D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 1

Project: Understanding extreme events as catalysts for flood-risk management policy change: a case study of the impact of ‘Storm Desmond’ in , UK.

Deliverable 1.2: Activities of the multi-stakeholder ‘community of resilience

practice’ during the response to ‘Storm Desmond’ in Cumbria, UK

Dr Hugh Deeming, BSc, PhD HD Research

January 2017

An output from: European Commission Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre (DRMKC) Contract: CT-EX2016D267361-101 D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 2

Abstract This report commences by describing the impacts of Storm Desmond on Cumbria on 4th- 6th December 2015. The structure of UK civil protection in relation to the delivery of Integrated Emergency Management (IEM) is then described, with examples of how this structure was utilised during the storm. The importance of understanding and utilizing the capabilities and capacities of key voluntary-sector and community groups during emergency response is then discussed, as is the importance of effectively managing spontaneous volunteers. A set of observations made in relation to Cumbria’s inclusive Community of Resilience Practice are then offered as learning points for the wider civil-protection sector.

Keywords: Resilience, flood, risk, learning, resources, community of resilience practice

Acknowledgements This report has been developed with funding from the European Commission’s Disaster Risk Knowledge Centre (DRMC) under contract CT-EX2016D267361-101. The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone. The European Commission is not liable for any use made of the information contained. D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 3

Contents Abstract ...... 2

1. Introduction ...... 4

2. The effects of Storm Desmond (5th 6th December 2015) ...... 5

2.1 Precipitation ...... 5

2.2 River flow ...... 7

3. The impacts of Storm Desmond on Cumbria ...... 8

3.1 Properties ...... 8

3.2 Businesses ...... 8

3.3 Infrastructure ...... 10

4. Cumbria ‘Community of Resilience Practice’: a structured response ...... 10

4.1 UK Civil Protection Doctrine: Integrated Emergency Management (IEM)...... 11

4.1.1 Response ...... 11

4.1.2 Recovery ...... 16

4.2 Local contingencies ...... 16

5. Conclusions ...... 23

References ...... 25

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1. Introduction This report forms part of a set that were commissioned by the DRMKC following the impact of ‘Storm Desmond’, which affected the north-west of England over the weekend of 5th to 6th December 2015. Deliverable 1.1 (Deeming, 2016b) described the flood-risk management context in Cumbria prior to the arrival of Storm Desmond. That report also discussed the impact of Cumbria’s recent history of extreme floods on its population, in terms of its effect on the county’s resilience. The organisational and financial structure of flood-risk management was explained, as were the interventions that had been enacted across the county in response to two preceding major floods of 2005 and 2009. This deliverable will focus on explaining the structured civil protection arrangements in the county, in terms of this sector representing a Community of Resilience Practice (CoRP) that collaboratively managed the response to Storm Desmond’s effects. First, the impacts of Storm Desmond are described, in order to illustrate the scale of the response operation that was needed. The formalised structure of the UK civil-protection sector’s response arrangements will then be explained. This will be followed by a brief analysis of the operational links, which are somewhat unique to Cumbria, between the formal responders and the response-active publics within the affected population (e.g. Mountain Rescue Teams; Flood Action Groups; Spontaneous Volunteers). The report will, therefore, describe the UK Civil Protection context within which the county’s responder agencies and other actors operate, from national to local level. Finally examples of good practice and lessons to be learned by this community will be identified and discussed. Formal recommendations will be presented in Deliverable 3.

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2. The effects of Storm Desmond (5th 6th December 2015) 2.1 Precipitation Marsh et al. (2016) provide comprehensive detail of the nature of Storm Desmond, which took the form of an ‘’ channeling moisture from the Caribbean to the UK. This event followed three early-season storms which had already saturated the ground. Forecasts and warnings for one of these storms, Abigail, had resulted in a considerable mobilization of flood-response assets in Cumbria (including the military), in mid-November. However, although flooding was experienced in some parts of the county Abigail was, effectively, a near-miss which may have resulted in a general lowering of risk perceptions across the civil protection sector prior to the arrival of Desmond (Deeming, 2016a). By comparison, Storm Desmond was a record-breaking precipitation event. Over the course of the weekend two national precipitation records were set:  Highest 24-hour rainfall record for UK on the 5th December (341.4mm, Honister Pass, Cumbria)1  Highest 48-hour rainfall record for UK (405.0mm, Thirlmere, Cumbria in just 38 hours) Figure 1 illustrates the precipitation anomaly as a percentage of average rainfall for December 2015

