Pandemic Planning Resources

It's been quite some time since the H1N1 pandemic has been the talk of the town in the emergency planning arena as well as in everyone's surrounding community.

At the current moment, we do know that countries such as China will be mass producing (or have already started) vaccines that may possibly minimise and hopefully eliminate the H1N1 strain of virus to some targetted groups of its population. Of course other major pharmacuetical companies are also still in perhaps the final testing phase.

While we await for a "cure" to fully crystallize, it is still important for emergency planners, business continuity specialists, as well as all relevant and responsible parties be aware of key resources that will enable them to better prepare and plan for a greater scale of outbreak in the near future.

As such, I've found the following link to be relatively comprehensive and useful for almost everyone to reference with, pertaining to pandemic planning:

Click Here for Pandemic Planning Resource

Always be prepared!

Jakarta New Bombings: Is Your Organisation Ready?

Despite past bombing events at Jakarta or in the Indonesian region, terrorists (as it seems to be for now) have once again struck a successful blow to the tourism industry at The Ritz Carlton, JW Marriots. All this taking place even with the current ramped up security and anti-terrorism measures by the country and the security agencies.

As this blog is being posted, I am being swamped with live radio and television broadcast reports provided by various terrorism experts on what actually happened in Indonesia today, and how all this tragic events could have happened once more.

Definitely very sad.

But what can we learn at the individual or even at the organisational level?

Regardless of where one lives in today, your country's security agency would have by now been ever more prepared for the eventuality of a terrorist strike. It's obvious from all these recent events that no country is spared.

This means that organisations residing in these coubtries would already have in place a certain form of business coninuity plan or currently embarking on a business continuity management journey. For some organisations, this would also be known as emergenecy planning or preparedness. Relevant plans should by now be put in place including the necessary infrastructure required to support such recovery operations.

As an indvidual, you should be familiar with the plans in place in your organisation, such as the faithful practising of annual fire evacuation drills and so on. Of course, there are other equally important procedures one should be familiar as well, to ensure your best chance of survival, as well as recovery to your organisation's business operations.

So, are you prepared?

National Level Exercise: Ex North Star VII

Singapore is currently working on a 3 day duration national level emergency management exercise, codenamed "Exercise North Star VII", which will see the involvement as well as actual deployment of various Home Front agencies (think Police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force).

Held annually to test the Home Front agencies' capabilities as well as response level, this series of exercise also aims to educate as well as seek the involvement of various strata of the common population. Such joint exercises will thus allow all involved agencies and government entities to better understand their own capabilities as well as seek improvement in their delivery standards in the event of a real crises.

So, what's this year's scenario based on? From what I roughly gather (thanks to my busy shift schedule) it will generally involve a "rouge" terrorist body moving across the island.

Judging by the level of planning involved, there's no denial that the responding agencies are definitely taking this whole nation-wide exercise seriously. How do I know? Well, while returning home from my night shift this morning, I was already caught in a 1 hour jam along a major expressway (for Singapore's traffic standard, that's rather long, considering our nation's geographical size). Look at the picture above, and you'll see (look carefully) a convoy of police patrol cars on the left lane, which I took from my Samsung PDA phone (not bad picture quality for a 2 mega-pixel unit, right?).

Stay tuned for more updates.

HAZMAT Response: ARFF Capabilities

Are you in an Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting (ie, ARFF) unit?

Is your unit's primary mission solely to respond to aviation incident and disasters?

To what extent does your ARFF unit respond and gets itself involved when it comes to "unique" situations?

These are some of the questions you'll need to ask yourself if you're a real ARFF responder. Seriously.

I recall my early days in my ARFF involvement, when I was briefed on our unit's roles, response and capabilities. Throughout the training, I was often drilled to respond soley (and mainly) to aircraft incidents, and a lesser aspect with regards to structural fire scenarios. Had it not been for my earlier training with the local city civil defence where structural fire-fighting and special incidents' response was part of my bread and butter, I'd probably be shivering right now, thinking of what flies on board those passenger and military aircraft on a daily basis.

