Challenging the Four Pillars of Emergency Management Paradigm

Victor Lake Skyline (photo by V.A. McMillan, 2021)

 It has been too long since I posted here...so, let me correct that.

In school I have been bumping into a re-occurring paradigm - the emergency management pillars. Most agencies have adopted and seem comfortable with four pillars supporting emergency management and if presented graphically, would look something like this:

The Four Pillars of Emergency Management

Now, this is my blog and not an academic paper and this affords me the privilege to present my ideas in a manner not accepted by academia. So, whether this post is construed as an editorial or an opinion piece, I do not much care what label it wears, I just want to share my idea and maybe it will generate some discussion to build upon.

As a thinker and hopefully a future emergency planner, I see the emergency management planning function to be its own separate pillar, not some function contained within the preparedness function. The preparedness function has its own purpose and focus, which goes beyond planning, I will explain that shortly. So, let me rock the boat and shake up the emergency management community by suggesting the need for a paradigm shift away from the four pillars of emergency management and join me to embrace the five pillars of emergency management:

The Five Pillars of Emergency Management

This post will capture a high-level overview of the Five Pillars of Emergency Management and the emergency management cycle. I am trying to determine whether this is important enough to be the focus of my capstone project for school or whether exploring this topic on my blog will address this topic adequately. 

The five pillars:

• Prevention / Mitigation
• Planning
• Preparedness
• Response
• Recovery 

 These pillars support the successful application of emergency management to minimize the impacts of natural disasters or manmade crises on a community and speed the recovery of the community to return to a state as good as or better than the condition before the disaster event. If the emergency management process is embraced by the members of the community, in theory, in time the community will become resilient to future disaster events. 

The five pillars are applied in an ever-improving cycle:

The Five Pillar Emergency Management Cycle

The starting point for community emergency management planning is the PREVENTION stage. The prevention stage is based on a theoretical foundation. This foundation is built using research of similar communities - what disasters events have they endured? Could they occur here? If they did occur here, what would we need to plan for before they occurred to protect our residents, our structures, and infrastructure? What about the local environment? Can our plans protect the environment, too? One tool to assist during the prevention stage is to conduct a community threat hazard identification risk vulnerability assessment (THRVA). This captures the current conditions in the community and help prioritize which events would be more likely to occur and which events, if they did occur would be most harmful. With this specific information in hand, it is time to move to the next stage - planning.

The PLANNING stage is where you take all the information and research gathered in the previous stage and you work to develop the various plans for your community - emergency response plans, business continuity plans, and appropriate contingency plans in the event the other plans fail. Planning takes an entire team collaborating together to produce useful finished documents. However, plans that are not exercised or worse just sit on a shelf will never benefit the community. 

PREPAREDNESS is the stage where plans get exercised, staff and community members get trained, gaps are discovered, and needed resources are identified and replacements are stockpiled, if necessary. After training personnel, and then exercising the plans, a formal debriefing occurs to capture lessons learned, gaps in the plans or resources required, as well as, what worked well. The feedback from debrief begins a new cycle of planning, followed by exercising. This is a continuous process of improvement to ensure the community survives a disaster event with the least number of injuries or destruction. 

The RESPONSE stage is when an actual event triggers to use of the plans - emergency response plans, business continuity plans, or contingency plans. This is where plans meet the real test, this is where failure means people get hurt or killed, structures get damaged or destroyed, and your infrastructure that connects your community together and with others is rendered inoperative, at least for a short while. The response stage concludes with at least one major debriefing for responding personnel. In communities that value a robust emergency management program, will want to follow these responder debriefings with community debriefings to get feedback from residents of the community on what worked well, what did not work well, and areas where things could have worked better if...

There will be a shift in focus as the response stage is concluding, and operations transition to the RECOVERY stage. The recovery stage generally begins with cleaning up debris, making assessments of damages, and modifying recovery plans to meet the needs of the actual event that has impacted the community. The recovery stage can have three sub-stages to address the needs in the short-term/immediate, the midterm, and the long-term. Infrastructure usually takes until the long-term to be fully restored to pre-disaster capacity. Like the response stage, the recovery stage will host a number of debriefings to capture valuable feedback about what worked, what didn't, and what could work better if... 

