Integrated Emergency Management: UK and Global Case Studies

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INTEGRATED EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT
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Executive summary
The research question associated with this report lies in the analysis of the relationships of
emergency incidents and public services during and posts the occurrence of such incidents.
The report is segmented into two major domains. The first domain is characterized by the
general approach to the management of emergency incidents by public services. This
includes the principles involved in effective management, recovery stages post the occurrence
of incident and need of debriefs for individuals or organizations involved in ground work and
management. The second domain is characterized analysis of some real disasters and
incidents. For the execution of the report, UK based emergencies has been taken as Parsons
Green terrorist attack and the UK floods in March, 2019. Similarly, global based
emergencies have been taker as dual Paris terror attacks of 2015 and 2017 and Hurricane
Irma and Maria in 2017.
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Table of contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
LO3: Investigation of how emergency incidents are managed by the public services..............5
LO4: Review of the public service response to real-world emergency incidents......................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
The development of round the clock news and viral in social media has enabled the regular
reporting of natural disasters across all forms. The aim of this report lies in the analysis of the
management of emergency services by the public service organization. The scope of this
report however lies in the analysis of the public service response in a real world emergency
that had taken place in the near tenure.
For the execution of this report, the Voluntary Sector Civil Protection Forum (VSCPF)
would be taken into consideration. The aim associated with the organization includes the
identification and maximization of voluntary contributions to the protection of civil laws in
the UK in times of internal emergency or natural disasters. The forum in the form of an
organization was established by the British Red Cross society coupled with additional help
from the Civil Contingencies Secretariat of Cabinet Office (gov.uk, 2012).
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LO3: Investigation of how emergency incidents are managed by the public services
The category 1 responder of the civil protection duties are essentially regularized by the Civil
Contingencies Act of 2004 (legislation.gov.uk, 2019). The act empowers the local authorities
to share relevant and authentic information with the public for the smooth execution of the
emergency management. A category 1 responder is essentially defined as those individuals or
organizations that form the core of the emergency responses. Some of the examples of such
would include the local authorities like the county sheriff or the borough the, emergency
services like paramedical staffs and others (essex.gov.uk, 2014). Similarly, the Contingency
Planning Regulations of 2005 enables the division of emergency services labour into the
categories of 1 and 2. For an organization like VSCPF, this regulation would include the
development of the frameworks of cooperation and information sharing. However, JESIP
THE PROGRAMME currently influences both the regulations. This would be because; this
program enabled extensive successful joint training drills and initiative across multiple
emergency services. This has essentially developed efficiency and potent integrated
emergency management services in the UK (jesip.org.uk, 2019).
P5 Principles of effective emergency incident response and recovery
For an effective response in an emergency, the following principles would be taken into
consideration:
Principle Description
Anticipation This principle includes the identification of the potential situations based on
the existing warning levels coupled with the multiple analytical and survey
reports provided by multiple government and private institutes.
Preparedness This principle corresponds to execution of drill relative to such practices.
Common emergency services like Fire, storms reliefs and building collapses
are associated with multiple drills (app.college.police.uk, 2019). However,
due to changes in the approach to modern emergency management,
preparedness of the same would include a simulated understanding of the
affected area with extensive use of graphics and holograms.
Subsidiary This principle corresponds to the incorporation of tasks that would be required
to manage at zone or larger area (Alexander, 2002). For example, this
principle would be activated in case of sudden occurrences of flash floods in
which the power supply to the effected parts would be required to be managed
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by central authority not present at the local level.
Direction This principle involves the use of the management of the emergency. For the
mentioned organization, this would be executed by the chairperson of the
forum with additional help from the Red Cross.
Integration This principle would be the most important aspect in effective emergency
response as without an integrated approach and high selfless values, massive
and efficient management would not be achieved in any manner.
Cooperation The principle of cooperation mandates that all public and public services
should provide self less support to the emergency management.
Continuity The principle of continuity states that all the lessons learned from the
emergency management should be put into simulations and drills to increase
efficiency and reduce management cost in near future.