Having basic knowledge of hazardous materials' response (HAZMAT) versus full experience and response know-how does make a BIG difference to life and death not just to your clients, but also to your fellow fire-fighters.

Having HAZMAT suits and owning the latest detection and monitoring device is just one part of the response and mitigation formula. Having adequate knowledge as well as practical training and full competency forms the greater part of this common sense equation.

Because of this sole reason, I'm therefore a serious advocate when it comes to drills relating to HAZMAT response. Not just doing the basics, but right up to foreseeable multiple HAZMAT scenarios.

What about your organisations'?

What is your response capability to HAZMAT incidents?

Fire Fighting Cats?

Yes it's true. No, you're not dreaming.

But can they do it the way professional fire-fighters can?

Well, it seems in an article I read by "Asian Security Review", the Potala Palace located in Lhasa, Tibet has been marked as a major fire risk due to its architectural design and construction, which consists mainly of wood. You can bet it's highly combustible considering the grandeur in its design, as well as the quantity involved.

In fire engineering terms, it can be classified as a high fire risk premise, owing to its high fire load.

The site has ben identified as UNESCO in 1994 as a World Heritage Site and has since then, had a resident team of fire-fighters on high alert during the dry season. But what about the cats? What's it got to do with them?

Well apparently back in 1984, a fire occurred as a result of an electrical short circuit. Owing to the lack of immediate response capabilities, a portion of the site was badly damaged, only after the resident monks and nearby residents assisted in the fire-fighting intervention.

As these sites usually have mice in these areas (yeah, you know it was coming to this didn't you?), there exist a "threat" where they would end up chewing on the wiring insulation and thereby enhancing the fire risk exposure. Do you fire-fighters chasing after rats or mice in your neighbourhood? Neither do they in Tibet.

Now we know what the cats are for... "MEOW"

The Selection of Elite Fire-Fighters

There was a recent media coverage regarding the training of "elite" fire-fighters in Singapore. This was to allow the general population to understand how the whole process of selecting elite fire-fighters are done.

To be specific, it's the selection of D.A.R.T. personnels. Or, better known as "Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team" personnels.

For those who belong to this unit, or know of anyone from this unit, it is understandable that one will link such persons to rescuers who are determined, alert, sharp in thinking skills, highly innovative (in sourcing for alternative rescue tool and making use of natural elements to aid in rescue operations), and so on and so forth. But above all, one who is superbly fit, not only physically, bot also mentally as well.

The coverage mentioned that the selection involves a streneous series of tests involving carrying multiple lengths of hoses over certain distances, hoisting of large sized dummies (not easy if you're of Asian frame-sized) over certain heights, navigating through confined spaces, wading through simulated flooded basements, and many others tasks.

But here's the kicker: all within a continuous period of 28 hours!

As a fire-fighter myself, I have not personally been subjected to such selection tests, but I can imagine this maybe the reality when called upon to respond to a large scale nationa-wide national emergency.

What's your view?

Recruiting, Training, And Maintaining Volunteer Fire Fighters

BCM Vs EM

BCM Vs EM. What's that?



If you're in the field of emergency management or emergency response long enough, you'd probably be able to guess that it literally means "Business Continuity Management versus Emergency Management". Nothing anymore complicated as that.

Have you ever come across situations where folks in our field (or maybe not) have been using these terms loosely? Having said that, is there actually a difference between these two?

For starters, we all know that Emergency Management typically resides in the field of "fast action" emergency response to a given hazard or crisis, and involves response plans and standard operating procedures for situations involving fires, floods, road traffic accidents, rescue operations, and so on (you get the idea). It is generally a subset or a niche in the management field pertaining to managing emergency response situations. Those in the EMT, fire and police organisations would be well aware of this definition and the exercises that come packaged with it.