Now, we start a new cycle with the MITIGATION stage. Now that a disaster event has actually occurred and the response and recovery stages have been debriefed, now you have the material to work with to develop mitigations to prevent or at least minimize future impacts to the community.  Once this mitigation information has been captured and written out it is time to begin a new period of planning, followed by preparedness - where the new plans are trained and exercised. 

In a nutshell, that captures the high-level ideas of the Five Pillars of Emergency Management and the Emergency Management Cycle. If this is chosen as my capstone project, this position will be researched to an academic level with a literature review to determine if this concept has already been suggested - successfully or not by others; as well as, what support the Four Pillars of Emergency Management is actually built upon. 

I will post an update in September 2022, once my capstone project has been submitted and graded. No matter what topic I select, it will be of interest to at least some of the visitors of this blog. 

Thank you for reading.

V.A.M.

 

 

 

The Rule of 3's

 

Alberta Rockies near Willow Valley (Photo by V.A. McMillan)

Poster created by V.A. McMillan using a PowerPoint background stock image

The Rule of 3’s has been with me for so long I forget where I first learned them, and I forget not everyone has ever heard of them. So, to help correct this latter issue, I will post my understanding and significance of The Rule of 3’s.

If you have heard of the WILL TO SURVIVE, then you will understand the first Rule of 3’s – You can survive 3-seconds without HOPE. If you are existing in a place, time, or headspace where you cannot see a positive outcome your likelihood of survival drops radically. You can get bummed out or suffer a moment of despair and that is normal. However, if you descend into a pit or well of negative energy getting back out will take your self-determination, your WILL TO SURVIVE, and possibly the help from others.

The next critical 3 is OXYGEN, if we cannot breathe, we will die in short order. Yes, some folks who train for it, can survive longer than the average human. Pearl Divers can stay underwater longer than 3-minutes, but they spend their lives building up their lung capacity and endurance. They practice their skills everyday. Even with the best training survival from the loss of OXYGEN is still measured in minutes.

The third rule – You can survive 3-hours without SHELTER is sometimes not fully appreciated in our modern society. Shelter can include clothing, buildings, structures, or even vehicles. If you are healthy, have adequate hydration and nutrition, and live in a location that has temperatures from +25C to +30C without dropping below +20C after the sun goes down, you could survive a lot longer than 3-hours without clothes, structures, or vehicles to protect you from the environment. On the other hand, submerged in the North Atlantic, or wandering the Tundra of the Canadian Arctic, or stumbling through the Mohave Desert or the Sahara; you are going to need shelter from the harsh environment that is around you…for some folks 3-hours survival would be too generous under those conditions mentioned above.

If you have survived this far, your next priority is WATER, you can survive 3-days without WATER. The human body is composed of a large percentage of fluids and when they are not replaced on a regular basis you start to dehydrate. It is said the average North American lives in a state of mild dehydration throughout most of their lives. Being properly hydrated allows the body’s organs to function properly – digesting food, thinking, seeing, smelling, tasting, and excreting wastes and toxins from the body. When you reduce fluid intake your body uses a triage method to restrict functions not critical to survival. So, after 3-days you might still be alive, however, all your organs are shutting down and you may not have enough time to rehydrate quick enough to turn those organs back on. So, in a survival situation once have treated medical conditions that impact breathing, and you have found or built shelter; your next priority is finding a supply of clean drinking water.

The first item on the list of survival items for most folks with no survival training is FOOD. You can survive 3-weeks without FOOD!! Not exactly a high priority item in the big picture. Important, yes, for extended survival on planet Earth, however not a critical item in the first few hours of a survival or crisis situation. In situations where rescue from outside sources is highly probable the pattern of food resource management usually sounds like this:

Get to a safe location.

Treat medical issues.

Build a shelter & fire.

Have a source of fresh water close to the shelter.

Eat as required to achieve these priority tasks.

