Human Factors Challenges in Emergency Management

Enhancing Individual and Team Performance in Fire and Emergency Services

Christine Owen, Christine Owen

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317120308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Health & Safety
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book provides an overview of state-of-the-art research that has been conducted within Australia, funded by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. The chapters source and contextualize their own research practice within the context of the international research literature. Therefore, while the research has occurred within Australia it will be of particular interest to scholars, students and practitioners in a number of other countries, particularly within the United States of America and in Europe. The fire and emergency services is a particularly large industry - in Australia alone it employs 250, 000 personnel - yet there is very little by way of published human factors books addressing this sector directly. Emergency events frequently involve problems for which there may be unanticipated consequences and highly interdependent consequential effects. In short, emergency events are not necessarily as containable as may be work in other domains. As Karl Weick once commented, emergency events do not 'play by the rules'. This means that these research chapters tell us something about a potential future world of work that is highly dynamic, interdependent and for which improvisation and critical thinking and problem-solving are necessary pre-requisites. The discussions about individual and team performance will also be pertinent to others working in similar high-reliability, high-consequence domains. The chapters connect into an integrated body of work about individual and group performance and their limitations.

Chapter 1
Human Factors in Emergency Management

Dr Christine Owen

Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre and University of Tasmania, Australia

Dr Peter Hayes

Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre and Kaplan Business School, LaTrobe University, Australia

Introduction

People who manage emergency events face many challenges. This book focuses on the human factors challenges that are experienced by managers who deal with emergency events. Such events arise from hazards in the environment. Hazards can be natural, for example, earthquakes, wildfires, storms and tsunamis; they can be created by human activities, for example, oil spills and chemical explosions; or they can be intentional, for example, terrorism. Emergencies are actual or imminent events that pose a threat to life, property or the environment, and require a significant and coordinated response (EMA 1988). Some emergencies can be small in scale, like road accidents, while others can impact on thousands of people. A disaster has been defined as a crisis arising from significant damage, where agencies and the services they provide are overwhelmed by the damage and where the communities they work with are limited in their capacity to recover (Turner 1976). Although definitions of scale and complexity may be used to differentiate between emergencies and disasters, there are also some important qualitative differences. Quarantelli (2000) noted that compared with emergencies, disasters tend to require responding organisations:

• to work with more groups, many of which will be unfamiliar to those responding

• to have reduced autonomy

• to operate to different performance standards

• and to develop closer working arrangements between the public and private sectors.

Clearly these conditions present many challenges for those involved.

Emergency services are made up of people and technology-based systems for coping with adverse events, and the discipline of human factors can offer valuable insights into how these emergency services meet the challenges faced and how they can be continually improved. As a discipline human factors is concerned with ‘understanding the interactions among humans and other elements of a system…[and] applies theory, principles, data and methods to design, in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance’ (Karwowski 2012, p. 3).

Most of the research discussed in this book has been undertaken with emergency services agencies responsible for either wildfire, and/or flood and storm management in Australia and New Zealand. Although personnel working within the fire and emergency management domain face a unique set of human factors challenges, the insights provided in this book will be of interest to researchers, scholars and practitioners involved in managing hazards of all kinds, such as technology and terrorism-based emergencies; emergencies in safety-critical industries like nuclear power, oil and energy production; and emergencies in health and transportation. This is because many of the challenges to be discussed in this book also can be found in these domains.

This book contributes to a growing body of knowledge about emergency services work and about the role of human factors involved in building capability in the sector. At the heart of this book are the following questions: how do personnel responding to emergency events manage these events, and what can be learned to enhance their capabilities?

The Growing Importance of Emergency Management

The emergency management sector performs a critical role in attempting to mitigate the harmful effects of a hazard that may develop into an emergency or even a disaster. Its activities therefore aim to protect individuals, communities, businesses, the economy and the environment from harm. In so doing, their purpose is to provide confidence to communities, governments and other stakeholder groups in the face of adversity.

In this respect the emergency services sector helps support the maintenance and development of stable and resilient communities. In many jurisdictions the part-funding of fire and rescue services by insurance companies is recognition of the loss minimisation role these emergency services agencies play in the economy. These agencies play a role in reducing the likely costs of emergency and disaster events, and, importantly, support resilient communities and businesses, so that they are able to recover more quickly from emergency events.

The emergency management sector comprises a variety of agencies, including fire and rescue, ambulance, police, coastguard, search and rescue, civil defence and state emergency services, as well as members of self-responding community groups. Emergencies often require several agencies to coordinate their response activities, e.g., fire, ambulance and police. Complex or large-scale events require multiple emergency services: various federal and state government departments; local government and their municipalities; Red Cross and other non-government organisations; and logistical support from the military.

A core challenge for the emergency management sector is the fact that the number and intensity of adverse events is increasing and there is a growing vulnerability in our communities. This includes our social and ecological vulnerabilities, as illustrated by some of the major events that have happened globally in the past decade. These are outlined below:

• The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami had an impact on 14 countries where an estimated 275,000 people died. More than 600,000 people lost their livelihoods and 1.7 million were displaced.

