Please note: Barton Dunant assumes no liability or responsibility for any use of this program. These are simply recommendations we are making, which are in line with established safety and security protocols and procedures issued by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Smarter Water Watcher is a trademark of York Drive, LLC and used with permission.
Following These Pool Safety Tips Can Help Save a Life
Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death in children ages 1 through 4, and new data released by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) shows that more than 375 children drown in pools and spas each year. Children younger than 5 years old account for 75 percent of these drownings, 56 percent of which are attributed to a gap in adult supervision. Most child drownings (71 percent) happen at home.
In response to these numbers, CPSC’s Pool Safely campaign is sharing simple water safety steps that families can take to prevent drownings, especially while many families are spending more time around backyard and portable pools this season. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Pool Safely campaign urges parents and caregivers to follow the Pool Safely simple safety steps to prevent more drownings: Never leave a child unattended in or near water, and always designate an adult Water Watcher. This person should not be reading, texting, using a smartphone or be otherwise distracted. In addition to pools and spas, this warning includes bathtubs, buckets, decorative ponds, and fountains. If you own a pool or spa, be sure to install layers of protection, including a four-sided fence with a self-closing, self-latching gate. Learn how to perform CPR on children and adults. Many communities offer online CPR training. Learn how to swim and teach your child how to swim. Keep children away from pool drains, pipes and other openings to avoid entrapments. Ensure any pool and spa you use has drain covers that comply with federal safety standards and if you do not know, ask your pool service provider about safer drain covers.
Families can visit poolsafely.gov for additional water safety tips to prepare for a summer that is safer and more fun.
Water Safety Tips (Pools, Lakes, Rivers, Streams, etc.)
In places with bodies of water – and where there are no lifeguards – the responsibility for life safety falls on the responsible adults. Here are some tips:
Make sure all of the safety features which came with the above-ground pool or were part of the installation of an in-ground pool are in place. Don’t skip any steps, parts or signage which should be displayed. Make sure you are meeting local ordinances for fences, pool safety equipment, etc. Additionally, add warning signs in other languages, if appropriate.
Become an expert on the safe storage and use of pool cleaning chemicals, especially where they need to be stored away from children and pets; and in secure locations with proper ventilation. Opening chlorine packages in confined spaces can cut off the oxygen in the air and quickly become a choking hazard.
Make the commitment to always have a “Smarter Water Watcher” when there are kids near or in the water. And while having a certified life guard is better, every water site (pool, lake, river, etc.) needs someone whose only job is to watch the water for hazard and threats, including accidental drowning.
While not new technology, make sure your pool is equipped with a water movement alarm: one that meets or exceeds the ASTM F2208-08 standards.
The American Red Cross offers a free online water safety course designed for parents and caregivers.
As part of the Smarter Water Watcher program noted above, we are not saying don’t have a cell phone by the water – especially in case of emergencies – we are saying someone has to give up the usual distraction of their cell phone and other smart devices, to watch the water instead. Another tip is to provide the address of the home on a laminated card near the pool – which could be where the cell phone is left – so that in a panic, whomever is making the call to 911 has the address correctly (including cross-streets, back-alley access, etc.). A guest at your pool party who is the designated Smarter Water Watcher will probably not know all of that important information, when it is needed the most.
Build your own Smarter Water Watcher Kit!
It doesn’t take much – just a whistle on a break-away lanyard and a way to laminate a placard. We are building out versions of this placard – and YouTube training – in different languages.
Barton Dunant is looking for a sponsor or two (or twelve) who can create and distribute actual Smarter Water Watcher kits to give away for free to anyone who asks. If this is something your organization is interested in learning more about, please contact us directly.
While the concept of social reengineering – influencing people to change their behaviors and patterns of action/inaction – is typically applied in the corporate world (think advertising and marketing), it is also a concept applicable to emergency management.
Emergency Managers want people to better prepare themselves for emergencies and disasters. The fact of the matter is, there are not enough rescuers and resources for all the people who need rescuing – especially if some people can rescue themselves. There is also the “reengineering” part – which is changing existing (or non-existent) behaviors – and in the case of Emergency Management it is usually to reprioritize for life safety above incident stabilization, above property/asset protection. For example, the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) and the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (PETS) both of 2006, had elements designed to change the way people should evacuate instead of sheltering-in-place because they have pets.