Then, fast for three-days drinking only fluids.

Then, eat minimally to maintain your health.

Keep the fire going day & night and await rescue.

If you become injured or lost in a National Park, that plan may work. If you survive a plane crash in an unknown location, you may have to self rescue which will require moving to a location that you can be located and rescued from, before building shelters. The point being the situation you are in will dictate which strategy to use for food management. Just remember you can survive longer without food than you have likely ever experienced before. Knowing this should provide you with HOPE!

Finally, without MEANINGFUL COMPANIONSHIP, life loses it purpose. Humans are social animals, and they need to be around others…at least most humans. So, you can survive 3-months without MEANINGFUL COMPANIONSHIP. I remember as my Grandmother progressed through her 90’s she would comment that all her friends had passed, and she missed them [She lived to be 99 ½ years old, a full life]. So, whether stranded on a deserted island with only a volleyball for a companion or living a long life beyond your friends or family, at some point without MEANINGFUL COMPANIONSHIP you finally give-up on living, you lose HOPE, and life ends.

If you are still reading, I thank you, this long-winded diatribe is to share The Rules of 3’s as I understand them. With this knowledge you can prioritize your survival planning starting with the items that are most likely to kill you if you ignore them.

Keep your head about you, breathe, clear your head, and think – seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months...a lifetime. Stay focused on WHY you want to survive, courage up the WILL TO SURVIVE, and do it!!

Until next time…Know your RULES of 3’s and Survive another day!!

V.A.M.

Another post that may interest you: https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/adapt-improvise-overcome-survival.html or this one https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/sip-good-inch-three-parts-of-family.html

Emergency Preparedness Month - High River, AB (May 2021)

 

Sunrise on the Rockies (photo by V.A. McMillan 2021)

Last week was National Emergency Preparedness Week in Canada (https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2021/05/emergency-preparedness-week-02-08-may.html). This week is the start of week two of Emergency Preparedness Month for the Town of High River, Alberta. 

As I look westward to the Rockies, they are glistening in this morning's sunrise, covered in a fresh cap of snow from the weekend. While out here on the prairie we received mostly rain all weekend, the mountains received mostly snow. I haven't checked recently to see where the snow pack is, but we are reaching that time of year when a couple weeks of warm weather could melt all the Winter's snows in the mountains and send it into the tributaries of the local river systems. Melt too fast and there can be high water issues. Melt too fast and accompany with heavy rains for a week or so and it will be flood season. 

This is the whole point of devoting a month to emergency preparedness, keep preparedness fresh in the minds of town folk. Then if heavy rains in June wreak havoc on the river systems folks will remember everything they learned or refreshed during Emergency Preparedness Month. Or that is the theory.

Here is what is currently on the Town's website to educate and inform the town folk:

You can find that at https://highriver.ca/emergency-prep

If you follow the link to High River - Be Prepared (https://highriver.ca/be-prepared) you will find this as your starting point for gathering focused information on emergency preparedness. See screenshot below:

There is common messaging being shared in this educational campaign - Know your neighbours, Prepare a kit, and Focus on wellness. Knowing one's neighbours is a great starting point. When you do not know whom your neighbours are, then a small part of community is lost. Since success to surviving a disaster is community response; if you are not part of the community it will be more difficult. Start small, get to know the neighbours to the left of you and the right of you. Slowly, get to know a few more. Maybe have a block party or neighbourhood BBQ...build bridges and friendships. 

Remember, when developing your family emergency plan you need to think about a shelter-in-place (SIP) plan, a Get Out Of Dodge (GOOD) plan, and a "I'm never coming home" (INCH) plan. Here are a few links to past posts that may help:

SIP GOOD INCH 

https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/sip-good-inch-three-parts-of-family.html

Evacuation Checklist

https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2019/07/evacuation-checklist-appendix-n-for.html

GO! Bag - Pack List

https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/urban-go-bag-pack-lists.html

Survival Mindset (from Mountainman's Mantra Blog)

https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/adapt-improvise-overcome-survival.html

Well with flood season, potentially, only weeks away now is a great time to review your family's emergency plan and make sure all the information is up-to-date and any changes have been written down. Have insurance policies or identification been updated?? Have phone contact lists noted the addition or reduction of family or friends contact numbers?? Email addresses?? Have you taken recent photos of your home?? Inside and outside?? Changed vehicles lately?? Photos?? 

