From March through July, as the ground warms and unstable air masses move in from above, these violent phenomena can appear in seconds with winds that can reach 300 mph and leave paths of destruction that can exceed a mile in width and 50 miles in length. The southern states normally receive the first major tornado activity of the season, then in late spring and early summer, the activity moves in a north-easterly direction.

Emergency managers, especially in tornado alley, the geographic area of high tornado activity covering Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, constantly are working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and local weather services to perfect early warning systems that employ everything from air-raid sirens to e-mails, text messages and automated phone dialers.

The problem is that in many cases, the weather news may issue a warning, but people go about their business until a tornado is sighted. By the time a tornado is seen, there may be no time to warn people in the immediate path. So, if we know the threat and we know the vulnerability, how do we mitigate the potentially lethal threat for the individual homeowner?

For people living in apartment buildings, more often than not there are basements that residents can access to provide below-ground safety in the event of a tornado. Individual homeowners tend to have a more difficult time when in the immediate path of these whirling bulldozers. The trick is to have an easily accessible space that can withstand extreme wind pressure, the weight of a house or tree falling on it, and be strong enough to withstand projectiles striking it as if shot from a cannon. The space does not have to be large and does not need to be provisioned, as the tornado will pass in 10 to 15 minutes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency suggests building a “safe room.”

These safe rooms have no windows, a door that opens inward, are anchored to the slab or foundation and must be made of materials that can withstand wind, weight, and projectiles.

The typical safe room can cost anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000 to construct.

There also are a number of companies that manufacture safe rooms that can be built to specifications, delivered and installed for less than $4,000.

The Dupont Storm Room with Kevlar is a well-known manufacturer who employes the technology used in bullet-proof vests. Tornado Safe Room makes a popular unit that has been tested to withstand wind speeds up to 450 mph. One of the first manufacturers of manufactured Safe Rooms is The Family Safe, which also will build to spec, deliver and install.

These units can be incorporated into new construction or retro-fitted into existing structures. All of these manufactured safe rooms have been found to be 99 percent effective and greatly decrease anxiety for owners living in areas of high tornado activity.

For more information regarding tornado safety and what to do before, during and after a tornado, view FEMA’s tip sheet here.

The “Art of War” by Sun Tzu has been used over the centuries to teach everything from warfare to marketing and selling products. Emergency Management is no different. From fires to terrorism, the “Art of War” contains strategies that emergency managers (EM) can adopt and put into practice.

The words of Sun Tzu explain to the EM how to apply the four principles of emergency management—mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery—when anticipating the myriad of hazards, both internal and external, that they face on a daily basis. Sun Tzu was always prepared and EMs should take note of his meticulous planning.

As he said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Mitigation

Mitigation is the first principle of emergency management and may be the most important one. The goal of mitigation is to reduce or eliminate the risks from hazards that an enterprise faces. Sun Tzu tells the EM that you must know everything about the organization. How does an EM become familiar with the technological, accidental and natural hazards that the organization faces?

This task is completed through the use of risk analysis, threat and vulnerability assessments, interviews and most importantly historical references. In order to complete an effective analysis, every tour must be examined. Threats and vulnerabilities can arise during different hours of the day and each one must be mitigated against.
“It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
The road for EMs concentrates on two main factors: probability and criticality. The probability is the likelihood of an event occurring and the criticality is how horrific it can be if it happens. Each threat is analyzed, and the decision on which ones to mitigate against, is based on the two factors. How is the decision made? The EM carefully has to prepare a Cost/Benefit Analysis and a Risk Analysis Matrix.

The Cost/Benefit Analysis is used to identify which hazards are the most cost effective to mitigate against, and the matrix identifies the most critical and probable events. Only the most cost-effective techniques will be used to mitigate the problem.

A mitigation plan is based on the threats, hazards and vulnerabilities of the organization, and can prevent the necessity of having a continuity plan altogether. An investment in the mitigation strategy can save millions in damages and ensure the survival of the organization.

If the EM can only concentrate on one area, it must be on Mitigation strategies.

Preparedness

Preparedness is being ready to face the challenges of a disaster or any other type of emergency. How well an EM plans is the tell-all of survival. Without preparedness, the EM will have no response or recovery.

