Being a near lifelong resident of California, and working for almost 30 years in the California fire service, I often hear from colleagues outside of the state that “California is great, but it doesn’t have seasons.” Well, jokingly I tell them, “Nothing could be farther from the truth, as our seasons are made up of fires, floods, earthquakes and riots, and routinely make world news.” What’s not news is that these types of ‘seasons’ are not unique to California, and are experienced by responders all over the world, especially fires and floods.

From the time I was asked to write this article until its completion, there was no shortage of ‘seasonal’ disasters happening all over the world. In the USA, we had major fires in Texas, Oklahoma, and in North and South Carolina, soon followed by severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and flooding throughout the Midwest, eastern and southern portions of the country.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, major flooding occurred in India, Nepal, Italy, and Argentina, with Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Libya, the Maldives, Namibia, and the Philippines all seeing major flooding in January of this year. So the question is, are you, your team and your agency prepared for such events?

While the focus of this article will be on planning for and responding to swiftwater/flood events, much of the same information can be applied for any ‘season’ or response.

Where to start? Lessons learned versus lessons applied

In order to know where you are going, you first need to know where you have been, and for many of us, this is usually learned in the form of after-action reports, which usually contain things called ‘lessons learned’. These lessons learned usually contain a list of items that need improvement and consist of the following worldwide:

• Communications
• Pre-planning
• Interoperability
• Training
• Budget.

So the question is, if the same ‘lessons learned’ seem to be in almost every after-action report, have we really learned anything? I believe the answer depends on the organization and how painful the lesson was to learn, which is why I came up with the term ‘lessons applied’. In a nutshell: where did you identify an issue, what was the corrective action you applied, and what was the outcome of that application? In terms of flood/swiftwater response, one of the best ‘lessons learned to lessons applied’ examples would be from the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD).

The LAFD’s swiftwater rescue team was formed in response to the 1992 drowning of Adam Bischoff in the Los Angeles River. The tragedy, which was captured on news cameras and watched by tens of thousands of people, highlighted the need for specialized swiftwater rescue capabilities. In the aftermath, the LAFD addressed the need for improvements in communications, pre-planning, interoperability and training and, of course, an increase in their operational budget, which has made them one of the premier swiftwater/flood rescue teams in the world, but also one that is constantly evaluating its operational readiness and
pre-planning.

While communications is routinely the number one item listed as “needing improvement” in many after-action reports, we are going to look first at pre-planning.

Pre-planning efforts should be made to address potential swiftwater rescue concerns, and should include risk assessment and risk mitigation strategies

Pre-planning efforts should be made to address potential swiftwater rescue concerns, and should include risk assessment and risk mitigation strategies. Adequate pre-planning will increase the operational readiness of agency personnel and increase the success of swiftwater rescue efforts.

Hazard assessment

The initial step with any formal pre-planning effort is to conduct a hazard assessment, or target hazard analysis of the involved area. The amount of information that can be put into this is limited only by your imagination, skills and experience. Traditionally, it is achieved by reviewing historical incident data, interviewing local area experts, analyzing flood data through geographic information system (GIS) modeling, and assessing local-area/regional swiftwater/flood rescue capabilities.

Hazard assessment considerations include but are not limited to:

• Name(s) of the body of water or potential flood area
• Rural or urban location
• Site description
• GPS coordinates
• Physical features
• Specific hazards including currents, hazmat, wildlife, temperature exposure, etc.
• Access points for boats, watercraft and personnel
• Ingress and egress routes
• Predetermined rescue sites for ground, water and air assets
• Staging areas
• Anchor points
• Landing zones.

Think big picture!

In 2005, the world witnessed one of the most devastating flooding events in US history, due to Hurricane Katrina. What the world also witnessed was the unprecedented response by numerous local, state and federal resources, which included the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its National Incident Management System (NIMS) Type 1 Urban Search and Rescue teams and their extensive swiftwater rescue resources. I was fortunate to be part of this response, and worked alongside members of Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County Fire Departments, Phoenix Fire, Texas Task Force 1, and members of the US Coast Guard, with all of us doing a continuous hazard assessment throughout the response and discovering numerous challenges not previously thought of due to the size of the area and population that was impacted and the amount of devastation.