1 The new 24-hour rainfall record displaced the earlier record of 316.4mm, which was set at Seathwaite (2 miles from Honister) during the 2009 flood. D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 6

Figure 1: Rainfall anomaly (% of 1971-2000 average) for December 2015: dark blue = 250% (Source: Marsh et al. 2016: p.6)

Figure 2 is an graphic that illustrates what the rainfall meant in terms of sheer quantity.

Figure 2: Storm Desmond Statistics (Environment Agency @Crown Copyright) D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 7

2.2 River flow In relation to river flow “21st century thus far has seen a number of very widespread flood episodes but none with the combination of severity, spatial extent and repetitive nature which marked the 2015/2016 flooding” (Marsh et al., 2016). Such a wet month meant that, as well as precipitation records being set, rivers across the region also recorded record flows during December. Most notable in Cumbria, the calculated discharge of the River Eden upstream of reached 1680m³s-1, which was over 163m³s-1 greater than the 2005 record. During December, the Rivers Lune and Tyne joined the Eden in recording maximum flows of ~1,700 m³s-1 thus all exceeded the previously archived maximum for any river in England and . Other Cumbrian rivers also surpassed their 2009 levels by “substantial margins” (Ibid., also Figure 3).

Figure 3: Three river level records resulting from Storm Desmond (Environment Agency @Crown Copyright)

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3. The impacts of Storm Desmond on Cumbria The flooding resulting from the storm directly claimed one life, when a 78-year old man was drowned near the village of Staveley. 3.1 Properties The floods precipitated by the passing of Storm Desmond across Cumbria resulted in the inundation of ~6,425 properties (Table 1). Properties 2005 2009 2015 affected Storm Desmond Cumbria 2,500 1,800 6,568 Carlisle 1,771 0 1,852 Cockermouth 149 >800 643 107 0 2,018 Keswick 198 ~300 515 Table 1: Number of properties affected (key urban areas and total) by Cumbria floods (Source: Environment Agency)

Many of the properties affected had also been flooded previously, with the residents of one street in Cockermouth experiencing this as the fourth major flood to cross their homes’ thresholds in 10 years. However, other areas were more fortunate: due to the particular hydrological response of the rivers flowing into Carlisle this time, one area that had been flooded in 2005 was protected by defences, whilst other areas, similarly structurally protected after 2005 were once again inundated. Figure 4 illustrates the geographical spread and estimated number of flooded properties. 3.2 Businesses As well as the 5,319 residential properties flooded, 897 businesses were also directly affected, including several businesses of strategic importance. The flooding of these businesses caused considerable additional concern because they provide both direct employment within their surrounding communities and disruption of their operations has knock-on effects on other smaller local businesses in their supply chain, and visa versa (Wagner and Bode, 2006). D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 9

As a rural county, farms and other rural businesses were particularly badly hit. In total ~600 farms were directly affected, with impacts including damage to buildings, equipment, fences and tracks as well as through the accumulation of sediment on improved floodplain fields. It is estimated that over 700 head of livestock were drowned and damage was caused to farm equipment, infrastructure and land to a value likely well in excess of 2m€ when all losses across the 650 affected farms are finally calculated (NFU, 2017).

Figure 4: Location and approximate numbers of properties affected by Storm Desmond (Environment Agency ©Crown Copyright) D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 10

3.3 Infrastructure As in 2009, the floods caused significant damage to the county’s infrastructure. Several bridges were destroyed and of the total 1,600 in the county that were surveyed, 792 were found to have been affected, requiring varying levels of repair. The road network was also badly disrupted, with some of the most significant damage caused to the A591, which is the main route through the centre on the Lake District. As one example of the lasting impact that damage to roads and bridges caused in Cumbria, the loss of this stretch of the A591 alone necessitated traffic using a 65km diversion for six months. In addition to transport infrastructure, 44 schools were flooded, with several requiring the consideration of substantive flood-resilience adaptation or in one case closure and re-siting. As well as those flooded almost 19,000 customers temporarily lost electrical power and there were also disruptions to telephone and gas supplies.