• In 2010 a number of overwhelming disasters affected many populations. These included:

– the earthquake in Haiti that affected an estimated 10 million people, creating one of the most complex urban disasters in decades (World Vision 2010); and

– the record-breaking floods in Pakistan, which had an impact on almost all of the country. An estimated 20 million people were affected, and 1.89 million homes were damaged or destroyed (Red Cross 2010).

• In 2011 the Japanese earthquake, subsequent tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdown was reported as the toughest and most difficult crisis for Japan since the end of World War II (CNN 2011).

• The hurricanes and tornadoes now occurring across the Atlantic each year continue to cause considerable damage to countries such as Bermuda, Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the USA and sometimes Canada.

Australia and New Zealand have also had a series of significant emergency events and disasters that have tested and challenged governments and communities. The summer of 2010–2011 saw every State and Territory in Australia – except for the Australian Capital Territory – impacted by emergency events unprecedented in intensity and geographic spread. These occurred within two years of other exceptional events. The evidence gathered during the empirical research carried out for this book, and listed below, supports this claim:

1. In 2009 Australia experienced its hottest month on record in January. In the state of Victoria, this heatwave was linked to 374 deaths (DHS 2009). In February of the same year, following a decade of drought, Victoria also experienced catastrophic bushfires where 173 people died and thousands of others remain displaced and multiple communities continue to recover.

2. The 2010–2011 floods in Queensland and Victoria were reported as Australia’s wettest two-year period on record (BOM 2012). In terms of extent, impact and severity, the flooding along Australia’s east coast was amongst the most significant in the country’s recorded history.

3. Tropical Cyclone Yasi in February 2011 was one of the most powerful cyclones to affect Queensland and left behind significant damage, with a disaster declaration for a number of coastal and adjacent local government areas.

4. The Christchurch earthquake in February 2011 (itself one of 7,000 aftershocks to the September 2010 quake) caused major damage to half of the city centre’s buildings, leaving many beyond repair (Brookings Institute 2012). In addition to the loss of 185 lives, this was the third largest insured event in history, triggering insurance claims of over $US12 billion.

Such large-scale, non-routine and overwhelming events have been called ‘out-of-scale’ events (Murphy and Dunn 2012). These writers argue that such events may now be considered as the ‘new normal’, meaning that they can no longer be considered as outlier aberrations or exceptions to the norm, but rather as indications of what can be expected on a more regular basis. The way we manage and recover from such events becomes increasingly important for a number of reasons, as summarised below.

Increasing Costs of Disaster

Perhaps not surprisingly, the costs of disasters are increasing. On average globally, there are approximately eight major natural disasters per year (IPCC 2012). From 1991 to 2005 around 60 per cent of costs due to disasters were incurred in OECD countries, most likely because of their higher asset base (Brookings Institute 2012). Although the number of disasters that occurred in 2011 was below average, it was the most expensive year in history in terms of disaster losses. These high costs were primarily because of the $210 (US) billion loss arising from the Japanese earthquake and the events that followed it (Brookings Institute 2012).

Increased Vulnerability

As world populations continue to grow, more people become vulnerable to the impacts of emergency events. In the 40-year period between 1970 and 2010, the world’s population nearly doubled, from 3.7 billion to 6.9 billion, placing further pressures on arable lands, water catchments and infrastructure (UNISDR 2011). Moreover, drought and floods continue to put fragile ecosystems and developing countries at risk, and make the communities who live within them increasingly vulnerable. In the same 40-year period, for example, the average number of people exposed to flooding increased by 114 per cent – from 32.5 to 69.4 million annually, and mostly in non-OECD countries (UNISDR 2011). Compared to previous periods, an increasing number of people are now finding that they are living on flood plains with little or no economic alternative.

Changes in land-use practices, settlement patterns and industrial technology have also increased the vulnerability of communities to larger-scale emergencies. This was demonstrated by the 2010 Deep-water Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, and the 2011 Tohuku earthquake and tsunami that impacted the east coast of Japan and directly affected millions of people. In these examples, the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of Honshū are heavily populated regions reliant on economic activities directly affected by the disasters, activities like fishing, aquaculture, agriculture and tourism. Furthermore, these events have very long tails, meaning that many communities may continue to be adversely affected for extended periods.

There is evidence that climate change may be also contributing to the intensity and duration of out-of-scale events. For example, climate change modelling suggests that the types of events outlined above are going to increase in their number, frequency and extent (IPCC 2012). In the case of wildfire, for example, drier and warmer conditions in Australasia, North America, Russia and Southern Europe mean that wildfire incidents are occurring with higher frequency and greater intensity. In addition, anticipated rising sea-levels, combined with increased storm and cyclone activity, represent an increasing hazard for those living on coastal areas or on low-lying coral atolls. People living in urbanised areas will also be affected, particularly by the growing interdependencies between, for example, energy, transport and agriculture (Boin and ‘t Hart 2010).

