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A Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management

- - - Operational Overview - - -

Sharing resources securely across jurisdictional boundaries & disciplines

Traditionally, Incident Management response to natural and human caused disasters was a public responsibility, but time and experience has proven that government alone cannot

and should not manage disaster response. This same experience has also dramatically demonstrated that disaster response must be preceded by strong, permanent, pre-disaster

planning functions – a new Concept of Operations (CONOPS). Current incident management systems were developed to address response and recovery,

but the pace and reach of technology and proactive CONOPS are constantly exposing the limitations and additional expense(s) of these systems. At the same time, governments at

all levels are challenging stakeholders (both public & private) to move beyond response and recovery to resiliency focused disaster planning through public/private collaboration. These

new mandates require a much more comprehensive approach – a realignment of disaster planning, beginning with public/private collaboration, pre-disaster planning and preparation, then onto the response and recovery phases, concluding with after action

reporting.

TractorFax Technologies offers a tool that enables all of these new disaster planning mandates to be met while not requiring that agencies abandon their existing incident management systems. TractorFax enhances and compliments existing incident

management systems by automating their current labor intensive processes. TractorFax is completely interoperable with existing systems, thus protecting investments in current

systems while dramatically expanding CONOPS capabilities; all the while improving operational assessments, which in turn enhances situational awareness.

“A perfect fit for FEMA’s 2011 – 2014 Strategic Plan Initiative”, TractorFax allows emergency management practitioners and stakeholders to broaden CONOPS plans beyond

the standard response and recovery mindset. TractorFax’s “open platform” accommodates CONOPS that recognize the benefits of preparedness planning (public/private coexistence) and automated after action reporting.

Recently released, FEMA's 2011-2014 Strategic Plan - Initiative 1 includes the concept of a

"whole community approach to preparedness and response". However, current incident management systems were never designed, developed, or implemented with this new, whole community approach in mind. Hence the creation of cumbersome procedures that

force Emergency Operations Center personnel to utilize piecemeal, complex processes in order to accommodate current technology’s missing capabilities, with little commonality

among disciplines or from one jurisdiction to the next.

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Today incident management is now a shared responsibility among public, private, and NGO stakeholders beginning at the local community level.

2011 – 2014 Initiative 1: “Foster a Whole Community Approach to Emergency

Management Nationally”: “FEMA recognizes that it takes all aspects of a community (volunteer, faith, and

community- based organizations, the private sector, and the public, including survivors themselves) – not just the government – to effectively prepare for, protect against,

respond to, recover from, and mitigate against any disaster. It is therefore critical that we work together to enable communities to develop collective, mutually supporting local capabilities to withstand the potential initial impacts of these events, respond quickly, and

recover in a way that sustains or improves the community’s overall well-being. How communities achieve this collective capacity calls for innovative approaches – from across

the full spectrum of community actors, including emergency management – to expand and enhance existing practices, institutions, and organizations that help make local communities successful every day, under normal conditions, and leverage this social

infrastructure to help meet community needs when an incident occurs.

The challenge that Whole Community presents is: What is the technology piece that will integrate public, private, and NGOs stakeholders allowing their collaboration and coexistence, while centralizing and sharing their resources and people skills across

jurisdictional boundaries and disciplines on a pre-determined basis in a “bottom up” approach?

An Arkansas based company, TractorFax Technologies, LLC, has developed a deployment

ready, NIMS compliant IT platform which answers this challenge and allows county level emergency response officials to achieve their shared objectives - the ability to collaboratively centralize, inventory, and share resources across jurisdictional boundaries.

The system also provides the ability to immediately escalate an event to neighboring counties, state, and regional levels should the need arise.

Authorized users (TractorFaxers) can integrate, centralize, preplan and share inventory; quickly identify, deploy, and track local resources and people skills; credential, manage

inventory, invoice for reimbursable assets used during an emergency, and support volunteer and donations management. Beginning at the local level, TractorFax supports a

collaborative “bottom up approach” that works. Among other benefits, such control eliminates the influx of inappropriate assets and

donations. Referred to by emergency managers as the “second disaster”, these unrequested, uncoordinated assets and donations actually impede emergency responders

as they require a stoppage in the response effort to determine exactly what unrequested items have been donated.