4. Cumbria ‘Community of Resilience Practice’: a structured response This section will discuss the roles and responsibilities of the civil protection authorities in Cumbria that are tasked with mitigating the physical, economic and social impacts and consequences of the flood events. The activities and inter-relationships operating within the Cumbria Community of Resilience Practice (CoRP) (see: Deeming, 2016b: p.5) will be contextualised against the formal UK Civil Protection doctrine. The focus of this discussion will be on the contingencies that were activated during the response to the storm and over the following days, i.e. before a ‘formal transition’ was made to recovery activity on 14th December 2015. Deliverable 2.1 will then return to the discussion of activities related to the evolution of flood-risk management in Cumbria that occurred during the recovery period from 14th December and over the course of 2016. D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 11

This section builds on research described in two documents: 1) the acute-phase debrief report, commissioned by Cumbria Local Resilience Forum (LRF) (Deeming, 2016a) 2 ; 2) and the EU emBRACE project North of England Floods case-study report (Deeming et al., 2015).

4.1 UK Civil Protection Doctrine: Integrated Emergency Management (IEM) 4.1.1 Response Since 2004 UK Civil Protection (CP) has been regulated under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (CCA). This legislation defines what the term ‘emergency’3 means and places statutory duties upon formal agencies, which it labels as Category 1 and Category 2 responders4. It also lays out the statutory duties that this legislation places on these responders. These principal duties are: risk assessment; business continuity management (BCM); emergency planning; maintaining public awareness and arrangements to warn, inform and advise the public about emergencies; cooperation; information sharing. There is also a duty, for local authorities only, to provide BCM advice to the commercial and voluntary sectors (HM Government, 2012). This formal clarification of emergency roles has been referred to as underpinning a UK Government ‘Resilience Agenda’ (Granatt and Macintosh, 2001), which emerged following the 9/11 attacks in the US and which led to resilience entering the UK Civil protection lexicon as the “Ability of the community, services, area or infrastructure to detect, prevent, and, if necessary to withstand, handle and recover from disruptive challenges” (Cabinet Office, 2013a). The seven duties were to be delivered through an Integrated Emergency Management (IEM)5 approach, which is centred on the Local Resilience Forum (LRF). The LRF is formed by a

2 NB. Deeming (2016a) has been classified ‘Official’, however, full permission has been granted by CLRF to discuss its contents in a general sense rather than in terms of detailed specifics 3 CCA (2004) defines an emergency as: “An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the UK. An event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of a place in the UK. War, or terrorism, which threatens serious damage to security of the UK.” (CCA, 2004) 4 Cat 1 Responders are the main organisations involved in most emergencies at a local level (e.g. emergency services (Police, Fire & Rescue etc.) along with health sector and local authority partners). Cat 2 responders are those organisations involved in some emergencies (e.g. utilities and transport companies) (HM Government, 2012: p.7). In Cumbria both the County and District councils are categorised as Cat 1 responders. 5 The six phases of Integrated Emergency Management (IEM): Anticipation, Assessment, Prevention, Preparation, Response, Recovery Management D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 12 collective of responders who meet regularly to monitor risks and to coordinate their contingency arrangements across an area the geographical size of a police area; which usually coheres with county boundaries in England. The elements of the emergency Command, Control and Coordination (C3) structure are defined within the UK Government Concept of Operations (Cabinet Office, 2013b), and for flooding specifically, within the national flood emergency framework (Defra, 2013b). Each LRF member organisation has its own recognised C3 hierarchy, which operates during normal times. These tiers of authority are denoted by the colours, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. However, multi-agency response requires a degree of collaboration across structures. Therefore, once a flood emergency has been declared, responsibility for the multi-agency response shifts from being an incident dealt through the parallel C3 command structures of the single agencies to a multi-agency response coordinated by the Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG). Accordingly, the SCG contains the ‘Gold-level’ senior staff from responder agencies and is normally chaired by senior officer of the Cumbria Constabulary6. Beneath the Strategic level lie the tactical (silver) and operational (bronze) levels of coordination, each of which have their own multi-agency groups (Figure 5).