Remember to update the digital copy of important family documents that are on your USB drive in your GO! Bag. 

Stay alert, stay vigilant, and stay alive!

VAM

A GOOD Water Bottle Pouch & Kit

Sunrise on the Rockies (Photo by V.A. McMillan 2021)

 Welcome to Emergency Preparedness Week 2021 in Canada. Time to re-visit the concept of hydration and taking your water with you - whether on a hike or an evacuation. Back in 2012 on Mountainman's Mantra this topic was briefly explored: https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/gearing-up-part-2-gear-vests.html 

Water Bottle Options

Since, 2012, many options have appeared in the water bottle market. Water bladders of every type seem to dominate the field. But old school "bottles" do have their place in your water carrying strategy, especially if you find yourself overdue on a wilderness outing or bugged out of your home.

The Nalgene water bottle is only slightly newer than a military canteen. With good reason, it does NOT leak!! Very important if you travel in rough country and cannot spend all your time ensuring your water bottle stays upright, to prevent leaks. 

Today we are going to look at a water bottle system that centres around the Nalgene 1-litre plastic bottle. Further, if I understand things correctly, the Nalgene 32-ounce family of wide mouth bottles and the Nalgene stainless steel 38-ounce water bottle are the same outside diameter, and should fit the system I am about to describe. 

The Nalgene Water Bottle System for Emergency Preparedness & Wilderness Survival

Water Bottle System 

The system consists of:

• 1x Tactical Water Bottle Pouch (pictured is from Amazon.ca)
• 1x Nalgene 1-litre wide mouth water bottle
• 1x Canteen Cup with Lid (pictured is from Amazon.ca)
• 1x Esbit Folding Stove (about 75mm x 95mm)
• 2x Mylar Blankets (available on Amazon.ca)

 

The Whole Kit

Upgrades to consider:

• Fire Kit - BIC lighter/matches/ESBIT fuel tablets
• P-51 can opener or Coghlan's folding can opener
• Silcox Key to open water valves in an emergency
• Water purification tablets 

The one big advantage of the military style canteen and canteen cup or this Nalgene bottle and cup is that when needed you already have a pot to boil your water - the canteen cup. The fact this one has a lid means you will use less fuel getting your water to boil than just an open top pot. 

The Esbit stove can burn Esbit fuel tablets, hexamine tablets, or any solid fuel - twigs, pine cones, charcoal briquets. The stove weighs next to nothing and when folded for transport can carry Esbit fuel tablets inside. It is compact about 3" x 4" x 1", actually a bit smaller. The Esbit can support either a military canteen cup or the Nalgene cup.

Canteen Cup for Nalgene Bottles on Esbit Stove

The Esbit stove and the two Mylar blankets store on the outside pocket of the Tactical Water Bottle Pouch. There is still room for a fire kit, spoon, P-51 can opener, and a few other goodies.

The Mylar blankets are handy in a survival situation to prevent cooling too fast in windy or damp conditions. They reflect body heat, infrared heat from a fire, and they reflect light. So, they are multi-purpose. Anyone sitting in the open on a sunny day covered in a Mylar blanket would be much easier for rescue teams to spot from the ground and from search and rescue aircraft. 

The Tactical Water Bottle Pouch - With Everything Packed Inside

The Tactical Water Bottle Pouch hold it all. The pouch can be carried on a shoulder strap attached to the "D" rings or clipped with the HK Clip to a "D" ring or attached with the MOLLE straps to a day pack or ruck sack. The materials were of a quality that should last years and the construction quality was equally durable. 

What emergency preparedness projects are you working on this Emergency Preparedness Week??

Stay alert, stay alive!!

VAM.