Sometimes it is complex changes in the way government operates which can impact/implement social reengineering, and sometimes it’s simple mantras, such as
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good people to do nothing.
Edmund Burke (paraphrased)
Evil intentions, evil thoughts, evil actions: when it comes to threats and hazards, acts of evil have a special place on our collective lists of bad things. Some of us may think we can focus solely on what we believe are evildoers, and then end up with reduced capabilities and capacity for those natural and human-made hazards which become significant threats, nonetheless. Others will disregard the possibility of evil actions or intent, which has significant downsides as well. Lack of planning for what is considered consequence management possibilities, is a bad path to be on. Why do bad people do bad things (threats which become hazards)? In most cases it boils down to one of four reasons, covered in an acronym called M.I.C.E. – Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego.
None of these cover a possible worst-case scenario, which is evil. People who are evil want to hurt or destroy beyond any reasons we can think of. What we all can do to be ready for something evil – that is to be better prepared before, during, and after any incident – no one is ever fully prepared for every threat and hazard, this is always an area everyone can improve on. Be more ready for that “what if” it was the worst of the worst.
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
– William Shakespeare
1599 Antony. Julius Caesar, act 3, sc.2, l.74-86.
And sometimes the solutions to the “good versus evil” problems facing our world, also help against the adverse impacts of plain old accidents or even natural disasters. Let’s take the simple act of walking in the park: protecting the pedestrians from vehicles nearby helps just as much from someone having a medical emergency and not hitting the brakes, as it does from the terrorist hellbent on mowing down everyone they can get.
Whether you are preparing your family, your community, your state/territory/sovereign tribal nation, or even country: consider the possibility that evil might be the “why” behind any threat or hazard. This should make you alter and update your emergency plans, organizational staffing, equipment to be used, training and exercising of those elements. In Emergency Management we call this collection of elements POETE and use that process to make our problem-solving efforts and capacity-building more effective and efficient. Acts of terrorism may certainly qualify as evil, and the U.S. government spends quite a bit of effort to prevent these acts and protect all of us from their adverse impacts. And the feds have shared their guidance tools for this complete process in their Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 201, Third Edition. That guide utilizes the POETE process quite extensively.
The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are.
J. K. Rowling
Every disaster starts and ends locally – even the evil ones. Take the time now to look at your emergency plans, your list of threats and hazards, etc. and consider how they could be impacted by evil.
This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experience the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love.
The rock band “The Clash” have a song entitled “Should I Stay or Should I Go” – which is about a relationship between two people. It’s also a quick summary of Emergency Action Planning – should you shelter-in-place or evacuate?
The emergency management answer to this question is “Depends on what the emergency is” – and its possible the answer may be different over time, distance and shielding from the hazard. That means if you are in a house that’s on fire, it’s best to evacuate no doubt, but if it’s a 30-story office building, it might depend on where the fire is, as to what you do next. And it can get more complicated as time and distance from the hazard changes. If you view all hazards like this, you can make the best decisions for your own life safety and help others, too. The priorities should always be in this order: life safety, incident stabilization, and then property/asset protection. If your house is on fire, the fire department will work to rescue you and your pets first, then make sure the fire does not spread to other homes. You will probably notice they are not concerned with getting water on your big screen tv.
Here are the basics we see for the public actions of emergency action planning: Sheltering-In-Place, Evacuation, and Active Assailant (which may combine both depending on time, distance and shielding). And our basic emergency action plan template covers all three, from an all-hazards perspective. Everyone should organize, equip, train, and exercise themselves to all three actions, they are responsible for themselves.
