ANALYSIS Can You Manage Your Disaster? As student transporters go about their daily jobs, I seriously doubt they are thinking about
emergency management and planning. Teir concentration is on the job at hand, whether it be driving, training and/or working with kids in some capacity. Our job, as leaders, is to ensure that those same employees understand their role in an emergency.
By Cheri Clymer
We must give them sound advice based on our own emergency plans. It’s time to grab that book off the shelf, dust it off and dig into the part transportation plays in any crisis response. For, you see, if we don’t give them the knowledge and training they must have, they will do what they think is best. Common sense says it will probably turn out OK, but do we want to take that risk? Are you ready to roll up your sleeves and get started to manage your disaster? Where do we begin?
Take a look at your district plan. Has it been updated in the past few years? Review the contents to see where transportation is directly affected. Will you be able to respond to the needs of the district in the designated time frame? Do you have the equipment and employees ready at the drop of a hat to respond to an emergency? Do you have a procedure in place to recall them if necessary? Tese and many other questions need to be answered before disaster strikes. We must provide
training and an action plan to ensure a correct response. No time or money? Knowledge can be passed on in many forms, but that is another article. After 9/11, we all vowed to be better prepared. Days and months after that tragic day, we were
busy making plans, storing emergency supplies and concentrating on the items we need to survive. But, as usual, those ideas slipped to next week, next month and so on. Ten, Hurricane Katrina struck, followed by the tsunami of Indonesia and the tornadoes of the Midwest, reminding us that disasters can strike anywhere, anytime. We transport the future; we must protect them, our employees and our loved ones. As disasters come and go, our response to them evolves. In 2004, the National Response Plan, a
nationwide plan to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks came into effect. Te National Response Framework (NRF) superseded the National Response Plan on March 22, 2008. Te NRF guides how the nation conducts an all-hazards response. Te main components of the plan include focusing on who is involved with emergency preparedness, how we as a nation collectively respond to incidents and how we organize to implement and apply response actions. A companion document to the NRF is the National Incident Management System (NIMS). It provides
the foundation needed to make sure we work together when our communities and the nation need us the most. While NIMS provides the plan for the management of incidents regardless of size, scope or cause, the NRF provides the structure and mechanisms for national-level policy of incident response. One of the most important best practices that has been incorporated into the NIMS is the
Incident Command System (ICS). Tis standard, on-scene, all-hazards incident management system is already in use by firefighters, hazardous materials teams, rescuers and emergency medical teams. Te ICS has been established by the NIMS as the standardized incident organizational structure for the management of all incidents. Within NIMS is a directive for school districts that requires all personnel to be trained in the ICS. What makes this system work so well? ICS was developed by fire departments to give personnel a
Clymer is a retired school transportation safety trainer from Loveland, Colo. She is the co-author of NAPT’s Emergency Preparedness Guide and can be contacted at clymerc@
skybeam.com.
common language when requesting more personnel and equipment from other districts as well as common tactics when responding to emergencies. Te system can be expanded or reduced depending on the nature of the emergency. Te Federal Emergency Management Agency offers free online classes related to the National Incident Management System, National Response Framework and Incident Command System. Tese training sessions require little time and offer insight into emergency response. Visit
www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/IncidentCommandSystem.shtm and see FEMA Independent Study Program Courses ICS 100SCa or ICS100, ICS200, NIMS700 and IS 800B NRF. History has shown that confusion about who’s in charge of what and when, together with
unclear lines of authority, inevitably leads to poor response. Once you, your staff and employees understand ICS, you can improve the outcome. Do you want to just get by or do you want to manage your disaster? Looks like you have a decision to make. Be quick about it. You never know what lies ahead. ■
48 School Transportation News Magazine January 2012
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