You're facing a large-scale disaster. How do you effectively allocate limited personnel?

Begin by assessing the immediate needs and identifying critical areas where personnel can have the highest impact, such as search and rescue, medical care, and logistics. Establish a command structure to ensure efficient coordination and clear communication. Assign personnel based on their skills and expertise to roles where they are most effective. Use real-time data to continuously evaluate the situation and adjust assignments as necessary. Implement a rotation system to manage fatigue and maintain high operational capacity. Foster collaboration with external partners and volunteers to augment resources and support.

A common mistake here is for a first responder and even an on scene commander to start treatment too early. Communicate the need for external support early. End the conversation with "more to follow". And follow up with updates. Grab a few bystanders. Get one on the phone relaying prelim data, make one your scribe and send the third in search of medically qualified people. In the back of your head start thinking about triage, treatment and evac points. All of your emergency contacts should be on your SIM card to allow you to switch to another handset if you burn your battery. I prefix mine with ICE (in case of emergency). My wife still doesn't like my phone reporting ICE Wife when she calls. You may need to consider REVERSE TRIAGE.

Normally I would identify critical infrastructure first through pre-planning with leadership. Then I work with them to establish contracts to have those items readily available to deploy. This allows to minimize downtime for an organization after a rapid assessment is conducted following an incident. With this rapid assessment I would also identify, and life safety or environmental concerns are address before allowing additional support in an area or a facility. Currently, I currently focus on manufacturing organizations however, same concepts are universal for public and private organizations.

When things are PEAR shaped, your priorities should be: People Environment Assets Reputation Prioritise isolating energy sources and keeping others out of the danger zone. If the situation overwhelms your capacity to respond then you need to consider doing the most with the resources that you have. Consider the following: REVERSE TRIAGE of casualties; Hold the bund wall if you can't contain the spill; Redirect fire hoses to adjacent exposures to prevent spread; and Information releases should ONLY be handled BY SENIOR PERSONNEL. You can assist by keeping them well informed.

A medida que surgen nuevos problemas, una administración debe abordar las necesidades de una sociedad mediante modelos de gestión eficaces como una forma de reducir la conflictividad de un territorio. En algunos casos, los problemas trascienden los límites de una escala más local, haciendo que un nivel superior necesite mayores responsabilidades, mecanismos de colaboración entre actores y coordinación de instituciones. Por esta razón, a medida que se asciende en los niveles, las estructuras tienden a volverse más sofisticadas con un mayor numero de actores involucrados y la necesidad de gestionar más recursos. Esta estructura organizativa, debe ir adaptándose con el objeto de asegurar una cierta gobernabilidad en toda su organización.

As stated in 1 I would evaluate any life safety or environmental concerns to allow additional personnel in an area or facility. Then I would have them identify those items that may have the longest lead time to arrive and order those right away. Then I would focus on having communications, power, and then water to be restored to allow for an increased personnel on site without relying on portal assets.

I'm glad that this is listed as a complete topic. Fatigue management should be easy to manage, but in the spirit of the moment, we push ourselves too hard and for too long. I made this mistake when we had hostages taken at a mine. I burned out and became a zombie because it ran longer than I had expected and I hadn't prepared my second in command to step in. Another important consideration is to look around and consider who is personally affected. Spouse, family member involved etc. Quite often it takes a long time to confirm the names of those safely at muster points and those that are injured. Check in regularly with those that are personally impacted.

In my experience, communications are the most critical function that must be established during and after any incident. Without communications life safety can be put at risk and any restoring any normality after an incident is drastically impair. Wants it to establish I would ensure that a proper communication plan is established prior to the incident. This is normally senior leadership first then, they can pyramid any information down through their teams.

Limited resources is a detrimental organizational aspect that grows larger each day. Whether Police, Fire, EMT, etc. the fact is that recruitment efforts are falling off the perspective radar for the younger generation. Ultimately, this means that certain portions of an appropriate level of response may have to go unfulfilled. For example, as a young Police Officer working in a violent neighborhood in Philadelphia it was a common occurrence for several officers to maintain a crime scene to preserve evidence. Those roles have now been reduced to one person, more often than not the supervisor. True story. The solution is to recruit aggressively with high level compensation packages. Until then, prioritize assignments through collapsed ranks.