Sheltering-In-Place
Sheltering-In-Place means staying where you are and not evacuating. And the “you” we describe in this post can mean you and your family, you and your co-workers, you and your pets, you and your personal care assistant, etc. You be you – and please take into consideration all the unique aspects of you we may forget to mention specifically. Sheltering-In-Place could mean you moving to a safer room in the building or a safer location in the complex or on the campus – but generally this an easier decision where and when to go, when there is existing Planning, Organization, Equipment, Training, and Exercising associated with this action. We call that a POETE process. Planning means having a plan as to where you would go, knowing what you would need there for an extended stay perhaps, and how you would communicate with others if circumstances of the emergency change (for the better or worse). Organization means knowing who is doing what – who may be needed to help you shelter-in-place and then get you back to “normal”. Equipment, as mentioned before is the stuff you need to shelter-in-place. We call it a “Stay Box”. This can hold everything from food/pet food, medicine, battery-powered cell charger, flashlight, water, change of clothes, sleeping bag, whatever. And this is stuff you need to have everywhere you might shelter-in-place, not just at home. So you will need multiple stay boxes. Training is the process of reviewing the plan, asking questions, taking classes, and attending seminars on personal preparedness (the American Red Cross has these for free, so does FEMA) and asking questions of your leadership at work about emergency preparedness and response. And finally Exercising is the practice, practice, practice that everyone needs to do for emergency action planning. Practice your plan, practice using your equipment, practice with others, and practice some “what ifs” from your training.
Evacuation
Evacuation means leaving where you and not sheltering-in-place. It could mean evacuating the entire building, complex, or campus – or just evacuating to a safer place. For that high-rise building fire, residents on the upper floors may evacuate to a different floor which has more fire protection and/or access to a fire stairwell, for example. Residents with mobility concerns may evacuate to what’s called an Area of Refuge, which is a meeting spot for residents to be further evacuated by the fire department. The building may have a designated Emergency Assembly Point outside, for people to meet together for accountability (where officials help make sure everyone has safely evacuated the building). Here’s the POETE process for Evacuations. It is going to sound somewhat familiar to Sheltering-In-Place. Planning means having a plan as to where you would go now and also the “what-ifs” for if you are able to return or not, knowing what you might need while you wait at the Emergency Assembly Point, and how you would communicate with others if circumstances of the emergency change (for better or worse). Organization means knowing who is doing what – who may be needed to help you evacuate and then get you back to “normal”. Equipment, as mentioned before, is the stuff you need to evacuate. “Need” is the operative word. We call it a “Go Bag”. This can hold everything from food, medicine, battery-powered cell charger, electric wheelchair charging devices, flashlight, small amount of water, glow stick, whatever. And as with the Stay Box, you need a Go Bag in different places, too. A purse or backpack you carry with you everywhere will do. Training is the process of reviewing the plan, asking questions, taking classes, and attending seminars on personal preparedness (the American Red Cross has these for free, so does FEMA) and asking questions of your leadership at work about emergency preparedness and response. And finally Exercising is the practice, practice, practice that everyone needs to do for emergency action planning. Practice your plan, practice using your equipment, practice with others, and practice some “what ifs” from your training.
Note that the steps and actions for Evacuations should sound familiar to those for Sheltering-In-Place. We designed this to be similar, for muscle-memory and consistency. There is a lot of preparing work involved for both, but it will be worth it. The point is to act on your plan, and not to panic. The last set of emergency response actions we have put into our all-hazards Emergency Action Plan template is associated with an Active Assailant. This one can combine elements of both sheltering-in-place and evacuation, plus one more which is really difficult to plan for: possibly fighting for your life.
Active Assailant
Active Assailant means the threat to your life is right there. Time has run out, and maybe so has distance and shielding. Most people have heard of the Active Shooter threat and maybe even phrases such as “Run, Hide, or Fight” or “Avoid, Deny, Defend”. You see on the news: schools and office buildings going into “lockdown” when there is a nearby threat. This is mis-labeled in our opinion. Those sites where the threat is not (yet) right there are in a “Lockout” alert phase (no one goes in and no one goes out) – they want to put distance and shielding between themselves and the threat. A site can be designed in a “Lockout” phase for other reasons besides an Active Assailant (chemical hazard, infectious disease threat, A lockout is the exact opposite of an evacuation, as far as what the public should thinkg.
A Lockdown now means something more.
