InfoGram

December 1, 2005

NOTE: This InfoGram will be distributed weekly to provide members of the Emergency Services Sector with information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures. For further information, contact the Emergency Management and Response - Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC) at (301) 447-1325 or by email at emr-isac@fema.dhs.gov.

Disaster Lessons Learned

The 8 September and 13 October InfoGrams provided installments of lessons learned by emergency departments and agencies in the states affected by the late summer natural disasters (i.e., Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma). In the past few weeks, the EMR-ISAC collected additional critical infrastructure protection lessons from multiple unofficial sources. Reporting organizations offered the following recommendations for the leadership of the Emergency Services Sector:

• Ensure thorough comprehension of the hazards or risks that threaten the community.
• Ascertain which segments of the population are potentially at risk.
• Determine where physical and personnel security may be necessary after a disaster.
• Specify in plans the policies and procedures to execute during an emergency.
• Plan for mass casualties and fatalities in response and recovery operations.
• Program all public transportation resources (e.g., school buses) for emergency evacuations.
• Conduct actual tests and evaluations of existing emergency plans.
• Pre-position emergency supplies and equipment as practicable for disaster response.
• Identify and supply numerous shelters throughout the community.
• Guarantee that the shelters can be reliably connected to the outside world for information.
• Select and equip as practicable an alternate emergency management operations post.
• Find the probable movement choke points and determine mitigation actions.

Practicing the Protection Basics

In an article contained in the October 2005 Homeland Protection Professional, Dr. John Hick indicates that there are only few precautions that Emergency Medical Services (EMS) crews must memorize to be prepared for usual and unusual pathogens, "if they are routinely practicing good infection control and looking for any disease process that might be contagious." He encourages EMS organizations to reduce employee exposures to the wide variety of illnesses by making specific preparations. Because the EMR-ISAC recognizes the potential havoc a biologic event can cause for the critical infrastructures of an EMS department or agency, Dr. Hick's five protection basics are summarized as follows:

• Teach EMS crews to actively look for sick people thereby gaining time to implement protective measures.
• Do not wait for the unusual cases. Practice good infection controls on every call to protect EMS personnel as well as their families.
• Make sure that when a case comes to the health department's attention, the EMS and all first responders are included in any follow-up notifications.
• Give EMS personnel a field reference that does not depend on a diagnosis. EMS crews should be guided by initial symptoms and their own suspicions, rather than a diagnosis seen in a handy pocket guide.
• Have a good supervisory support system and access to informed medical directors. Emergency medical technicians and paramedics should have genuine expertise to rely on.

9-1-1 Call Centers and "Ham Aid"

9-1-1 call centers were the topic of a 17 November InfoGram article that discussed the degradation suffered by these centers resulting from the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Another recent example of disrupted 9-1-1 service occurred when a software malfunction disabled call-taking for a period of six hours. The county involved immediately rerouted calls to switchboards at the police department, but took the additional step of having local volunteer amateur radio operators staff fire stations to take reports from those unable to get through to the 9-1-1 Public Safety Answering Point.

The EMR-ISAC observed that fortifying operations by bringing in amateur radio operators can be a positive step to mitigate the potential degradation of emergency communications.

For those Emergency Services Sector (ESS) leaders in areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita or Wilma, "Ham Aid" funds are available from the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to help cover the cost of replacing hurricane-damaged amateur radio emergency communications systems. The assistance applies to Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) group or club-owned open-access repeaters, critical amateur radio infrastructure or other essential communication backbone equipment. The goal is to restore critical amateur radio emergency communication systems in hurricane-prone areas and especially where equipment damage has compromised disaster response capability.

Interested groups or organizations must document their losses and provide a replacement budget. Application guidelines are available by visiting the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) website at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/forms/cncs. The deadline is December 31, 2005.

Chemical Hazards Pocket Guide

The EMR-ISAC recently learned that the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health's (NIOSH) Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards is now available.

Intended as a source of general industrial information on several hundred chemicals/classes, the guide presents key information and data in abbreviated or tabular form for chemicals or substance groupings (e.g., cyanides, fluorides, manganese compounds, etc.) as well as chemical names, synonyms, trade names, conversion factors, and more. Also important to the Emergency Services Sector (ESS), whose members increasingly encounter chemical hazards, are personal protection and sanitation recommendations, respirator recommendations, and information on health hazards, including route, symptoms, first aid, target organ, and NIOSH and OSHA limits.

A stand-alone HTML version of the document can be viewed or downloaded at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/default.html or a CD-ROM version is available by sending an email requesting Publication No. 2005-151 to the NIOSH Publications Office: pubstaft@cdc.gov.