How do you find gaps in your disaster response system?

Also contingency planning. Most drills are 8-5 M-F with every admin and chief present. What is going to happen 7pm on a Friday night? Have the Chief step back and observe how others are operating. Everyone should know not only thie position but that of the person above below and next to them. If the Planning Manager is out of town, who are the 3 people to fill that slot? This follows all the different roles/positions.

In addition to assessment of the above, it's also necessary to assess the level of preparedness of stake holders (both, proficiency in technical skills as well as ability to withstand stressful environment). This may be an assessment of the intangible factors as above, but will go along way in further planning for indentification of gaps.

Real-time learning and evaluation, coupled with adherence to standards and indicators, enables constant course correction and significant improvement of the disaster response system.

Assessing risk is an ongoing effort in today’s changing environment. Excercising with key stakeholders is an important tool to identify capabilities and capacities. By testing your organization’s strategies and continuing to refine your response, you build increased resiliency.

Always plan for the worst case and hope for the best. Use reality based training strategies and have independant evaluators or validators of every training event conducted.

Large scale table top is a key component. If an area of town were to loose power for an extended period of time due to some large weather event... how would all of those units get by. All the hospitals, nursing homes will be calling EMS for evacuation. Who can make that phone call at the local level? Are they on site? A nursing home without power at 2am with a staff member stating they are working on authorization to exfill is a problem. How are you moving all of those people? Can you use school busses IF they are available?

IMHAOWO.... I live by/through Whiteboarding....for me, at each step/function/action...getting the team toether to discuss the -what do we believe will be done here? v. what will really happen? -what is needed here for resourcing? --how do we get the resources to where they are needed? -how did we get to this step and how to get to the next step(s)? -how long do we expect this step/action to last? I have found out through Whiteboarding, the gaps show...how to get from A to B to C, what is needed at each step....and so on.

Efforts should be made to identify stakeholders that can add to redundancy in skills required for disaster management. This will ensure that at least one of the stakeholders, with those critical skills, are available during disaster relief. This is important because change in nature of a disaster will likely put more strain on one particular stakeholder and deprive the relief efforts of the skills from the particular stakeholder. Redundancy will ensure more than one stakeholders for a particular skill and thereby facilitating a speedy response.

In order to develop a robust Action Plan, multiple APTs/ DRPs should be made for various disaster categories. They should then be wargamed for each specific disaster type. Lessons learnt from all the simulation exercises should then be incorporated in the final Action Plan. Only then should the implementation of the same begin.

Unfortunately many organizations don't discover gaps until after disaster strikes. In these cases, it is critical that the organization addresses the root causes before the next disaster. This should be a feedback loop of continuous learning and corrective actions. Said more succinctly, lessons learned versus lessons observed.

There should be a daily review of previous days incidents and a close the loop cycle on all events. Some responses do not require any follow up just a filing for tracking of trends, others an acknowledgment of effort and recognition of staff, others a more complete analysis of shortcomings be it in training, lack of resources, shortfalls in communications, or amendment of methods. At the end of the day accountability for the review process must hinge in one department that has to ask the difficult questions and hold internal and external stakeholders to account for change where needed. A simple outstanding activity spreadsheet can document issues and time imposed deadlines for minor/major changemanagemt processes

Finding and addressing gaps in disaster response systems is crucial for ensuring efficient and effective responses to emergencies. Approaching this problem might include: 1. Assessment and Research. 2. Identifying Gaps. 3. Engaging Stakeholders. 4. Data Analysis. 5. Best Practice Research. 6. Gap Prioritization. 7. Developing Solutions. 8. Partnerships and Collaborations. 9. Conducting Pilot Programs. 10. Training and Capacity Building. 11. Continuous Monitoring & Evaluation. 12. Public Awareness and Education. 13. Feedback. 14. Conduct Periodic Reviews and Updates.

Learn from others mistakes. An AAR (After Action Report) of an event is a good source of information/guidance. It is not necessary to experience the event personally to learn the lessons.

With the emergence of technologies making it easier to intercept and create/recreate false information, it may be prudent to add a section about making sure IT/cybersecurity is identified and maintained for disaster operations.