6 This is not always the case, e.g. during a pandemic, the SCG would be chaired by the Director of Public Health D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 13

Figure 5: UK Civil Protection interoperability framework (JESIP, 2016)

The Tactical Coordinating Group (TCG), is usually situated physically nearby the SCG, whereas the Operational Coordination Group (OCG) will be situated much closer to the operational activity on the ground. During Storm Desmond three OCGs were operating in different locations around the county, all communicating through the TCG, SCG hierarchy. The respective roles of these three coordination levels have been likened to baking a cake, wherein the SCG formulates the recipe (i.e. develops strategic aims and negotiates access to, for example, mutual aid: see below), the TCG gathers the ingredients (i.e. coordinates logistics and resources) and the OCG makes the cake (i.e. utilises resources to carry out operations at the ‘frontline’). The principal of subsidiarity means that “decisions should be taken at the lowest appropriate level, with co-ordination at the highest necessary level” (Cabinet Office, 2013a). Therefore, incidents whose effects are contained within the LRF area are dealt with by the LRF members. However, the same principal obviously dictates that cross-county emergencies, or emergencies whose effects may have national or international relevance, bear additional levels of government support and coordination. This is offered, initially, by Lead Government Departments, and ultimately by the Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) (Cabinet Office, 2013b). D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 14

Between the SCG and national government there is also a further layer of support and facilitation, which is offered by the Department for Communities and Local Government - Resilience and Emergencies Division (DCLG-RED). During Storm Desmond, DCLG-RED and both the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), as LGD, and COBR were all involved in supporting the SCG from very early in the weekend. LRFs principally develop contingencies for emergencies using their own members’ resources and assets. They also make mutual-aid arrangements with partners and neighbouring LRFs, in order to access specific capabilities or to achieve greater response capacity through collaboration (CCS, 2008). What the LGDs and COBR are able to offer, is access to resources at a national scale. For example, swift-water rescue assets are deployed nationwide through the use of a framework and protocols developed by Defra (Defra, 2012). COBR also holds ultimate responsibility to authorize Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA), which can take the form of additional capability, capacity or niche assets. Examples of the MACA assistance provided to Cumbria during Storm Desmond include: capability provided by the Royal Engineer divers who conducted bridge inspections; capacity provided by the UK Reserve Battalion (42 Brigade), who assisted in door-knocking and evacuation, and; niche assets included an RAF Chinook helicopter that undertook several infrastructure-protection missions7. In effect, the duties on responders described by the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) could be seen in familiar top-down emergency-management terms (Alexander, 2002), but these do allow responders to deliver their emergency (e.g. flood) related duties assisted by clearly defined statutory responsibilities for multi-agency planning, training, exercising and collaborating. In this regard, a further level of emergency-response systematization has also recently been introduced through the development of five Joint Emergency Service Interoperability principles (JESIP)8 . These five principles, developed under the guiding ambition of “Working Together, Saving Lives”, are detailed in Table 1.

7 As a Category 1 responder, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency deployed helicopters to perform numerous rescues over the weekend (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3-X8_TAK80). However, the niche capability of the Chinooks was their much heavier-lift capability (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HYSwZwsCHk) . 8 www.jesip.org.uk D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 15

JESIP, was originally conceived as part of a 2013 project to improve Police, Fire and Rescue and Ambulance (‘Blue-light’) responder interoperability at the operational (i.e. frontline) level. However, there is an increasing understanding that, as guidance principles, they are also relevant for application at all tiers of the emergency management hierarchy. For example, in his debrief report for Cumbria LRF, following Storm Desmond, Deeming (2016) was able to attribute 39 of the 82 recommendations made to issues related to these five principles (e.g. the need to ensure that pre-defined locations for OSG operations are equipped with suitable wifi connectivity to ensure partners’ ability to communicate effectively)

