Mitigation and Recovery are important to businesses. In prior modules the emphasis has been on emergency planning and response. However as noted in the last PowerPoint slide titled, Critical Incident Process in Module 5 – Private Sector Preparedness and Response, recovery begins during the management of the disaster or critical incident. During development of your risk assessment matrix in Module 6, Risk Assessment you focused on what business process were important to the continual operation of a business or agency and what actions were needed to respond if these critical business functions were lost.

With this in mind what support should business expect from the public sector in the recovery process and what are some of the issues each (private and public sector) need to consider?

Discuss the following areas:

• What role and issues must the public sector incident commander need to consider?
• What are the issues the Onsite Emergency Management Team need to consider?
• What preplanning can each sector do to initiate a successful recovery and mitigation process?
• How important is exercising in this process?
  

Author: Jonathan B. Smith
Date: July 1, 2005

Michigan State University 's School of Criminal Justice
Online Certificate in Homeland Security
US05 Public Private Partnerships for Emergency Preparedness
Professor Rad Jones.
Module 7: Mitigation and Recovery

What role and issues must the public sector incident commander need to consider?

It is the role of the incident commander to first and foremost ensure that they are maintaining the public safety. Their planning, response and recovery actions must always take this objective into account.

Keeping in mind the public safety component, it is the incident commanders job to serve as the "Commander in Chief," as you will. They are the party that is ultimately responsible for maintaining order and public safety. Their job is to serve as the top point of the hierarchy during the mitigation, response and recovery process.

As such, the incident commander needs to wear many hats, but they must always ensure that their decisions are helping to maintain public safety.

I could list all of the individual issues that the incident commander needs to consider, but I do not feel that would be helpful in this forum. Suffice it to say that the incident commander is ultimately responsible for maintaining the public safety and social order; that responsibility requires them to interface with:

• Public officials at the federal, state and local level
• Private sector officials from both small and large businesses
• Community leaders
• Media
• Local citizens

The incident commander has a great deal of responsibility and their job is to build a plan, a team, and a process that helps them to maintain the social order and public safety.

What are the issues the Onsite Emergency Management Team need to consider?

The onsite emergency management team's responsibility is to proactively eliminate or minimize risk and develop a strategy to expedite the recovery process if an incident does occur.

As such, the risk management team must develop a plan that addresses electrical power disrutptions, fire, theft, natural disasters, work place violence, terrorist incidents, cyber terror and political unrest to name a few.

They need to develop comprehensive plans that address all of these issues and prioritize timing of the recovery of critical processes. Their prioritization of critical processes are similar to how a hospital sets up a triage unit.

The team also needs to ensure that they test their plan and revise it based upon the shortcomings that they find as a result of the testing.

What preplanning can each sector do to initiate a successful recovery and mitigation process?

Emergency planning professionals are experts at developing lengthy checklists and procedures to follow during mitigation and recovery processes. The more difficult part of their profession involved communication of the plan and enlisting the cooperation of the victims and those responding to the incident.

In an effort to help improve the process both private and public sector officials have a lenghty list of potential opportunities to improve the process. Given the nature of this post, I have chosen to provide a high outline vs. details of the full blown checklists that were provided in our readings.

Public Sector

• Mitigation
  • Maintain safety in the community.
  • Review previous incidents and develop plan to avoid recurrence.
  • Assess permitting and zonning for potentially hazardous sites in the community.
  • Define incidents where public sector intervention is required by law, e.g. terrorist threat.
  • Establish community emergency planning working group.
• Recovery
  • Maintain Safety in the Community
  • Consider impact of actions to other areas
  • Establish timeline for recovery.
  • Communicate necessary information to the community.
• Test the Plan
• Refine and Update Plan Based Upon Testing

Private Sector

• Mitigation
  • Determine Means of Preventing Critical Incidents
  • Create Backup and Off-Site Procedures
  • Predetermine and Document Resource Requirements
• Recovery
  • Create a Contingency Plan
  • Select a Recovery Team
  • Document and Review Plan
• Test the Plan
• Refine and Update Plan Based Upon Testing

How important is exercising in this process?

The process of exercising is a critical component of any emergency plan. Exercising is similar to the prototyping process. Exercising give emergency planners and participants an opportunity to test their plans and rework any weaknesses that are uncovered during the simulated incident.

The Value of Prototyping

The most important function of a prototype is to validate. Good prototypes generate feedback from the market for better or for worse. It's better to kill a bad idea before you take the finished product to market then to waste valuable time and money in developing a full version no one will buy.

(The Entrepreneur's Help Page, 2005)

Works Cited

Bullock, J.A. & Haddow, G.D. (2004). Introduction to Homeland
Security. New York: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.
Chapter 6-Mitigation and Preparedness, pp. 179-184.

Emergency Planning Handboook, 2nd Ed. (2004). American Society
of Industrial Security International Disaster Management
Council. Chapter 7, pp. 71-80.

The Entrepreneur's Help Page. (2005). The Value of Prototyping. Retrieved on July 1, 2005 from:
http://www.tannedfeet.com/prototyping.htm

Jones, R.W. (2000). Critical Incident Protocol-A Public and Private
Partnership. Office for Domestic Preparedness, U.S. Department
of Homeland Security. www.cj.msu.edu/~outreach/CIP/CIP.pdf
pp. 23, 24, 31-32.

National Crime Prevention Council. (2005). Crime Prevention Through
Environmental Design. Retrived on April 30, 2005 from:
http://www.ncpc.org/ncpc/ncpc/?pg=5882-2006-2486

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