How to stay on top of a crisis

This article is written by Fernanda Cunha Pirillo Inojosa, environmental emergencies coordinator with the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA)

If you were given a bird’s-eye view of a disaster scenario, you'd probably notice, among other things, the deployment of police, civil defence forces, fire fighters, and humanitarian agencies.

Even from this vantage point, however, it would be difficult to say with any certainty who was in charge. Different authorities tend to clash over important decisions, especially if the crisis at hand is one none have any prior experience of, and for which no coordinated action has been agreed.

Working as an environmental analyst with the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) for the last 15 years, I’ve had the opportunity to take part in some important environmental disaster responses.

In 2019, I was involved in responding to a major mining dam break, which killed more than 200 people. That same year, there was an oil spill that affected 11 Brazilian states, and for which the responsible party is still unknown.

Based on my experience, the most difficult tasks during an emergency are handling two things: egos and information. One might think such obstacles only reach overwhelming proportions in equally overwhelming disasters, but the truth is they can outgrow relatively “small” incidents.

And even the smallest events, caught under the magnifying glass of the media, can become huge if these factors aren’t first reigned in.

Pooling the numbers

These days it takes only common sense to acknowledge the challenge of managing information around a major event.

Everything is online, almost everyone has Internet access, and the news appears virtually in tandem with events, through broadcasting networks and social media. If the data held by police on the number of deaths differs to that held by a humanitarian agency, say, then the numbers will certainly differ, and the media will be all over it. This will happen no matter how efficient an actual disaster response is.

A wall full of maps and lists, together with someone (or a team) responsible for keeping it updated, is more effective than a patchwork of siloed databases.

Conflicting numbers can cause confusion and ruin reputations. Ibama and the Navy, for instance, were working really well together at the unprecedented oil spill response in 2019. However, the institutions had different methodologies to consider a locality as “clean” or “not clean”.

The media often mentioned the different numbers and this subtle variation didn't make it into the vast majority of the reporting. So, a unified classification method was agreed among the federal institutions that took part in the response, avoiding unnecessary and harmful criticism.

To minimise that problem, participants from disaster response institutions should have a centralised system in which all the information on an event is uploaded. The media should then be informed of specific times at which new information will be released, either through a website or a press briefing.

There are already forms of software that fulfil this need to unify and organise data, but clear procedures and protocols are more useful than the mere existence of ultra-modern technology. A wall full of maps and lists, together with someone (or a team) responsible for keeping it updated, is more effective than a patchwork of siloed databases.

Reigning in egos

Managing egos is perhaps the more sensitive issue, but one that must be addressed all the same. Without a clear chain of command, some people will surf the wave of the disaster response, looking for visibility, position, votes or whatever else advances them.

Someone in search of future votes, for example, may post pictures at an incident command center or at the damaged sites, suggesting some actions that are completely illogical or unfeasible, from a technical point of view. Such comments, however, are appreciated by the general public, starting nonsense public civil actions and legal demands that will only diverge the response effort from the priorities.

One measure with which teams can protect themselves from such negative divergence is a crisis management system, such as the Incident Command System (ICS). ICS is a standardised methodology used by institutions for the purpose of working together in a disaster scenario, with pre-established functions.

These functions typically include the organisation of resources, communication flows, and chains of command by multiple agencies. The ICS has an expandable structure that stretches or collapses according to the needs of any given situation.

The system’s “unified command” is its pre-assigned personnel from key institutions, who make decisions cooperatively, and thus decide who is really in charge and has the authority to speak to the media, for instance.

It will be very tricky (almost impossible in fact) to implement an ICS during, as opposed to before, an emergency. Institutions should therefore study disaster scenarios and rehearse their ICS system.

It is much more comfortable to deal with uncertainty if the tools and the faces at the table are familiar.

In Brazil, government agencies and private companies do test exercises in order to prepare for an incident. The exercises vary in size and purpose. It’s possible for example to exercise communications within minutes, or to spend a day on a tabletop exercise, or two or three days deploying real equipment when testing moves from theory to practice. The main idea behind each exercise however is to get it wrong before it gets real.

Managing mini-crises

Fortunately, huge disasters do not occur every week. But the same tools can and should be applied by institutions in smaller crises. This will not only help public servants master the tools, but also remind teams that small disasters snowball over time.

In the first weeks of the oil spill, for instance, the actors involved did not know it would affect more than a thousand coastal localities in the forthcoming months. When the situation escalated, all the information was fortunately organised in the ICS.

Another reason to use an ICS is to build relationships and trust among the representatives. During an emergency, decisions may need to be made without all of the information or studies one might wish for. Uncertainties and blind spots are part of a crisis scenario, and not making any decision is in itself a decision, often with consequences.

It is much more comfortable to deal with uncertainty if the tools and the faces at the table are familiar. And as already mentioned, the egos at that table will make themselves known, putting you ahead of the curve before the next real disaster strikes.

To sum up, here are five tips which may help prepare and keep your head cool in a crisis:

• Plan exercises with the key institutions on a regular basis;
• Get ready to gather and disseminate information in an organised and unified way;
• Get to know the people you´ll be working with;
• Pre-assign teams to the ICS functions;
• Implement the ICS, even at small events. — Fernanda Cunha Pirillo Inojosa

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