Snow Days – Leading Remotely

Before the snowfall

I love snow; it’s beautiful and magical and transports me back to the snowy days of my childhood. As I’ve got older my relationship with snow has become complicated. It’s still all those wonderful things I remember from my childhood but it’s also disruptive and dangerous. When it starts to fall I don’t just think of building snowmen I think of building resilience.

Thinking Big

Sat in beautiful sunshine in Exeter last Wednesday you could be forgiven for thinking that the dire weather predictions were simply media hype. The forecast had been growing since the weekend and by early midweek we knew we would see significant snowfall impacting much of Devon, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly from late on Wednesday, through Thursday and likely extending into Friday and the weekend. 

We work differently in an incident, adopting a more structured approach to the way we work…

We immediately brought our leadership team together with our incident command group. This initial strategic meeting is vitally important to ensuring a shared sense of consciousness and purpose for managing the incident ahead.

Our primary objectives were:

·       to ensure we were in a position to protect people, property and the environment

·       to provide support to our emergency service partners

·       to protect the health, safety and well-being of our people

Acting Early

From the outset we knew we would need to work differently. With widespread disruption to travel predicted we decided to close all our offices, depots and incident rooms and work remotely. We did this to avoid putting any further pressure on infrastructure, our emergency service partners and to ensure our people were able to return home safely.

Knowing our operational workforce and fleet would be fundamental to our own response and that of others we ensured they were strategically placed across the region, fully equipped and with key personnel so that we could deploy immediately when and where needed.

We paused to recognise the beautiful blue skies as we made our final preparations on that Wednesday morning. But we’re experienced in working to the forecast, and are close both geographically and professionally to the incredible people at the Met Office and flood forecasting centre.

We trusted the forecast and as a result every single Environment Agency employee arrived home safe ahead of the weather and we maintained full operational continuity throughout by successfully sequencing our travel arrangements.

Many were not as fortunate. The media reported people stuck in vehicles overnight and roads closed. Emergency response was impacted by abandoned vehicles closing major traffic routes.

Through detailed planning, trusting our preparations, clear strategic direction and decisive decision making we were in a fantastic position with our entire workforce healthy, happy and ready.

We were fully operational working in a virtual incident structure ready to face the worst of the weather.

Last week the South West was hit by its first ever red weather warning for snow. The Beast from the East combined with Storm Emma (increased sea levels and gale force winds battering the coastline) to severely test our ability to respond to extreme weather.

Right on forecast.

The snow started to fall, gently at first, on Wednesday evening and didn’t stop. Initially localised with pictures of adventures, snowball fights and snowmen appearing on social media; soon the images of playfulness turned into stories of disruption and despair. 

Working virtually, effective communication became even more important. My Area Leadership Team began our agreed pattern of daily meetings to ensure strategic direction, clear communications and support for people in their response.

We work as a team, embracing the philosophy that if you want to go far, go together. I’ve learnt in incident response especially that you can never have enough communication or enough support. I ensure all those likely to play a role later in an incident have the information they need to perform when their time comes. This also helps them understand the rationale behind key decisions that have been made along the way. In many ways a virtual model supports this approach, as simply listening into briefing calls keeps people informed and ready to act when they’re needed.

As Wednesday became Thursday the worse of the weather was yet to arrive. 

With the most severe impacts expected early afternoon, the calm start to the day made some doubt the forecast, or chance making that one final trip. My team stayed strong following the strategic direction, trusting the forecast and continuing to work remotely.

A Multi Agency Response

The Strategic Gold Command Group expertly led by the Police, started on Thursday and coordinated the multi agency response to the event; meeting morning and afternoon across the coming days. This was the first time I have been part of a Gold Command Group that met almost exclusively remotely. This meant accurate, concise and timely communication became even more important.

The two key things that allowed me to perform within these meetings were comprehensive and timely briefings and great administrative support. I made arrangements to be supported on telecons by a note taker which made it much easier to contribute fully to the discussion. In the absence of that administrative support I would have been less effective. This is yet another example I have of the huge importance of the so often underappreciated administrative support that can make or break any business.

Throughout this period we responded carefully with respect to local conditions and challenges. Where there was limited coastal flood risk and better weather conditions we were able to offer people and equipment to support other emergency responders such as the NHS and ambulance services.

A common challenge in an incident is asking people who are desperate to help to wait. We knew our resources would be needed imminently for flood response in more affected parts of the area so had to be selective about choose where we could support others without impacting our own capability. 

As the snow fall intensified, high tides and high winds impacted the Devon & Cornwall coasts with increasingly violent seas smashing into sea defences and communities.

Reaching impacted areas proved incredibly difficult with more and more of the road network inaccessible. Advice from professional partners was to avoid using the roads so we were increasingly reliant on intelligence from communities, local authorities and social media to help make informed decisions about where to prioritise our activities.

We were able to reach those affected in the following hours to help support our partners with clean-up activities and providing onsite reconnaissance. The success of our warning and informing activities again proved vital as communities were able to take measures to protect themselves from the worst of the weather. Through the week we issued 31 flood alerts and 19 flood warnings in Devon, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly providing this information to thousands of people and protecting thousands more homes from flooding.

Unfortunately we cannot always protect everyone and we know that a small number of homes were flooded as well as a number of business affected, but we know they will recover quickly ahead of the wonderful spring and summer in the South West.

The Magic

?Working virtually throughout incident response, and in some cases being housebound for several days has some advantages. After the worst of the snow settled and my strategic response work was done I was able to steal some priceless moments with my wife and two year old daughter and see her enjoy her first snow days. My mind was filled with each and every one of those special moments from my childhood when magic appeared to fall from the sky and anything was possible.

 Returning to business as usual

As we continue the process of returning to business as usual, I reflect on one of the most unique events I have ever managed. I think this is largely because it wasn’t one incident but at least four. We played our part in a significant multiagency response to unprecedented weather, we managed significant flood risk to coastal communities across Devon, Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly, we responded and managed a significant environment incident (that’s a story for another day), all while successfully managing our own business continuity and creating a platform where our people were happy, healthy, safe and fully operational.

Incident management is the most important thing we do. Our success is only possible through continued investment in planning and preparation, access to great equipment including vehicles and communication infrastructure, effective strategic leadership and the incredible commitment and efforts of our fantastic team.

Although these snow days were certainly more complex, more demanding and more challenging than those of my childhood, I think they were no less magical and memorable.