August 29, 2003
Volume 1, Number 2
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Books of Interest
An Insider's Grasp on First Response
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| Custom's agents in Miami search for the tools of terrorism as goods are being unloaded. |
Understanding Terrorism and Managing the Consequences
Prentice Hall/Pearson Educational Inc; 2001/2002; 556 p.
Paul M. Maniscalco (Ph.D.) and Hank T. Christen (with specialized material from numerous other subject matter experts added).
Do you know the difference between the EOP on the shelf and the IAP that must be generated in real-time and often from a remote location on a laptop computer?
Can you distinguish between a "convergent responder" and a first responder?
If someone told you to stay back from the "forward bodyline" would you immediately understand why?
Are you familiar with the OSHA-endorsed "2 in 2 out" safety guideline-what it is, why it matters, who it applies to??
On Sept. 10, 2001, the arcane terms and processes of the national Incident Management System governing the conduct of emergency response to terrorism in America might have seemed beyond the interest or grasp of many who occupy staff positions in federal agencies or in the federal technology marketplace. The next day, it all changed.
Many were left needing to take a crash course in the "business" of how a nation responds to a "mass casualty incident." We quickly learned that it does so first at the very local agency level where police, fire and emergency medical services bear the brunt of responding with discipline and purpose no matter how much chaos awaits.
Now, many of us need to go beyond the limited fluency we have with first responder issues and get into the nitty gritty of their processes and techniques. Perhaps we can not take the advanced courses we wish we could, but we can do the next best thing-read the text book.
The authors of Understanding Terrorism and Managing the Consequences, Paul M. Maniscalco (Ph.D.) and Hank T. Christen (with specialized material from numerous other subject-matter experts added), have extensive first responder backgrounds including field leadership roles in FD and EMS organizations in New York City and Atlanta.
Their book lays down the breadth of terrorist threats first responders face and then thoroughly guides them across the processes that must be in place long before a terrorist event occurs-whether it is done by conventional weapons, a bomb, a chemical attack, release of a biological agent, or even a radiological or nuclear event.
Readers get a detailed look at how the national Incident Management System evolved and was adapted by various missions and agencies, and how IMS principles can be used and re-used as first responders build Emergency Operations Plans and Incident Action Plans, while factoring a range of processes and systems into the baseline equations governing logistics, operations, planning and administration of emergency response.
There is a chilling prescience built into this otherwise professional material simply because it is a pre-Sept. 11 text that, on every page, merely takes as a given that such an event will occur. This book deals with it, step by detailed step.
For the broader base of professionals whose agencies are now beginning to share information with emergency response organizations, or whose companies seek to deliver better technology to them, the value of this book cannot be understated or even summarized.
Those who have been "intuiting" what is needed at the sharp end of America's homeland security posture, but who seek the tactile framework on which specific requirements are built, will begin to "get it" as the business process of consequence management is drilled into them, complete with glossaries, indexes, chapter summaries and even thought-provoking quiz questions.
And even the reader with a more casual, or policy-related interest, will likely "connect" with the details on how military chains of command are replicated in FDs and EMS units, or how a very specific 10-page "incident objectives" report generated at the site of a terror bombing (sample included) accords with the broadest IMS policy agenda.
The book's title is a little misleading in that it is light on one element ("understanding terrorism" being a subject that is ultimately of far less interest to the authors than "managing the consequences") and remarkably thorough about the other. "Consequence management involves measures taken to alleviate the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused by emergencies," the authors write early on, and much of what follows spells out exactly how to do it.
Federal planners, system integrators, IT enterprise architects will all recognize many of the concepts that underpin the IMS, which evolved out of wildfire fighting techniques that began to be codified as a "functionally-based system" in the 1970s, and has evolved into the platform upon which first responders have created "a common terminology, chain of command with effective span of control, and the assignment of resources on a priority basis."
For those who want to think more deeply about the current understanding of how "all-hazards" approaches to emergency response will play in a "terrorism/tactical violence" setting, the book marks out numerous distinguishing characteristics responders face.
Frankly, this book supports the case for planning that comprehends the unique challenges of terrorism, and the need for processes and systems that take stock of issues such as chemical decontamination, treatment of radiological victims, force protection of responders vulnerable to secondary attacks and explosions, and other very terror-specific problems including the manner in which a coincident cyber-attack might significantly weaken response capabilities to a physical emergency.
To merely contemplate, for instance, the "slow-motion riot" that a biological attack creates as it builds over days is to begin a planning and response process that is not often replicated in the workaday 911-emergency phone call environment. Just the issue of quantity is an asymmetric planning nightmare, if one considers (as the authors do) that 10 grams of weaponized anthrax is as lethal as a metric ton of sarin gas.
Understanding Terrorism and Managing the Consequences is highly instructive source material intended for professional first responders but which gives the rest of us a way of eavesdropping on the root issues that thousands of state and local organizations must account for as they contemplate terror threats to America. Reading it is a great way to get to know first responders better, and to get an insider's grasp on what they confront and the tools they need.
You can obtain copies of the book at http://www.pearsoncustom.com/.
Photo Courtesy of Department of Homeland Security.
Article by PSI Senior Editor Bob Green. Green has covered government for more than 15 years. He has been focusing on security issues since 1998. You can reach him at BobGreen@PubSector.net .
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