 

 

Emergency Preparedness Week 02 - 08 May 2021 - Canada's Annual Preparedness Checkup

 

2021 Emergency Preparedness Week - Image from The Government of Canada Website

Welcome to Emergency Preparedness Week 2021 (02-08 May 2021)!! This is the annual Canadian checkup on emergency preparedness by your governments and our fellow citizens. 

Public Safety Canada has crafted some fine looking posters to catch everyone's attention. I have included a couple here, with permission from the collection of shareable images from the Government of Canada website: https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/ep-wk/tlkt-en.aspx#shr-pg4 

With the strain and stress of 2020 behind us, it is time to look forward and this is a perfect time to review and update your family emergency plan. In 2020, what worked?? What didn't?? What improvements does your family need to make?? This is a great week to add those updates to your plan!!

Remember, no one is going to be looking out for your family better than YOU! You are the boss and champion for the survival and success of your family. If you do not do so already, I would recommend that you add to your list of duties - researching current events and learn for yourself what makes sense for you, your family and your situation. As a popular meme floating around the internet states: If you cannot question it, it is NOT science it is propaganda. The only defence against propaganda and misinformation is to get informed and learn the facts, not the narrative. 

If you or anyone you know is looking for a guide to help with emergency planning, The G.O.O.D. Plan - Get Out Of Dodge is available for Kindle devices from Amazon, right here: https://www.amazon.ca/Plan-Dodge-Official-Field-Manual-ebook/dp/B087CCH4H8/. The GOOD Plan is a guide to help you and your family develop, practice, and action your own emergency evacuation plan as part of your complete family emergency plan. Remember every family emergency plan consists of three sub-plans: The Shelter-in-Place Plan (SIP), The Evacuations Plan (GOOD), and the I'm Never Coming Home Plan (INCH). I wrote about this before (https://thegoodplanblog.blogspot.com/2018/02/sip-good-inch-three-parts-of-family.html).

Thank you for your continued support of my blog and be safe out there!!

VAM

#EPWeek2021 #ReadyforAnything

PS - Here is a look at the Public Safety Canada webpage for Emergency Preparedness Week 2021 (Source: https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/ep-wk/index-en.aspx)

About Emergency Preparedness Week

Take action so that you, your family, and your community are prepared for emergencies.

Emergency Preparedness Week (EP Week) is a national event supported by Public Safety Canada, working closely with provincial and territorial emergency management organizations, Indigenous organizations, non-governmental organizations, and private sector who support activities at the local level. An annual event for over 25 years, it traditionally takes place during the first full week of May.   

Emergency Preparedness Week 2021

• May 2 - 8, 2021

Everyone has a role to play in an emergency. EP Week is an opportunity for you to take action to ensure you are prepared to protect yourself, your family and your community during an emergency. This year, the theme is Emergency Preparedness: Be Ready for Anything. The intent of this theme is to encourage Canadians to take action to become better prepared for the range of emergencies they could face in their region.

This national event is coordinated by Public Safety Canada, in close collaboration with the provinces and territories and partners.

Get Involved - Participate in our EP Week Challenge for a chance to win an emergency kit

This year, you have a chance to win an emergency preparedness kit by joining our online social media challenge. All you have to do is share a tip or picture showing how you’re helping to make you and your family better prepared to cope during an emergency, and use the hashtag #ReadyforAnything.

It can be as simple as making an emergency kit with items found around your home, creating a family emergency plan, or becoming more informed about the hazards in your area.

Before entering, please consult the rules and regulations.

Resources

• Emergency Management Organizations
• Emergency Preparedness Week Toolkit
• Emergency Preparedness Guide
• Learn about hazards and other emergencies
• Make an emergency plan
• Build an emergency kit

For more information, please contact info@GetPrepared.ca or call 1-800-830-3118.

This national event is coordinated by Public Safety Canada, in close collaboration with the provinces and territories and partners.

Date modified: 

2021-04-30

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Emergency Readiness - Readiness Levels (Part One)

 

Hills West of Savanna Creek, Alberta (Photo by V.A. McMillan)

Well, 2020 may go down as a “novel” year, a year most folks would not care to repeat anytime soon. Yet, 2021 is starting with similar tensions that brought 2020 to a close. Thus, bringing me to this post on Emergency Readiness.