Co-locate with commanders as soon as practicably 1 Co-location possible at a single, safe and easily identified location near to the scene Use commonly agreed language, terminology and map symbols See the Cabinet Office Lexicon of Civil 2 Communication Protection Terminology). They should avoid ambiguity by providing factual information rather than subjective statements such as “likely, possible, or probable” Co-ordinate by agreeing the lead service. Identify 3 Coordination priorities, resources and capabilities for an effective response, including the timing of further meetings Jointly understand risk by sharing information about 4 Joint understanding of risk the likelihood and potential impact of threats and hazards to agree potential control measures Commanders will have worked together to formulate the most effective response plan possible using all Shared Situational 5 information known about the unfolding emergency Awareness including threats and hazards, relevant powers, policies, capabilities and procedures as well as the resources available from all agencies. Table 1: The 5 JESIP principles (source: JESIP, 2016)

This is not to say that these principles are, as yet, completely integrated into the UK civil protection structures. A recent Tri-Service review of JESIP’s uptake across the sector found a nationally “consistent commitment towards interoperable working, [which was] not yet fully ingrained as part of the culture” (HMIC, 2016). There has also only recently been a clear drive D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 16 within JESIP doctrine to encourage non-‘Blue Light’ LRF members (e.g. Local Authorities) to adopt the JESIP approach (JESIP, 2016).

4.1.2 Recovery Once response operations have terminated, strategic responsibility for recovery and reconstruction passes from the Police to the Local Authority, with a senior officer from Cumbria County Council chairing the Strategic Recovery Coordinating Group (SRCG). Due to the magnitude of the flood impacts from Storm Desmond and the additional storms that affected the northern UK later in the month, government oversight and support also continued into the recovery period; with responsibility for this passing from COBR to the Ministerial Recovery Group (MRG). The MRG is a relatively new concept in UK civil protection and its invocation to support recovery from these storms represented only the fourth occasion that it had been convened9. Whilst Defra bore Lead Government Department (LGD) status for managing the flood response, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) acted as LGD for flood recovery (Defra, 2013a), with DCLG-RED continuing its facilitation role. Having briefly discussed the structures through which emergency response and recovery are delivered by the formal responder agencies in Cumbria and the wider UK, it is important to note that these systems operated extremely efficiently during what was the most extreme flood event that these agencies had ever been confronted with. Many lives were saved and personal risks reduced directly as a result of the brave acts conducted by professional and volunteer responders alike (as well as through bystander interventions)10 and other severe impacts were averted through the preparedness and rapid responses of these and others within the community and beyond. 4.2 Local contingencies In alignment with the various published doctrine that guide the delivery of Integrated Emergency Management in the UK, Cumbria’s emergency contingencies are structured locally by

9 This was the third time the MRG had been convened for UK floods. The fourth occasion was to provide oversight following the June 2015 terrorist attack in Sousse, Tunisia. 10 For example: RNLI Rescue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbRGHl44WMk D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 17 the LRF, through the Cumbria General Emergency Plan (Cumbria Resilience, 2014). Additionally, flood contingencies, specifically, have been developed using the county’s Multi-Agency Flood Plan process, which follows the structure defined by Defra (2011a). These plans are increasingly integrating assets and resources operated, not just by the formal responders, but also by the charity sector. 4.2.1 Voluntary-sector responder groups The county hosts a twelve volunteer Mountain Rescue Teams (MRT) as well as a tidal- estuary based Rescue Team (BaySAR). The Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) also operates in the county and can draw teams from further away if required. Between them these volunteer teams, and others, operate a variety of flood rescue assets, from boats and crews (which meet Defra standards), to Hagglund tracked vehicles11 , capable of water and mud rescue, and an airboat. All these assets come in addition to the professional Fire and Rescue service teams from within the county and who converged from around the country. During the response to Storm Desmond it was discovered that although ‘team-typing’ of rescue crews had been adopted by the MRTs and FRS teams (see: Defra, 2012: p.27). This meant that the capabilities of all these individuals and teams were clearly understood by the tactical advisors responsible for their deployment. However, what was discovered was that there had been no contingency within the Defra typology that included either the Hagglund vehicles, or their airboat12, even though they were to prove invaluable. Overall, the personal resilience and commitment of these volunteer teams was plainly obvious in the fact that many of them deployed as key components of the Desmond response, and then did so again for the storms later in the month, with several volunteer crews deploying over 100miles across the country to the city of York for the floods. Such findings, across a range of issues, related to the capability and capacity of the charity/volunteer responder sector, highlight the importance of LRFs fully understanding and integrating voluntary-sector organisations into their training and exercising regimes.