Table 1: Principles in effective emergency management
(Source: bu.edu, n.d)
However in the segment of multi agency response, a three tier based principle is taken into
consideration. These are in the order of command, control and effective coordination. The
response strategies and the associated principles include the division the available manpower
into two major groups.
Group Description
Strategic Coordinating
Group (SCG)
This group works on the principle of communication and
development of sustainable strategy for emergency management.
Science and Technical
Advice Cell (STAC)
This groups works based on the guidance of the Emergency
response and recovery as provided by the UK government
(gov.uk, 2013).
Table 2: Strategic groups and working principles
(Source: Created by author)
P6 Recovery stage following an emergency incident
Following an emergency accident, recovery is conducted in three phases that are in the order
of rebuilding, restoring along with rehabilitating. Recovery in modern emergency
management operations is conducted in the categories of humanitarian, economic,
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environment, infrastructure and the opportunity for conduction of regeneration (Coppola,
2015).
The rebuilding stage is associated with the identification of the usable remains post an
emergency or a disaster coupled with building of similar infrastructure to sustain the
regularization of the societal movements. The process of restoring essentially involves the
preservation of monuments or services that are essential to the nation as well as the citizens.
The process of rehabilitating is more concerned with humans. It involves relocating the
victims of the disaster or the emergency with additional help from the government. However,
this is only a temporary relief as such victims are expected to self-help in the near future with
active assistance from the government or nongovernmental organizations (Dillon, 2014). In
modern aspect of the rehabilitation includes animals that have been affected by the disaster.
Individual camps set up by animal welfare departments and organizations involved in
promotion of animal rights are roped in such activities. Funding and resource for such
activities are however entirely dependent on the donations of the patrons as well as the minor
support from the government from Animal Health and Welfare Board for England (gov.uk,
2019).
However, the recovery services are associated with extensive scrutiny by media and
opposition seat politicians. This practice enables the identification and the development of the
potential expenditures for the conduction of the management and recovery tasks. This
includes the segregation of the resources associated with the recovery options. For the forum,
such resources would be mostly being of donation category coupled with the material help
from the Red Cross and the UK government for development of resources.
In general, practice in the segment of the recovery, a recovery-coordinating group is
developed that is governed by the chairman of the organization involved in the segmental
recovery. However, members associated with the same include the local authority, which
handles the ground zero leadership, volunteers, external and social welfare organizations and
many more. Additionally, in modern emergency managements, Local Resilience Forum
(LRF) provides volunteering support in terms of manpower, finances, contacts and logistics
support to the local authorities for smooth management of the natural disaster or any form of
emergency (gov.uk , 2013).
M3 Need for debriefs and reviewing to inform future planning and Responding
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The need for debriefs and the performance review for philanthropic work would be for the
following reasons:
 To understand gaps in planning, control and implementation in the emergency
management operations
 To identify the individual efforts put in it by the patrons. This would enable the
identification of initiators under which other volunteers would be gathered. This may
include politicians, local leaders or even elders that command extensive authority
among the youth.
Debriefs associated with the single agency and the inter-agency debriefing enable the
involved additional organizations to understand the specific role in the emergency
management. This reduces duplication of work and increases operation and management
efficiency of the conducting organization. In the segment of future planning, this would
enable all the involved organization to find their strengths in emergencies. Additionally since
debriefing would be mostly conducted based on the record of accomplishment of the
organization, it servicing data and adherence to legal obligations would be taken into
consideration. Hence, in the segment of responding, debriefing would enable the
identification of the nature of the organization in the form of category-1 or 2. Additionally,
debriefing would enable individual departments involved in the management and rehab
operations to undertake a comprehensive record book that would include data regarding
victims, rehab beneficiaries, contact numbers and financial details associated with each task.
In a combined aspect of future planning and responding, the need of debriefing would be in
the continuous evaluation of the volunteers and the departments involved in management
work. This would be because in most case, emergencies would be associated with human and
animal lives in which a minor delay may result in the death of the being (Hunt and Greaves,
2017). Overall, the major need of the debriefing would be in the identification and
development of recommendations that would increase all relatable efficiencies in situational
management, risk management and integrated emergency management.