Let’s talk about readiness. What is readiness and why should we care?? Good questions. Readiness is the act of being ready. My American neighbours have a couple examples of readiness in their history – The Minute Men and Rogers’ Rangers. The Minute Men were American Patriots who acted as the QRF (quick reaction force) during the War of Independence – coming to the aid of their community or neighbouring community when under threat by their enemy. They got their name because they were expected to be ready on a minute’s notice. Meanwhile, Rogers’ Rangers were an American unit attached to the British military during the Seven Years War under the command of Major Robert Rogers. Rogers’ Rangers Standing Orders (1759) [http://www.psywarrior.com/ranger.html] are classic readiness orders that still hold value today. These standing orders detail things like deploying scouts when on the move, never use the same route out as you use to return to prevent being ambushed, post sentries when going to ground at night, march late and rise early, and keep your rifle clean, with sixty rounds and keep your hatchet sharp. Technology, field gear and weapons may change but the essence on readiness remains the same.

I am going to suggest a readiness system that ranges from level zero (not ready) to level five (extremely ready). This system of readiness draws upon the concepts devised by Colonel Jeff Cooper and his “color code” for gunfighting [https://modernsurvivalblog.com/security/coopers-color-code-definition/]; as well as, more recent additions to this “color code” [https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/managing-stress-arousal-for-optimal-performance-a-guide-to-the-warrior-color-code/] and Lt Colonel John Boyd’s OODA Loop for decision making [https://taylorpearson.me/ooda-loop/].

 

Emergency Readiness

Level Zero – Not Ready

Level One – Ready, with at least a week’s notice

Level Two – Ready, with at least a day’s notice

Level Three – Ready, with a few hours notice

Level Four – Ready, within an hour’s notice

Level Five – Ready, within a minute’s notice

Level Zero: This would-be what Cooper calls Condition White, you are not ready. This would be a state of relaxation or stand-down to recover and recharge your soul, your internal life battery and get ready for the next period of readiness. It is also the same state for those who have no understanding or willingness to be prepared or ready for an emergency.

Level One: This would be the state of having had training, made a “plan”, and had the required gear & equipment for emergency preparedness; however, your personal system for coordinating all of these key components has not yet been developed. With enough lead time you will be ready, but that lead time would be measured in days or weeks. Further training with others and/or conducting drills or exercises would assist you to progress to a higher readiness level. Cooper may call this Condition Yellow – relaxed alert, a condition when you are less likely to be caught off-guard.

Level Two: This state of readiness is a giant leap forward from level one. Your gear & equipment has been sorted and stored in a specific location, you have your plans written down and you practice your skills & training regularly (annually or semi-annually); however, deploying your gear & equipment and enacting your plan still requires more than a day’s notice. Continued group training/practice, as well as, conducting exercises & drills will further enhance performance and reduce response time. Cooper’s Condition Orange – increased vigilance, would be similar.

Level Three: Achieving this level of readiness will keep you and your family safe during most natural disaster events and many man-made crises events. This level of readiness ensures you can evacuate from a flood or wildfire, or shelter-in-place from a chemical leak. You have the skills & knowledge to know what to do, you have the gear & equipment to stay or to go, and you have written and exercised plans that your family uses. Each member of your family has a bugout bag/GO bag/ready pack. Your vehicles are rarely parked at home with less than half a tank of fuel. Your home is rarely without a few weeks’ worth of food in the pantry, fridge, or freezer. You have alternate light sources and battery packs to recharge critical communications devices to endure a typical power outage. At this level you meet or exceed the government’s expectation for 72-hour of preparedness. Although, this might be similar to Cooper’s Condition Red; there are physiological differences, that would not be experienced by at this readiness level unless a response was required, then, level three would be closer to Condition Red.