We define a “Lockdown” as the combined set of response actions by the public to a direct active assailant. If the threat is coming through the front door and you can escape safely through the back door – then it is an evacuation for you. If you are nearer the front with no immediate clear/safe way out, then you may choose to shelter-in-place hopefully in a Safer(TM) Room, until you can – and should – evacuate. And if the threat is right upon you – you will need to fight for your own life using any means necessary. It is always better to quickly (time) put as much as much space (distance) between you and the threat, as safely as you can (shielding).
We believe the active assailant threat/hazard is very complex and can include other threats besides a shooter. The actions of first responders are turned upside down for active assailant attacks: fire and emergency medical services are held back until the “scene is safe” and police are reprioritized to “neutralize the threat” above saving the lives of people who have been injured. Here’s the POETE: Plan your actions towards the “Avoid, Deny, Defend” model – you need to incorporate your sheltering-in-place and evacuation planning wherever you are, plus plan to switch actions if necessary. There is no order to “Avoid, Deny, Defend” – nor is there a limit to how many different actions you can take. Focus on life safety – yours. When it comes to Organization, you are pretty much on your own. If you can safely help others, please do so. Please also follow the instructions of first responders to the letter. When you are evacuating from an active assailant incident, the police may not know if you are a threat or an evacuee. The Equipment is not much more than what you already have with a go bag and a stay box. When you are barricading yourself in a safer room, you need to consider how to keep the door closed and possibly how you might have to break a window to escape, or to signal for help. You may also need a bleeding control kit to help with injuries. There is a ton of Training on active assailant for the public, out there. Find some yourself or ask your organization’s leadership to host a class or two. Same for Exercises. We recommend a stair-stepped approach – start with a “Hide” table-top exercise where you discuss what everyone should do for the sheltering-in-place actions, then do a Hide game (internally, where you do not involve any calls to 9-1-1 or any outside responders), then do a Hide functional exercise where you do invite the first responders to help evaluate your exercise (and also gain knowledge of your site and the physical layout, security features, etc.). Any and all Active Assailant exercises of any kind must be scheduled in advance, as well as announced to your staff and visitors, and will include after-action discussions to make sure folks feel more comfortable and confident after each type of exercise. For many, just practicing this exercise in any way, will be extremely stressful. Failing to coordinate with local officials, keeping your own team in the loop, etc. will have significant risks itself. We can help your organization assess their emergency action plans and design an exercise series around active assailant threats.
And by the way, people should think of wildfires and hurricanes as active assailants, too. You may start out sheltering-in-place, but then the circumstances change – your time, distance and shielding from the threat become compromised – and its time to evacuate. Or be rescued if the first responders can get to you. In active assailant threats, you are first-and-foremost responsible for your own life-safety. Do what you have to do to survive – you will have little control over the incident stabilization aspects of this type of threat – and put the life safety of yourself and your family above your property protection or anything else. Stuff and buildings can always be replaced. People cannot.
These are the basics of Emergency Action Plans – and you can download a template at our website, which you can use for your home, your job, even your vacation plans elsewhere. And please let us know any questions or thoughts you may have on all of this – we welcome feedback from our clients and are always looking to improve what we offer. Should you stay or should you go, when there is an emergency? Hopefully now you have a better understanding of how simple the answer is, and also how complex it can be, too.
Michael Prasad, MA, CEM®
Senior Research Analyst
Barton Dunant – Emergency Management Training and Consulting.
We believe the worst-case scenario disaster which will fall on Emergency Management is the Electro-Magnetic Pulse wave (EMP) from a low-atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device over the United States. This will have catastrophic impacts to the continuity of operations / continuity of government (COOP/COG) for emergency management (EM). It is the maximum of maximums (MOM).
We have built an advanced table-top exercise for this scenario and welcome your thoughts and comments. It will be usable by single entries, any level jurisdiction, all the way up through an international multi-player exercise. The concept is the same: When you have no comms and no modern transportation and of course no electricity nor electronic devices, what do you expect/order your staff to do next? Take care of themselves and their families or do everything they can to get to work/stay at work? And do they know now what they are supposed to do if such a scenario should occur?