According to the National Response Framework, the term “response” includes immediate actions to save lives, protect property and the environment, and meet basic

human needs. The responsibility for responding to incidents, both natural and human caused, begins at the local (community) level, supported by individuals and public officials in the county, city, or town affected by the incident.

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The National Response Framework is the essential playbook in aligning key roles and responsibilities across the Nation, linking all levels of government, nongovernmental

organizations, and the private sector. The Framework describes specific authorities and best practices for managing incidents that range from the serious but purely local, to large-

scale terrorist attacks or catastrophic natural disasters. The President approved the National Response “Framework” in January 2008. It

superseded the National Response Plan effective March 22, 2008. The Framework commits Federal, Local, Tribal, and State governments and private sector partnerships in both

strategic and operational planning with emphasis on preparedness. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is a companion document that provides

standard command and management structures that apply to response activities. This system provides a consistent, nationwide template to enable Federal, state, tribal, and local

governments, the private sector, and NGOs to work together to prepare for, prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of incidents regardless of cause, size, location, or complexity. This consistency provides the foundation for utilization of NIMS for

all incidents, ranging from daily occurrences to incidents requiring a coordinated Federal response.

An effective, unified national response requires layered, mutually supporting capabilities. While effective response hinges upon well-trained local leaders and responders who have

invested in response preparedness are able to achieve shared objectives, and seek out innovative technologies; at the same time, the Framework systematically incorporates

public-sector agencies, the private sector, and NGOs.

Congressional Special Task Force - Stakeholder Findings… 1) “The American private sector must be systematically integrated into the nation’s

response to disasters, natural and man-made alike. Government alone cannot manage major crises nor effectively integrate the private sector after a crisis occurs. Building

public-private collaborative partnerships, starting at the state level, is one of the most important steps that can be taken now to prepare the nation for future contingencies”.

2) “It is important that local communities be as self-supporting as possible in their crisis-response capacities, putting a high premium on the efficiencies to be gained through

public-private collaboration”. 3) “Local, state or regional public-private collaborations are vital to filling gaps in homeland

security and disaster response. These collaborations mobilize private-sector cooperation—including the supply of assets/resources, volunteers, information and expertise—

that strengthens our capability to prevent, prepare for, and respond to disasters”. 4) “Whether activating established distribution networks or deploying aid quickly in the

aftermath of a disaster, the private sector can play a critical role in securing local communities nationwide. The private sector also needs—and can provide in return—disaster

information, coordination of assets, protection and prioritization of resources/supplies. A further benefit is that private sector emergency resources/supplies can improve overall situational awareness— if they are tied into the local, state and federal systems”.

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5) In order to provide for an effective response, all systems utilized must be interoperable, scalable, and adaptable with one another across jurisdictional boundaries and disciplines

Call for Unprecedented Change… Following the events of 9/11, hurricane Katrina, and

a host of natural disasters issues, the Stakeholders and Users suggested changing the National Response Plan – both structural and substantive. Stakeholders advised Congress that the National Response Plan was bureaucratic, internally repetitive, and insufficiently

national in its focus, misunderstood by emergency managers, and missing collaborative operational capabilities among all stakeholders.

“The Federal government should recognize that the private/non-government sectors often perform certain functions more efficiently and effectively than government because of the

expertise and experience in applying successful business models. These public-private partnerships should be facilitated, recognized, funded [and]. . . the capability to

draw on these resources should inform and be part of Federal, State, and local systems and response plans”.

White House report, the Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, February 26, 2006

NIMS compliancy…

The slides below depict the stringent and demanding criteria of the NIMS STEP evaluation process, all phases of which were successfully completed by TractorFax. These slides

emphasize that the NIMS Support Center provides the Incident Management Systems Integration Division with tools and services that contribute to the implementation of NIMS

across the country. The second slide gives the road map that should be followed once the STEP process has been successfully completed.

