U.S. Fire Administration Operational Lessons Learned in Disaster Response June 2015 U.S. Fire Administration Mission Statement We provide National leadership to foster a solid founda- tion for our fi re and emergency services stakeholders in prevention, preparedness, and response. Operational Lessons Learned in Disaster Response June 2015 Federal Emergency Management Agency U.S. Fire Administration 16825 South Seton Avenue Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 www.usfa.fema.gov Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................................iii Introduction.....................................................................................................................................iv Part 1 — The All-Hazard Fire Service ............................................................................................. 1 Principles of Whole Community Engagement in the Recovery Phase .......................................5 Core Mission Capabilities Checklist for Protection, Response and Recovery ...........................6 The Preparedness Cycle ....................................................................................................................9 Preparing for Extreme Weather .....................................................................................................10 Resource and Logistics Management ...........................................................................................10 i Training, Testing and Exercising .....................................................................................................11 Warning and Notification ................................................................................................................11 Assessing Staffing Requirements .................................................................................................11 Alert, Callback and Notification .....................................................................................................12 Liaison With Dispatch, Weather Service and Utilities .................................................................13 Mutual Aid .........................................................................................................................................14 Emergency Management Assistance Compact ...........................................................................15 Accommodations, Food and Support for Responders ................................................................17 Physical and Psychological Support for Personnel and Their Families ....................................19 Protocols to Ensure Personal Safety and Accountability ...........................................................20 Emergency Mode for No-Notice Events .........................................................................................22 Operational Support .........................................................................................................................22 Special Concerns for Extreme Weather Events ...........................................................................24 Large-Scale Event Incident Command Issues .............................................................................30 Coordination With the Emergency Operations Center ................................................................32 Centralized Resource Ordering .......................................................................................................33 Form a Community Emergency Response Team ........................................................................33 Part 2 — Critique and Evaluation Methods for Organizational Learning.................................. 35 Repeated Failure to Learn From Past Lessons ............................................................................36 Learning Lessons Learned ..............................................................................................................38 Methods of Evaluation: Critique, Analysis and Review ...............................................................40 A Structure for Evaluations .............................................................................................................41 Frequency of Evaluations ................................................................................................................42 Evaluation of Small-Scale Incidents ..............................................................................................42 Critiques and Hot-Washes ...............................................................................................................42 Evaluation of Major Incidents .........................................................................................................44 Incident Data Collection ..................................................................................................................44 Overview: The After Action Report .................................................................................................46 Applications.......................................................................................................................................47 Process ..............................................................................................................................................47 An Outline for Conducting an After Action Review .....................................................................49 Sample Format of an After Action Report ....................................................................................50 Operational Lessons Learned in Disaster Response Conclusion: Turning Lessons Into Reality .....................................................................................51 An Outline for Learning From the Lessons of the 2011 Southeast U.S. Tornadoes ...............52 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................. 55 APPENDIX ...................................................................................................................................... 57 Examples From AARs — In the Words of Those Who Worked the Disaster.............................57 ii June 2015 Preface This report follows extensive research by the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) of after action reviews from major disasters of the past decade into lessons learned. The disasters studied were weather-related events that required responding firefighters to assume duties for which they were unprepared or for situations they never anticipated. The relative frequency and severity of extreme weather events and their consequent impact on the U.S. population provide ample reason to study what other responders have experienced and what they could or could not do in the face of such challenges. While after action reviews produce valuable lessons, les- sons alone are not the end of the story. In fact, lessons learned should rightly be the beginning of a new chapter in a fire department’s operational behaviors. Lessons without a corresponding change in opera- iii tional behavior are not lessons learned. This report encompasses and updates the information from two existing USFA publications, “TR-162: Fire Department Preparation for Extreme Weather” and “TR-159: After Action Reports — Lessons Learned.” The USFA acknowledges the effort of the individuals responsible for producing those legacy works. The updated content from those two publications is coupled in this report with a stronger focus on learning from lessons learned. The lessons learned by first responders and emergency managers in the April 2011 tornado outbreak in the southeastern United States provides a rich resource for the fire service to study and apply. Research for this report relied heavily on USFA’s publication, “Fire Service Operations for the Southeastern Torna- dos — April 2011,” for operational lessons learned from that event. In the process of researching lessons learned in disaster response, it readily became apparent that while we have plenty of lessons learned there is a gap in applying those lessons to disaster response and recov- ery operations. The material here on applying lessons learned references the research work of Amy K. Donahue and Robert V. Tuohy. Their extensive interviews with Incident Commanders (ICs) as reported in “Lessons We Don’t Learn: A Study of the Lessons of Disasters, Why We Repeat Them, and How We Can Learn Them” is published in Homeland Security Affairs, Vol. II, No. 2, July 2006. The USFA recognizes the following members of its program and training staff for providing content ed- iting and subject matter review for this project: National Fire Academy Robert J. Bennett, Incident Command Specialist National Fire Programs Division John Carnegis, Fire Program Specialist Phyllis Krietz, Fire Program Specialist Timothy O’Dowd, Fire Program Specialist Rebecca Ryan, Fire Program Specialist William Troup, Firefighter Health/Safety Specialist Bruce Hensler, Fire Program Specialist/Project Manager Operational Lessons Learned in Disaster Response Introduction The final two decades of the 20th century foreshadowed the future of the fire service in America. Forc- es of natural disasters — earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes and acts of terrorism unleashed against densely populated centers highlighted the role of firefighters in first response. The tragedies that arose from the events