Sun Tzu knew that it didn’t matter if the enemy was coming or not, but he was ready. EMs must give this same thinking to their enemy.
The planning process actually is established in the mitigation phase. The EM must be prepared for anything at anytime, which is why it is called emergency management.

For those entering or thinking about entering the field of emergency management, he or she must realize that the job of an EM is 24/7, and there are no such things as weekend or holidays.

EMs have to be prepared mentally as well for this job.

“Those who hold onto favorite processes, business models, techniques, or ideas that no longer match the reality of the environment will fail in their mission. Those who embrace new ideas for the sake of newness will also fail.”

When creating plans the EM has to be flexible in any environment. EMs will not fall into either of these traps because all plans must constantly be evaluated.

Also, EMs must live by the old maxim when creating plans, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” but when the evidence tells you to change, you must.

“If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, the general is to blame. But if his orders are clear, and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their officers.”

All plans must be written so that anyone that reads it can clearly understand what needs to be done. They should be laid out in a manner that flows as well as be clear, concise and correct. A confusing and long winded plan will only mean one thing; no one is going to read it. In addition, the EM be flexible and be ready to adjust schedules, personnel and resources whenever necessary.

Planning is critical to the response phase during an emergency. The National Response Framework, published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), provides the basic outline for non-fire hazard planning.

There are two types of plans that EMs must maintain and constantly update: A Fire Safety Plan and an Emergency Action Plan (EAP), also known as an Incident Action Plan (IAP). The Fire Safety Plan covers only fire emergencies and the EAP covers all other hazards. These plans must be kept separate from each other and must be tested often to ensure their viability.

For more information, check Planning 101 for emergency managers.

The response and recovery section of this article will publish Thursday.

The New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority has released a report by MTA Inspector General Barry L. Kluger that shows the agency isn’t prepared to handle subway emergencies.

The report reviews the events of a 2006 fire during evening rush hour that caused two trains to stop in a tunnel near DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y., one of the city’s five boroughs.

According to the report, riders were asked to move to the rear of each train and were instructed to wait for first responders to arrive.

The report states, “For many years, first responders in New York City complained about the inadequate representation and poor communication by New York City Transit (NYCT).”

The fire would confirm those complaints, as no NYCT liaison was present to assist first responders for the first hour after the trains stopped.

The result was miscommunication problems with firefighters conducting an evacuation of a train, not knowing that the third rail remained electrified, and unaware, while walking around on the tracks, “…that the NYC Transit Rail Command Center was about to move the train back out of the smoke.”

Almost 4,000 people being evacuated near a wired third rail with more than 750 volts of “instant death” running through it just might benefit from an emergency response team immediately on site, cutting power to the rails and advising first responders.

The NYCT thought so, too.

In March 2008, NYCT created the Rapid Transit Emergency Response Unit. The new unit was structured with seven superintendents dedicated to the Emergency Response Officer (ERO) function.

However, it didn’t last long. One year after its creation, it met its demise.

NYCT eliminated this unit and returned to the rotating emergency response model that existed before the unit’s formation, according to the report.

“As to the plan currently in place, the ERO function is being rotated among superintendents and deputy superintendents who have extensive subway operation experience,” it states.

A statement issued in early September by Kluger regarding the current emergency response plan, said his office “…expressed concern that NYC Transit’s emergency response function was still in an interim status, not fully developed and ready to operate within the new Line Group Management program for the Department of Subways.”

The statement also said the inspector general’s office found “…many operational issues remained regarding how the emergency response function would be folded into the new organizational structure. Without a well-integrated program, NYC Transit risks a return to problems that plagued its response system in the past, namely poor response times, inadequately trained and equipped responders, and responders not properly performing their roles and fulfilling their responsibilities as Emergency Response Officers.”

Let’s put this kind of decision making in perspective: The MTA moves 2.6 billion people per year, 11 million people per day, covering an area of more than 5,000 square miles, with more than 70,000 employees.

The report also estimates that MTA construction crews waste an average of $10 million annually due to poorly coordinated job assignments.

Undoubtedly, addressing the financial waste would allow more than enough “found money” to fund a new Rapid Transit Emergency Response Unit.

Transit spokesman Charles Seaton told media outlets that the MTA will address these concerns under Thomas Prendergast, the agency’s new president, who started the job Dec. 1.