11 http://www.baysearchandrescue.org.uk/hagglunds.html 12 http://www.baysearchandrescue.org.uk/uploads/2/0/1/6/20163547/6825530_orig.jpg D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 18

The contingencies developed as part of normal planning in Cumbria, meant that numerous other voluntary organisations also assisted at or near the ‘waterside’ during response, e.g. volunteer staff assisted local authority officers in setting up and running evacuation assistance centres. Several of these organisations operated in accordance with existing emergency plans. For example, the faith coalition Churches Together in Cumbria prepared an emergency plan as a direct result of its involvement in a range of emergencies, since the Foot and Mouth disease crisis in 2001 (CTiC, 2014). The number of voluntary (3rd)-sector organisations involved also increased considerably once recovery commenced. A survey conducted my Cumbria Council for Volunteer Services (Cumbria CVS) drew responses from fifty 3rd-sector organisations who had either extended their area of operations into community-based recovery work, or whose existing mandate allowed it (e.g. British Red Cross). Key findings from this survey included learning opportunities, such as the need for better information sharing protocols between the formal C3 structure and the voluntary organisations and the importance of integrating emergency planning across the statutory and voluntary sectors. Positive feedback, however, identified prior experience of flooding as an asset in guiding how these organisations organised their community interventions (Otley, 2016). Another phenomenon that was considered very positively, was the convergence of spontaneous volunteers. 4.2.1 Spontaneous Volunteers (SV) Over recent years there has been a gradual realisation that emergencies in the UK are attracting spontaneous volunteers, who are keen to help the affected communities return to ‘normal’. Such incidents include large numbers of people converging to flood impacted areas, e.g. Somerset and the Thames Valley during the winter storms of 2013/14. However, volunteers have also congregated for other emergencies. This includes the ‘broom brigade’ that mobilized, through social media (in response to a hashtag #postriot), in order to actively assist in cleaning up streets in Peckham, following, the civil unrest precipitated by the shooting of Mark Duggan by Police in August 2011 (Twigger-Ross et al., 2011). Accordingly, SV’s have been defined as any individual: D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 19

“… who is unaffiliated with existing official response organisations, yet, without extensive pre-planning, is motivated to provide unpaid support to the response and/or recovery to an emergency.” (Defra, 2015: p.173)

Cumbria had experienced an influx of spontaneous volunteers (SV) following the floods in 2009. Accordingly, provisional contingencies had been put in place to establish a remit for Cumbria CVS to coordinate “short, medium and long term volunteering capacity following an emergency in the County” (Cumbria CVS, 2012). Therefore, prior to Storm Desmond plans had been developed for the local authority to manage the donation of goods (e.g. drinking water, handwipes) and for Cumbria CVS to manage the registration and coordination of spontaneous volunteers. These systems proved effective, with both sides working for a period at full capacity as others flowed in. In terms of handling SVs, the acute-phase debrief report made the following observation: “The rise of social media since 2009 did initially challenge the structures for setting a volunteer coordination process in motion, with SVs emerging much more rapidly than had been anticipated (e.g. “We’re at junction 36 now where do you want us?”). In response to this experience, Cumbria CVS and Cumbria County Council have now developed a single template for recording volunteer offers which should be used by all organisations in the future. There is also work underway to develop a SV plan (e.g. setting up a single ‘volunteer reception centre’). Importantly, however, Cumbria CVS has acknowledged that a ‘one-size fits all solution’ to SV management may not be appropriate, given that the needs and expectations of volunteers from within affected communities, inevitably differ from those of SVs who are travelling in from further afield (sometimes by the coachload).”