Level Four: This level of readiness will see you successfully survive known natural disasters and man-made crises albeit you may have to leave valuable gear or equipment or possessions behind. Your skills, training and knowledge combine to give you and your family an edge over 90% of the others in your community. This will help you to help your family and then help your community. Readiness is a habit now, a way of life. You no longer have to think about it, you just do it. At this level of readiness, the only events that would cause you great challenge would be fire in your home or a tornado or a tsunami; all other natural disaster events or man-made crises could be handled as you have planned. Psychological, physiological, and situational awareness are heightened at level four however the negative effects of Condition Grey would likely only be felt if deployed at this level and only for the duration of the high intensity stage of the event. Due to the high level of training, practice, drills, exercises, skills, knowledge, gear & equipment, at level four readiness a person should experience less tunnel vision, less cognitive impairment and enhanced situational awareness because this is the level you train at.

Level Five: The highest readiness level, meaning you require the least amount of warning or notice to employ your training or plans. At this level, you keep your vehicle preloaded with essential gear & equipment. Family GO bags are the only items needed to grab when leaving your home. You have digital copies of family photos and documents on USB drives and they are in your GO bag. Water and food are preloaded in your vehicle. Your vehicle is always kept with at least ¾ of a tank of fuel. Vehicle maintenance is not neglected. Achieving level five readiness is to be at peak performance mentally, physically, and emotionally. You are as ready as you can be. Unlike, Condition Black, level five is a good place to be. Maintaining level five readiness, however, is another story which will be explored in detail in Part Two [https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/emergency-readiness-readiness-endurance.html].

So, no matter where you currently are along the emergency readiness continuum, Level Zero to Level Five, everyday is an opportunity to improve or maintain your readiness. Remember as skills and training increase your knowledge you become less dependent on gear & equipment for your success. The more you know the more you can improvise when necessary for achieving your goal.

Until next time…watch your six!

VAM.

(PS - Yes, I copied from Mountainman's Mantra...with permission.)

Useful Links:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/managing-stress-arousal-for-optimal-performance-a-guide-to-the-warrior-color-code/

https://modernsurvivalblog.com/security/coopers-color-code-definition/

https://taylorpearson.me/ooda-loop/

http://www.psywarrior.com/ranger.html 

Emergency Readiness - Readiness Endurance & Fatigue (Part Two)

 

Mountain Road, Alberta (Photo by V.A. McMillan)

In Part One [https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/emergency-readiness-readiness-levels.html] we covered emergency readiness levels from zero to five. Let’s carry on and explore Level Five in more detail with a focus on the challenges of maintaining this level of readiness for prolonged periods and a strategy to minimize a loss of effectiveness over time.

As mentioned in Part One, Level Five Emergency Readiness is the peak of performance and readiness. Your kit is squared away. Your vehicle is squared away. You have comms and backup comms. You have backup power and lighting. You are trained and exercised. You have a plan or plans for known events that would require your readiness. You are confident. Your family is confident in you, too. If anything happens that requires you to deploy or respond to a natural disaster or man-made crisis you are READY.

BUT… (there is always a but) how long can you stay at this heightened level of readiness?? What is your endurance level?? Are you mentally strong enough to stay here at Level Five for a week?? A month?? Six months?? A year?? Two Years?? What if you do not deploy?? What if no events occur that require your response?? What if an event is building in intensity but has not breached the event horizon to become actionable?? How long could you stay at peak readiness??

This is where readiness and preparedness need to transform from just a skillset into a lifestyle. You live preparedness and readiness. However, even in a perfect world staying at Level Five is difficult to do, much less do indefinitely. If you are employed to be ready, then you are also employed with others and can form teams. With teams staying at Level Five for prolonged periods becomes possible because you can rotate between heightened alert levels and down time to recover for your next period of heightened alertness.

