event (concert, parade, outside venue, fair, etc.) you should have already established your priorities. It is important to know your limitations and constraints that you are working with. One element that we often neglect is logistics. Remember - nothing happens without logistics. Your pre-planning should have defined the equipment, support and personnel needs prior to the event. Please note that there are great differences between needs and wants. Many events that I have managed, I too had a multitude of wants that were unfilled. My prior requests (wants) far exceeded the reality of the budget, staffing and logistical support – therefore I had to muddle through. The major concern is the emergency event that evolves within the planned event.
Coordination between all assets and communication is the most critical element to address. Silos are great if you own a farm, not good for incident response. Having seen and read of an event where one or more of the emergency response agencies were excluded for whatever reason is the invitation to disaster. Your communication lines between all emergency responders must be established well before the event. Then their response to emergency within is not the big surprise. Timing is everything for utilizing available resources and preparation for additional support. Support needs must be clearly defined. We can no longer request the old ‘send me everything you got’ request. An area that must be predefined are those preexisting mutual aid agreements within the county, region and state. Do not forget to have vetted your local industry that could support you. There will always be a business with political clout that misses the opportunity to help out (make money) and the political aftermath starts. You cannot predict everything, but if you can have governmental and private sector vetted, prearranged agreements in place, you are far ahead of the game.
Success
As incident commanders, it is important in how we define success. The truism here is that the public’s perception often defines your reality. Facts, data and truths have nothing to do with what the public and media will believe. If you are not successful, you will jeopardize your public license to operate (removed from office), your reputation is damaged and the trust in your agency is questioned. Your viability or professional credentials could be in jeopardy. These external and political issues are sometimes contained to post community impacts, legal aftermath and media affairs. Surely, we all have seen an unfair hand dealt to a commander and their career was all but over when the dust settled. Right or wrong, it was not their day.
In our emergency response world, it is not the event and its outcome that is graded but the community itself. Every city wants to have that positive image and become that place where people want to visit or live in. I am not trying to add additional weight on our shoulders, but the reality is we have more at stake than just this moment. Our decisions and response can resound for a lifetime. When you accept the reasonability to plan and/or manage an event, it can define the destiny of your city. Should there be the emergency within it, I wish you the best. Go into your memory files of past successes, but trust the process and your staff.
William L. Harvey | Chief
William L. "Bill" Harvey is a U.S. Army Military Police Corps veteran. He has a BA in criminology from St. Leo University and is a graduate of the Southern Police Institute of the University of Louisville (103rd AOC). Harvey served for over 23 years with the Savannah (GA) Police Department in field operations, investigations and completed his career as the director of training. Served as the chief of police of the Lebanon City Police Dept (PA) for over seven years and then ten years as Chief of Police for the Ephrata Police Dept (PA). In retirement he continues to publish for professional periodicals and train.