An example of the differing needs of affected communities was indeed illustrated in the town of Keswick, where members of the local Flood Action Group (FAG), with the Lions’ and Rotary Clubs. Here they developed a system whereby SVs would be formed into a group of ‘apprentices’ who were then chaperoned by a club member, who had local knowledge and who was able to provide reassurance to, both, the volunteers and to the people whom the volunteers were assisting. By April 2016, a local authority survey revealed a provisional total of 37,776 person hours of work had been carried out by SVs across the county. Calculated at UK minimum-wage rates this amount of work would have added an additional ~301,820€ to the cost of recovery. D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 20

Lessons learned from the management of the SVs has been fed into UK Cabinet Office in order to inform the development of a UK civil-protection sector focussed Guide to Managing the Involvement of Spontaneous Volunteers in Emergencies, which is due for release in 2017

4.2.3 Community Emergency Planning (CEP) / Flood Action Groups (FAG) As Lead Government Department for flooding, Defra’s strategic approach has been to increasingly engage communities directly with their flood risks. For example, Defra’s flood-risk management strategy, published in 2011 and entitled ‘Understanding the risks, empowering communities, building resilience’ (Defra, 2011b), encourages a full range of stakeholders to participate in risk management activities as well as supporting the creation of Flood Action Groups (FAGs). As discussed in Deliverable 1.2, these groups have evolved along different paths, with some focused-on flood activism and community advocacy (i.e. Flood Action) and others including elements of Community Emergency Planning (CEP) in their remit. Whichever path the respective groups have taken, Cumbria LRF membership, with leadership by the Environment Agency, the County Council and the county’s voluntary sector, have been instrumental in supporting the groups’ development. This encouragement has been coordinated since 2012 by the Cumbria Community Resilience Network (CCRN). This is a sub-group of the LRF (Figure 6), chaired by Action with Communities in Cumbria (ACT), who were the original developers of the county’s 10-step Community Emergency Plan (ACT, 2012). Taking a community-development approach to this activity CCRN support has always been given, whichever activity a group is most interested in, however, CCRN’s encouragement has always been geared to toward getting groups to develop a community emergency plan.

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Figure 6: The Community Resilience Network's position within the Cumbria's emergency planning hierarchy (NB: CVAC – Cumbria Voluntary Agencies Committee)

Following Storm Desmond, CCRN held a debrief workshop for the county’s FAGs in June 2016. Key learning outcomes included the overall success of the CEP approach, which had meant that most groups had prepared contingencies that reduced the storm’s impacts on their communities. That being said, an issue that did emerge was that some groups who had not had the opportunity to test and exercise their plans previously, found that they did not work as effectively as they had hoped. This illustrates a key learning outcome for communities, which is already well understood within the civil protection sector (Alexander, 2002). Emergency plans always need to be tested under realistic simulated conditions in order to build confidence, in communities and formal responders, that they will work when needed. This finding alone, justifies the importance of the formal responder agencies maintaining an interest in and providing guidance for CEP groups. One outcome that has followed Strom Desmond is that Cockermouth FAG, which was founded as a predominantly flood advocacy group in 2005 and focused on flood mitigation and resilience building following 2009 has recently evolved in order to develop a Community Emergency Response Group13. Importantly, this includes the key issue of recruiting local people who do not live on the flood plain as well as those who do. This is an important segregation, because it means that in the event of a flood the group members who do not need

13 http://cerg.org.uk/ D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 22 to be concerned about their homes flooding can give their undivided support to the residents who are at risk (Deeming et al., 2015). During the workshop it was also reiterated that at its most fundamental, a community emergency plan: “… should be seen as a means through which neighbours can ensure the prompt ‘dry evacuation’ of vulnerable people and properties, before accumulating flood hazards result in a situation where specialist resources are urgently required to perform ‘wet rescues’.”