Business Continuity Management on the other hand, has its roots starting from the commercial and banking industries, and typically involves an overall organisation-wide business continuity plan and requires various internal stakeholders as well as its associated vendors to provide a detailed response plan to support the organisation's critical business objectives (usually decided by senior management in advance). It conceptualizes that main objectives to be fulfilled by the organisation in times of identified crises such that its minimum servic edelivery standards will not be overly compromised.

In a nutshell, that's what these two fields of niche management are about. And if you're in the field of BC, you'll be well aware that "emergency management or response" will form part of your business continuity plan.

Business Continuity Management Framework: The Easy-To-Use, Comprehensive, Business Continuity Tool (third Edition, 2008)

One Week On...

It's been nearly a week plus or so, since my country initiated DORSCON Alert "Orange" and since then, has already scaled down to Alert "Yellow".

What does this mean?

Essentially, national resources would not be as strained as before, with more of these resources and other government efforts devouted to other much more critical tasks. Internally as an organisation, you can definitely say that the fear and stress level has gone down at least a few notches down.

As a emergency response division within my organisation (in case you're not aware I'm currently in the aviation industry), resumption of daily training in terms of physical aspects has also gone back up to normal level as well. However, PPE items such as BA face masks still need to be constantly sterilised and witnessed by the Station Officer.

Yep, drills are back to ops normal now.

Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope everything turns out well.

H1N1 Scaling Down of Alert Level

Currently, WHO has signalled that the current strain of influenza virus H1N1 may not be deemed as deadly as before. And judging by the symptoms shown by suspected victims in reported countries, they all seem to be in a rather "stable" and controlled condition.

Pending WHO's final decision, my country may similarly scale down on it's current DORSCON level from "Orange" status back down to "Yellow". This is essential as it will lessen the current strain on PPE resources to the Nation as well as various government agencies.

For thos of us currently in the fire stations and so on, we will constantly maintain a high state of PPE donning alert.

Hmm... hopefully it really scales down coming Monday?

Swine Flu (aka H1N1 virus) Preparation

Currently as I write this post, my country's been upgraded to DORSCON Alert "Orange" in response to WHO's upgrading of the (now known as) H1N1 flu pandemic virus.

At my station, we've stepped up the relevant preparedness measures in accordance to my organisation's business continuity plan.

These steps include:

a) Screening all incoming reporting duty crew and isolating them in a designated isolation room if signs of fever or flu like symptoms are observed.

b) Suspension of all forms of scheduled physical training (with hte exception of classroom lectures and tutorials).

c) All ambulance crew to respond with surgical gloves and N95 mask.

d) Preparation for possible conversion to a 2 Team shift system

That's basically what I can say here as the rest are rather specfic in nature and yes, confidential as well.

What's your organisation or unit doing?

Welcome to "Emergency Command"!

Emergency Responder....Good day!

It's taken me quite a while to proceed with setting up this blog site.

The main reason being that I'm not really that comfortable in blogging and more often, folks like us tend to be more 'operational' or (for some of us) more 'hands on' in our approach to problem solving. Anyway, I figured that since I've been in this industry for quite awhile, I felt that I may have something to share for anyone who may also be in the emergency response industry, or maybe considering a career in this exciting and often, highly rewarding industry.

Wait...'highly rewarding'? Well, that depends on how you look at this industry as well as the specific nature of your work involvement in this field of emergency response. Whether you come from the military, homeland security, allied health industry, police, civil defence, or the fire brigade, there will be ups and downs in your career. But most importantly, its the sense of achievement that I believe keeps most of us here going all this while.

As this site grows (and depending on my time available, seriously), you can expect to see various topics pertaining to emergency response planning, management, business continuity, or other related fields being discussed or featured here.

And if you're looking into certain materials that maybe useful in your information dissemination at your various workplaces, you may expect to find them here as well. And yes... if you're a trainer in the field of EM, do let me know and we may have it featured here as well.

Till then... "Standyby for announcement!"