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LO4: Review of the public service response to real-world emergency incidents
P7 Identification of a range of examples of emergency incident
There are a number of emergency incident that the UK has been subjected to. Some of the
same are the Parsons Green terrorist attack and the UK floods in March, 2019.
Figure 1: Conwy river level in March 2019
(Source: floodlist.com, 2019)
The Conwy River in Wales flooded in the month of March, 2019. The international news
agency, the BBC, 40 properties were flooded by the river. The flood had resulted in the
disruption of the rail transport while multiple roads and blocks were closed due to chest
length water. The and fire services operating in the county rescued multiple people stranded
in the water along with recue of three individuals from a car that got stuck due to flood. In
the segment of animals, fire-fighters additionally rescued a flock of 170 sheep from the rising
flood waters post the burst of River Ribble in Samlesbury (floodlist.com, 2019).
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Figure 2: Parsons Green terrorist attack
(Source: Bosotti and Nair, 2017)
The above figure shows explosion scene inside the tube train. The incident had occurred in
the September 2017 during the morning rush hour of 8:20 GMT. The terrorist attract
executed by an individual name Hassan resulted in 28 persons having crush injuries while
about 23 individuals got burn injuries. Analyst and prosecutors with the case had expressed
concern of the potential losses both human and property should the bomb has completely
exploded. This was because of the 2 kg contents associated with the bomb in the form of
screwdrivers, nuts and bolts and knives (bbc.com, 2018). The incident resulted in many
victims of the emergency to consult psychologist. For example, a victim that was essentially
identified by Miss suffered 16% burns and was compelled to consult a psychologist post
melting of her tights.
One of the most devastating international emergencies was the dual Paris terror attacks of
2015 and 2017.
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Figure 3: Paris terror attack of 2015
(Source: edition.cnn.com, 2018)
The Paris terrorist attack of 2015 was a coordinated terrorist assault on the citizens of France
in 2015. Additionally, the attack area included the northern suburb of the city. The attack
resulted in the death of 137 individuals, out of which the 130 were victims. However, there
were 413 non-fatal injuries associated with the emergency event. Damage to properties was
worth millions of dollars as the attack was conducted on multiple locations over Paris and the
northern suburbs.
However, the 2017 Paris attack involved a French national who shot three French police
officers. The total death toll in the attack was two that include the attacker. However, non-
fatal injuries amounted to 3. Unlike the 2015 attack, the area was extensively limited to a
shopping complex by the name of Champs-Elysees (edition.cnn.com, 2018).
M4 Investigate the role of the public services in a particular real-world emergency
incident.
One of the real world emergency incidents that had occurred recently is the Hurricane Irma
and Maria in 2017.
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Figure 4: Loss in Hurricane Irma and Maria in 2017
(Source: fema.gov, 2018)
In emergencies of such cadre, the major requirement becomes financial assistance for the
execution of relief operations and management of the emergency prior and post the
occurrence of the event. Post the occurrence of the event, FEMA provided commodities with
a net collective value of the 2 billion USD (fema.gov, 2018). Hence, in the segment of
financial assistance and resource assistance, the organization was able to provide extensive
support in a real life incident.
In the segment of integrated management, FEMA and the Caribbean government worked
together for the extensive and efficient distribution of resources in the affected areas. Hence
in this case, the role of public service was initially the identification of the segments and
areas that would require resources and relief materials.
In the segment of the coordination and restoration of the damaged goods, homes and areas,
the role of the public service organizations included the sustainable development of the area
while keeping in mind the reduction of probability of such damage in the near future.
Additional role for the organization included the identification of the causes that lead to such
drastic losses in the nations like US, West Indies and others that were victims of twin
hurricanes.
D2 Evaluation of a particular real-world emergency incident
Evaluation would be based on the above-mentioned incident. In the segment of manpower
and its management, the mentioned organization provided more than 17000 individuals for
the effective distribution of resources coupled with extensive adherence to the principles
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