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What is the NIMS Support Center?

A Cooperative Agreement for implementation of a NIMS Support Center

(NIMS SC).

Partners: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA), Incident Management Systems Integration

(IMSI) Division and the Justice & Safety Center, Eastern Kentucky University

(EKU).

Core Team: Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), Science Applications

International Corporation (SAIC), and G&H International Services, Inc.

(GHIS).

Purpose: The NIMS SC

provides IMSI Division with

tools and services that

contribute to the

implementation of NIMS

across the country.

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TractorFax is NIMS compliant. TractorFax Technologies successful NIMS STEP Pilot evaluation has been posted on the Responder Knowledge Base (RKB) (https://www.rkb.us/) website under Operation Assessment section as “(1) Incident –

Resource Management”. The www.rkb.us website is the Nation’s premier resource websites for Top Officials, Decision Makers, First Responders, the private sector and NGOs. NIMS

compliant TractorFax has also recently received approval by the InterAgency Board for inclusion on the Standardized Equipment List (SEL) under three categories; please click on:

https://www.rkb.us/contentdetail.cfm?content_id=227516andquery=TractorFaxandoverridesubtype=137

The three SEL categories can be found in the window on the right labeled “Knowledge Links” and listed under “Related SEL Items”. Grant writers should reference the TractorFax approved SEL National Stock Number from the RKB web site as part of their grant writing

process.

A new era for emergency management practitioners has evolved from the process described above. This new thinking places unmistakable emphasis on best practices for a heightened level of readiness that includes the integration and coexistence of public and

private sector resources and people skills, prior to an event to support preparedness efforts. The “top down approach”, as is recognized by Administrator Fugate, simply does

not work. TractorFax supports preparedness, beginning at the community level in a “bottom up approach”, then in a continuum to state and regional levels, should the need arise.

Currently those responsible for an effective response must locate and deploy scattered

public and private resources utilizing the antiquated and time consuming, processes of spread sheets, white boards, pop-ups, links, post-it-notes, phone trees, and faxes as best they can to accommodate their technology’s missing capabilities.

In their defense, emergency management practitioners cannot be experts in every resource

category. The reality is that only the actual end users are experts, and not only in FEMA’s

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120 resource typing definitions, but the many other available resources. TractorFax eliminates the scrambling to locate desperately needed resources while navigating ever

changing vendor and product linguistics, especially complex, high end resources such as heavy equipment. The system allows emergency management practitioners and

stakeholders to electronically identify, deploy and track all categories of resources, thus dramatically expediting response and recovery.

Additionally, TractorFax allows users to upload key documentation into the system such as Memorandums of Agreement (MOUs), pre-scripted mission assignments, Advanced

Readiness Contracts, Mutual Aid Agreements, owner’s manuals, etc. Hard copies of this vital type of documentation can be difficult to locate, especially during an emergency. TractorFax places them instantly at the fingertips of emergency managers.

Emergency planners will not have to wait for an event to occur before utilizing the incident

management system capabilities of TractorFax. The interoperable system supports the National Response Framework’s ongoing unified goals; collaboration among all authorized users, bi-directional communications, and private sector partnership integration to give just

a few examples.

TractorFax enables emergency management personnel and practitioners to collaborate preparedness efforts in a bottom up approach that works, thus supporting the whole community Concept of Operations. TractorFax provides access to a preplanned, centralized

inventory from the vast resources that government, business and NGOs, make available to them prior, during, and in the aftermath of an event.

For more information about TractorFax please contact:

David N. Guthrie National Marketing Director

TractorFax Technologies, LLC 12117 Goddard Avenue

Overland Park, KS 66213 Office: 913.851.3924

Mobile: 913.449.7795

dng@kc.r.com

www.tractorfaxtech.com * 400 Northport * #215 * Cabot, AR 72023 * Ph: 501.259.5007 * tractorfax@ymail.com