Three words you never want to hear in a row – but ones you need to plan forwell in advance. We believe the phase “Lockdown” should be a universal call to action – which has different actions, depending on where you are and where the threat is. Similar to a fire or chemical spill within (or near) a commercial high-rise office building, there may be some places where it is safer to shelter-in-place and some where it is safer to evacuate. But unlike those and any other threats – there may be a moment/place/time when you are confronted directly by the active assailant – with no where to run and no where to hide (apologies to Holland, Dozier and Holland) – and you will have to fight to defend your own life and maybe the lives of others.
A Lockdown should be different from a Lockout. A Lockout is when the Active Assailant is near your location, but not (yet!) a direct threat to you. When a building or a school goes on Lockout, it should mean that the threat is not on campus and no one goes in and no one comes out (except emergency services). Lockouts can become Lockdowns, when the threat does move to your building. This may happen very quickly – and if you can get the words “Lockdown, Lockdown, Lockdown” out over public address systems, text messages targeted to people in the building, etc. that will help (the more intelligence provided, the better – such has what the assailant(s) look like, weapons, which entrance they came in, etc.). We encourage the three calls of the word “Lockdown!” back to back, this way it is very distinctive, and in case someone missed hearing the word “Lockdown” the first time. And by the way, there is no reason not to keep announcing where the threat is – only if you are in a safe place to do so. Offsite security/law enforcement teams who have access to your public address system and/or text alert system can perform this as well. Note, we do recommend that cell phones be put on silent when you are ‘hiding’ in a safer location – and those folks should remain quiet to avoid directing the attacker to their location.
Think of this threat, like it’s radioactive. If you heard there was a briefcase full of radioactive material in the lobby of your building, you would want to get as far away from it, as quickly as possible. So, for two of the three actions (evacuation and sheltering in place) associated with a Lockdown, look to limit your time near the threat, increase the distance from the threat, and use shielding from the threat:
Run/Avoid – Add Time and Distance from the Threat
This is shorthand for evacuate away from the threat to a safer area until the situation is ended; and let your team or emergency responders know of your location and status. That includes a very important checklist point to “running/avoiding” away from an Active Assailant (or any other threat where you are evacuating): Accountability. Please let your supervisor, or emergency action team leader know where you are and your status (injured, not injured, etc.) when you have moved to someplace safer.
If your office, school, work location, etc. has emergency assembly areas – use them when you are evacuating – even for Active Assailant Attacks. At least that’s the plan. If you escape out the back of the building towards the Assembly Point, and see there are other attackers there – well, then go somewhere else! That may mean back into the building. Every Emergency Action Plan should have multiple emergency assembly areas/points – including contingency ones if the primary ones are unsafe. This is a key element to Crisis Action Planning.
Hide/Deny – Add a layer of Shielding, until you can Escape or the Threat is Ended
Also shorthand for finding a safer place to be, one that provides Cover at best and Concealment at a minimum.
Fight/Defend
This is the tough one. Not something we recommend for people under 18 (K12 schools probably use a different protective methodology for Response by the public to an active assailant attack, such as A.L.I.C.E.). Here’s a really good video from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which sums up “Run, Hide, Fight” (Note: some may find this video disturbing or uncomfortable, watch at your own discretion and liability):
What comes next: More elements of Response and Recovery
Police may still be searching the building, injured and wounded people need to be triaged, treated and possibly transported to hospitals. Investigations needs to start. There may be a friends and family reception center for people to meet up with people who evacuated from the scene. Media will be on-scene. And More.
What is LIP? It’s an acronym for Life Safety, Incident Stabilization and Property Protection – and those three areas – in that order are the top-line Priorities or Objective Categories of any incident response operation. They must always occur, and be prioritized in that order when it comes to creating Strategies and Tactics on the Operation. When you are considering a Mission Assignment, ask yourself: Does it fit this criteria? Are we making sure our team is safe at all times? Remember Responder Life Safety is always the number 1 priority.
And for our healthcare professional folks – our “LIP” is different from the LIP you may be familiar with: Licensed Independent Practitioners.