Increasingly Connected Systems

Our societies and their infrastructures have become increasingly inter-connected, e.g., water and transport systems. Other key systems, like food, have become more centralised. Because of the way these systems are organised, the impact of one out-of-scale event has wider implications, i.e. the impacts of a disaster experienced in one community can affect many others.

Increased interdependencies can also lead to other crises. A lengthy power outage in a major city during winter, for example, may not only put people at risk from hypothermia, but may create problems for managing traffic flows; it also may adversely affect business activity, and increase the risk of looting and other criminal behaviour.

A range of other factors such as demographic shifts, rural adjustment and broader business developments are also affecting community vulnerability and the delivery of emergency management services. Demographic changes, including changes to lifestyle expectations, domestic migration and community fragmentation, are increasing community vulnerability, as well as altering local social networks and the sustainability of volunteer groups (COAG 2011).

The increase in scale, intensity and duration of emergency events increases the need for cross-jurisdictional cooperation and support between the agencies responsible for managing hazardous events. Not only can an emergency event impact on several geographic areas, but the scale of these events may be such that additional resources are required from other states or even other countries. Recent international deployments of urban search and rescue (USAR) teams following earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, and the exchange of wildfire personnel between Australia and North America to combat wildfires, highlights that emergency response is becoming an increasingly global issue in need of coordination.

In countries like Australia this sector relies heavily on volunteers and non-government organisations for prevention, preparedness, response and recovery activities. It employs the equivalent of over 97,000 full-time personnel and relies on more than 225,000 volunteers (SCRGSP 2012) as well as approximately 350,000 people involved in response and recovery activities (Howard 2009).

Moreover, the emergency services sector accounts for a significant component of central and local government expenditure in most countries. In Australia, for example, for the 2010–11 financial year, police, fire and ambulance services in Australia received over $11.3 billion of state and federal government funding.

Why the Emergency Services Environment is so Challenging

Working in the emergency management environment is extremely challenging for a number of reasons. Emergency events are dynamic and, at times, unpredictable as situations continue to evolve and change. Emergency services personnel may be required to operate under high levels of uncertainty and to make time-critical decisions using information that may be incomplete, inconsistent, or ambiguous, in part because the information available varies in quantity and quality. Emergency incidents are often a race against time, and personnel need to manage themselves well so that stress, fatigue and information-overload experienced by themselves and their colleagues do not undermine their performance. Responders are often required to work with community members who may be injured, traumatised or distressed by events. Emergency events can be particularly demanding for first responders and incident management teams.

Moreover, emergency events don’t ‘play by the rules’ (Weick and Sutcliffe 2007). This contrasts with many other safety-critical domains where much of the work is procedural, and where safety is attained through collective mindfulness and adherence to well-established doctrine and protocols. These processes are important in the emergency services sector – however, the people responding to and managing emergency events have to also manage other layers of complexity.

Uncertainty, Unpredictability and Complexity

One of the key features that distinguish emergency services work from other safety-critical domains is that frequently, personnel are operating under ‘degraded’ conditions. Degraded conditions include: failures in critical equipment or technology; the required human resources are either unavailable or are over-stretched or fatigued; and personnel are operating in hazardous (sometimes life threatening) conditions.

In other words, the hazards posed by emergency events mean that responders may be required to work in dangerous conditions that are unsafe, as well as unstable. For example, in order to get to injured or trapped people, responders may need to detour many kilometres around the path of a tornado, flood, or an area impacted by an earthquake. Ruptured gas mains, fallen power lines, and toppled trees and masonry can make streets both hazardous and difficult to navigate. Emergency events often have secondary impacts on the wider community that require careful management and often coordination with road, municipal, utility and humanitarian agencies – for example road closures, the requirement that community members stay indoors, or the provision of food and shelter to evacuees.

Different priorities ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• 1   Human Factors in Emergency Management
• 2   Stress and Wildland Firefighter Safety-related Decisions and Actions
• 3   Expert Decision Making and the Use of Worst Case Scenario Thinking
• 4   What Were They Thinking? A Model of Metacognition for Bushfire Fighters
• 5   The Role of Affect in Individual and Collective Performance in a Sociocultural Context
• 6   The Impact of Team Member Familiarity on Performance: Ad hoc and Pre-formed Emergency Service Teams
• 7   Leadership, Communication and Teamwork in Emergency Management
• 8   Firefighter Decision Making at the Local Incident and Regional/State Control Levels
• 9   Coping Ugly: Errors, Decisions, Coping and the Implications for Emergency Management Training
• 10 Creating Cultures of Reflective Learning in the Emergency Services: Two Case Studies
• 11 The Challenges of Change in Future Emergency Management: Conclusions and Future Developments
• Index