This key principle underpins the importance of two factors whose management is largely external to a community’s influence: 1) the importance of effective early-warning systems, and agreed thresholds for CEP activation 2) the need for the formal responders to understand the limits of communities’ capabilities in relation to emergency response, and to develop their own contingencies accordingly (i.e. to have sufficient trust in CEP groups to understand that when these often-isolated and hazard-exposed groups ask for assistance, they are given it). These lessons combined, led to a key recommendation from the delegates. This was that the LRF, led by Cumbria Police, should develop a set of essential plan attributes (e.g. key contact numbers; date of last exercise), which should appear on the front page of a plan. Having such uniformity across plans would bolster the trust that incident commanders would have in, both, the plan and the processes that the groups had gone through to develop it. Accordingly, the commander would be more likely to engage with the groups at the earliest opportunity as an incident developed. Certainly, the groups who reported successful operations conducted between themselves and formal responders during Storm Desmond, it was the trust and fore- knowledge of the local contacts and CEP arrangements that was held by key individual responders (e.g. local Fire Officers) and built up during planning and training together, which had served to underpin their effective collaboration. D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 23

5. Conclusions This report forms the second part of a set, which discuss the impacts of Storm Desmond on the English county of Cumbria in December 2015. Following on from the introduction to the county and flood risk management prior to the storm (Deeming, 2016b), this report describes the actual storm impacts, before then describing the structure of the county’s formal and informal civil-protection institutions and their responses to the event. Using the concept of ‘Community of Resilience Practice’ the report has, first, described the structure of UK civil protection as it relates to the practice of Integrated Emergency Management (IEM) at the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) level. This includes a hierarchical structure through which response is coordinated at strategic, tactical, and operational levels, but which is also able to draw additional capabilities and capacities, through regional and cross- Government Department linkages and nationally via a link to COBR. The importance of interoperability has also been discussed in relation to the recent introduction to the UK civil- protection sector of the JESIP interoperability principles. Having described the formal structures, the report then discusses three specifically community-based responses, which operate very locally to increase the formal sector’s capability and capacity to manage emergencies. These responses are: voluntary-sector response organisations; spontaneous volunteers and; Flood Action / Community Emergency Planning Groups. The respective value and challenges presented by these three responses are discussed. This investigation has revealed some key observations in relation to the successful implementation of IEM: 1) The UK Civil Protection sector operates through a well-structured and coordinated practice that, during Storm Desmond, proved itself to be rapidly scalable in order that even this most extreme emergency could be managed. 2) The ‘community of resilience practice’ in an area can comprise a range of actors that include statutory, and voluntary-sector organisations as well as community-based advocacy/emergency planning groups, and individuals. In order to respond effectively to any emergency, it is important that the formal civil-protection sector D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 24

develops processes and conduits through which to understand, to value, to plan for, and to effectively coordinate the contributions that these respective actors may be able to offer. 3) Interoperability is a vital component of the formal multi-agency response. However, the clarification and sharing of key interoperability principles throughout the community of resilience practice presents an opportunity to improve multi-agency as well as multi-stakeholder emergency response. 4) The convergence of Spontaneous volunteers (SV) during emergencies is becoming an inevitable challenge for formal responders. Accordingly, it is important that contingencies be developed to 1) manage SVs safely and efficiently, in order to maximize their potential for helping hazard-affected communities, 2) minimise any potential risks presented by unaffiliated individuals operating within these potentially vulnerable communities. Partnerships should, therefore, be developed with voluntary-sector organisations possessing key skills and familiarity in the management of volunteers, in order to directly integrate them into response and recovery plans for this purpose. 5) Flood Action / Community Emergency Planning groups can implement contingencies that reduce the local impact of hazards. Therefore, it is important for the formal civil- protection sector to facilitate and to engage with these groups in order to develop mutual trust and a shared understanding of each other’s capabilities and needs.

Deliverable 2.1 will return to the investigation of whether Storm Desmond provided a catalyst for change in Flood Risk Management, Cumbria and the wider UK.

D1.2 COMMUNITY OF RESILIENCE PRACTICE: AFTER STORM DESMOND 25

References

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