When I was in the army one of the taskings that would rotate through was for one company of soldiers to assist DART (disaster assistance response team). For one month, one company would be on 24-hours notice to deploy anywhere in the world if DART was sent to a location to respond to a natural disaster or man-made crisis. Usually, DART would deploy with enough resources to make clean drinking water, have their own power supply and comms, a medical team and soldiers for local protection and assisting locals with disaster recovery tasks until local infrastructure could resume without assistance. So, for thirty-days 100 or so soldiers would maintain their readiness of having their full fighting order, ruck and a duffle bag packed and ready to go. If a disaster occurred the troops only needed to get dressed, grab their kit and report to base, get personal weapons issued and jump on a plane to be transported to the location in need of assistance. Since, deployment did not always occur, normal daily routine continued – morning PT, company or platoon tasks or training on base and off-duty time limited alcohol consumption and distance away from base, you were on standby after all. This being on standby to deploy at any hour to any location is taxing, especially if you do not get deployed. Getting deployed may be exhausting but you are doing what you trained for and that pays you a small dividend. For any one company it could be 18 – 24-months between DART taskings due to the rotation through the whole army.

In the civilian world many first responder organizations are also on standby to respond on-call to emergency events. The fire department and EMS are most recognizable to this model of alarm bells going off at the station or hall and crews gear up and mount up on their response vehicles and deploy to the scene to assist the citizens at fire or medical emergencies. First responders use teams and rotate them, so a fresh crew is on-duty for 8-12-hours before being replaced by another crew. In this way, response times are kept to a minimum because readiness is at the maximum. To keep crews at their peak training, drills and exercises are employed for this one purpose. However, not everyone in the civilian world belongs to an agency.

For those who operate as a single-family unit or maybe as part of a limited mutual support group of friends or neighbours, achieving Level Five readiness is a great achievement. Maintaining that level is challenging. Maintaining that level for prolonged periods is monumental. A protracted low-intensity event that has the potential to explode into a high-intensity event at any moment is extremely taxing on individuals. If you are the party creating the low-intensity event and you know exactly when you are going to escalate into a high-intensity event your troops/forces/members are afforded the luxury of knowing the timeline and being able to energy up to the increased demands of the event. On the other hand, those who are on the receiving side of such events and lack the foreknowledge of the timeline, they must maintain heightened readiness for prolonged periods thus exhausting themselves before the escalation even begins. The alternative is to lower the readiness level and then gamble that you can mobilize in time. These low-intensity events that have the potential to become high-intensity events become acts of attrition by the aggressors against the defenders. Or, as a former soldier that is how I see things.

Here is my strategy for endurance. First you need a group or team, one that you trust. Next, tasks need to be divided between sub-units of the group. These tasks include – QRF (quick reaction force) Level Five, Follow-up units – Level Four and everyone else – Level Three. If the event is for a fixed period, then afterwards a period of Level Zero to recuperate while maintaining one unit at Level Three or Four would be a wise practice. Otherwise, if the event is of an unknown duration, it becomes necessary to rotate the sub-units through Level Five, Four and Three. If folks have a job, the rotation cycle will likely work well on one-week rotations. During this lead up time is a good time to start/continue cross-training team members into the Level Fire tasks. Remember, if your group has four Level Three teams, two Level Four teams and a lone Level Five team, the Level Three teams need to be brought up to Level Five, just so your Level Five team can get rest occasionally. Burnout your top team in the lead up and they could become non-effect when you need them the most. Also, the rotation will help build stronger teams across your whole mutual support group. On tactic for conducting this increased training would be to disperse your Level Five team so that one member is attached to each of the Level Three and Four teams. Once the knowledge has been shared, practiced, and exercised/drilled, then everyone will be able and comfortable taking their position in the team rotations as Level Five for a week. Remember one effective method of ensuring the teams are growing is to engage each team in an operation debrief and learn what they feel are their strengths and what gaps exist to focus future training on.

Emergency preparedness and emergency readiness are both individual disciplines and team sports. If each member of a team contributes to the team’s achievements and is mindful of their personal responsibilities and stays focused, there are few goals that cannot be achieved together. 

Until next time…cover your buddy’s six!

VAM. 

(PS - Yes, I copied these over from Mountainman's Mantra.)

Useful Links:

Part One https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/emergency-readiness-readiness-levels.html

Fire Piquet https://mtnmanblog.blogspot.com/2017/07/bugout-location-fire-piquetsecurity.html