This is one of the largest rapid transit systems in the world in a city that is getting ready to stage a terror trial that will incite every potential suicide bomber to become infamous.

Let’s be hopeful that Prendergast’s first stop is safety.

The Klaxon talked with Alaska-based Turvey about Hasan’s potential motives, red flags and theories behind the shooting.

The Klaxon: There’s a bunch of talk that Hasan’s supervisors worried about him, but said they saw no signs he was violent. Is this typical? What are some warning signs to detect this? And can it truly be prevented?

Turvey: In terms of violence, (Walter Reed) is right. We don’t have a Pre-Crime Unit. It’s not like “Minority Report” where you know what people are going to do before they do it. However, there are these red flags that go up that need to be investigated…They need to be thorough and complete. They can’t just fall by the wayside because of political expediency.

It all depends on factors. Let’s remove mental illness. If someone is not mentally ill, then they can think rationally. If someone thinks irrationally—and is mentally ill—then, yeah, they can wake up that morning and decide to kill people for no reason. We don’t know what his mental state was—we have to determine that.

We have people coming back with lots of mental illness. We also have people who do not want to go fight in the war because they have no desire to go kill people. And we have a policy in the military to extend tours beyond what they should and to retain soldiers that are done and they don’t want to go back and they keep getting sent back…What that means is our government is sending people to go kill other people who don’t want to go…When you do that, you enter this bizarre realm where you can end up having your own soldiers turn against you. When our own soldiers start feeling that state as the enemy or the Army soldiers as the enemy, we’ve done something horribly wrong. Unless we’re dealing with somebody mentally ill, and that still needs to be examined and ruled out in this case.

The Klaxon: Can someone’s religion be a motivator in such killings (as those at Fort Hood)?

Turvey: He was a devout extremist. He preached heavily against the war itself and then on top of that, he had these contradictory behaviors in terms of one, not being involved in the war, but also being in the military. He didn’t want to go over there. These things are not proof of anything bad, they’re just things that should have drawn attention to him.

He considers himself a Muslim first, a soldier of the Army second. He considers the war in the Middle East that we’re fighting on two fronts as a war against Islam. What the issue is, is giving someone with those kinds of beliefs a gun and access to the armed forces in a secure area.

The Klaxon: Was Hasan’s methods more methodical or did he just snap?

Turvey: There’s two kinds of people—planned and unplanned. Obviously some people wake up in the morning and think they’re not going to be killing people and they wind up doing it later on.

A person can just snap, but it’s because you’re carrying the weight of all these other circumstances. You have this cumulative rage that’s built up over time. And that’s clearly not what happened to this particular individual. Clearly he had many experiences over the course of his life and all of them were summed up in this act. This act ended up being the summation of all his previous accumulated rage and anger. This wasn’t something he just woke up and decided. You have these extremist behaviors, you have these extremist contacts and these extremist lectures.

We’re talking about someone who disagrees with the policies of the United States and specifically the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is something no one studies because it’s considered unpatriotic to even speak this way. But the reality is, we’re at war and people that disagree with us are going to react in a different way. And especially if someone disagrees with the war and they’re on the other side. The real problem I see is that…the military has lowered its standards and has engaged in keeping people in that we shouldn’t and keeping people in when their emotional fatigue is high. It’s more complicated than a guy who went in and shot people.

The Klaxon: Would you consider this act to be one of terrorism or something more methodical?

Turvey: Under the law, is this terrorism? I don’t know. But I do know that it should be because what he’s trying to do is inspire fear in the servicemen. And he’s doing it on behalf of a culture that’s under attack. By our definition, he’s a terrorist. By the definition of those in al-Qaeda, he would be a hero, a martyr, a patriot.

The reality is this guy was crying out. He was saying, ‘I don’t agree with this stuff. I don’t agree with what’s happening there and I don’t want to go there.’ Well, that’s not somebody to send, that’s somebody to sit down and talk with.
Listen to some of the telephone interview by clicking on the audio files below.
“This is the kind of stuff nobody looks at or studies.”

“We don’t think about wars being committed on our soil.”

“We don’t realize there’s a cost.”

“Some people do the exact same thing and never kill anybody.”

“Nobody can predict anything.”

“Do you think such an action like this could happen again?” “Absolutely.”

“There are many, many different definitions of terrorism.”