Some of the items not on my pre-planning bingo card included an oil spill of 7 million gallons of crude; numerous dead bodies in the water; a staging area roughly 80 miles away; and did I mention the alligators? Other planning challenges included decontamination of personnel, equipment, vehicles and aircraft, available fuel, and how to safely conduct forcible entry into roofs to access attic spaces where people were trapped, and where to take those people once we rescued them. The answers to these questions continually changed, sometimes by the hour, so be fluid in your planning and assessments because flexible is too rigid.

Other planning challenges included decontamination of personnel, equipment, vehicles and aircraft, available fuel, and how to safely conduct forcible entry into roofs to access attic spaces where people were trapped, and where to take those people once we rescued them

“Can you hear me now?”

A major part of any pre-plan is the communications plan, which, like any plan, is a living document that should be reviewed regularly for accuracy, and can change during an incident. In the USA, we utilize NIMS and the Incident Command System (ICS) for all operations on an incident, including communications planning.

NIMS communications planning ensures effective information flow during incidents by establishing common terminology, interoperable systems, and a shared understanding of incident information. This allows diverse agencies to connect, share information, and maintain situational awareness.

NIMS communications planning ensures effective information flow during incidents by establishing common terminology, interoperable systems, and a shared understanding of incident information

A key document in this planning is the ICS form 205, the incident radio communications plan, a component of the incident action plan (IAP). This form outlines all radio frequency or trunked radio system talk group assignments for each operational period. Traditionally, the communications unit leader is responsible for preparing and distributing this plan, ensuring it includes information on available frequencies, talk groups, and their assignments to incident personnel.

Can you play well with others?

The term ‘interoperability’ has been around for many years, and was one of the driving forces in developing the ICS in the USA.

The Cambridge Dictionary definition of interoperability is “the ability to work together with other systems or pieces of equipment”. In emergency response, much of the focus on interoperability has been with the ability to communicate with different agencies on the radio; while this is a good starting point, other items to consider include common terminology, equipment, training standards and rescue techniques. This can be done through local, regional or national standard operating procedures (SOPs) or guidelines (SOGs) and mutual aid agreements. In the USA this is done using both NIMS and ICS at the local, state and national levels. Other items to consider are language barriers, cultural and religious differences, and of course politics.

Real-world training for real-world missions

The world of training has truly evolved over the last 30 years, to now include lots of simulation, from ‘Rescue Randy’ manikins to virtual reality (VR) simulators covering almost everything you can think of. Training now seems more like playing a computer game in the comfort of your home, versus the blood, sweat and tears real-world training that I am accustomed to. So, what is the right answer? Personally for me, nothing compares to being in the field, especially when it comes to water rescue and getting your equipment ‘dialed in’ and evaluating your physical fitness. That said, I think there is an opportunity for a blended approach that could increase safety while decreasing the cost of training, such as the use of a helicopter or hoist rescue simulator. These devices have been shown to be useful in teaching crew coordination, standardization and emergency procedures while giving pilots and aircrew a solid foundation to build on when moving to live exercises.

Nothing compares to being in the field, especially when it comes to water rescue and getting your equipment ‘dialed in’ and evaluating your physical fitness

“Show me the money!”

Planning, preparing for, executing and sustaining safe and effective rescue operations can be a costly endeavor, especially when you add watercraft and aviation assets to your capabilities. So, how do you pay for it? A good first step is to establish a good relationship with the people in your finance and acquisitions department; basically, ‘know the rules, use the rules’. Oftentimes there are rules on how money is generated and spent, to include money raised through donations, grants or corporate sponsorships. In the USA, there are a number of grants available specifically to law enforcement, fire departments or emergency medical services (EMS), with the major focus being on improving interoperability. A good example of this was a unified effort by a city fire department to acquire a helicopter with rescue and firefighting capabilities that would be operated jointly with their police department, which had an aviation unit. The grant rules did not allow the police to apply, but did allow a sharing of resources and training.

Another option is to add equipment and five years of training costs into any high-dollar acquisition, such as an aircraft. Finance people usually only want to write one check for any acquisition, and this cost is usually amortized over a 10-year period, making the costs a little easier to justify, while also avoiding an annual fight for training dollars.

It’s been said that water is the ultimate equalizer, in that it doesn’t discriminate, and can cause death and destruction equally worldwide. While we cannot completely eliminate death and destruction due to flooding, we can reduce it through proper planning, mitigation and response.