The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How to Create Effective Contingency Plans | BTS #40

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Contingency planning and table topping possible worst case scenarios should happen for every planned event. Here are some ways to do it.

Please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and we'll get started with between the slides in 3, 2, 1. Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist, but when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it the eaten by wolves factor. If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves factor. If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are plenty of things I don't worry about because I have a plan in place if they do. That's a quote by Randy Pausch, who was an American

associate professor of computer science,puter Interaction and Design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And I thought that quote just fit perfect for episode 40, the critical of a contingency planning checklist that can then be used as a template for any event you have kind of harder on the fly for an incident, but you could know this beforehand and kind of better be able to react for incidents that are less known ahead of time versus like a big sporting event. And that's some of the background about how this checklist came to be is for the 2015 UCI Road World Championships, my colleagues and I contingency planned a bunch of different things to include bomb threats, active shooters, missing persons, communication failures, aircraft accidents, suspicious packages,

IEDs, personal born IEDs, vehicle born IEDs, civil disturbances, event shutdown for some reason. How are we going to get folks out of this venue? How are we going to make the call? That kind of stuff. Severe weather, fire near the event, a hazmat incident or hazardous materials, a mass casualty incident or MCI. And we'll dive deep into that one as our example. A water rescue because where we were in the Richmond, Virginia area was on a river, an explosion, right? So not just that there's a package or we think there's an explosion,

but something happened, which of course leads to an MCI, a mental health crisis, right? That's no stranger to most folks in cities that have folks that, you know, are outside the mental health system or in and out of it. How do you react if someone that is in crisis comes onto the course or shows up at your command post? What are you gonna do about that? So again, thanks for joining me. I'm Kevin Pinone. I'm your host of Between the Slides.

And I really appreciate you all coming back, listening to really the big why for this is to help incident management practitioners, public safety, anyone that's doing special event planning, even if you management practitioners, public safety, anyone that's doing special event planning, even if you're not in public safety, to always be thinking about and then what and we'll go into that a bit more. And we talked about that and some other key elements of incident management and other episodes that always thinking and then what factor particularly as a medical unit leader, but this is this is a look on what is everyone going to do if any one

of those scenarios I talked about happens. And so let's get into the process that I think is helpful that we use that my colleagues and I used that we then replicated and unfortunately had to act on and other incidents. And I think because we use them down the line and later incidents, we actually help save lives. And that's that's crappy that we had to use them. But it's great that we put the work in ahead of time. And to see that tangible difference, I think really was important. So how did we get this contingency planning checklist? Well, we made actual contingency plans that had a little more meat to them that were a few pages long that got a little more in depth, kind of like an emergency operations plan

or a project management plan. They had a lot more words than just the purely actionable pieces, but were needed. And so from that, from the process that not just I did, certainly I didn't create the content of this, I just thought, hmm, maybe we could take all of that and put these in one page or checklist that someone can use down the road.

And I'll share these on the BetweenTheSlides.com website as well in the near future. And that someone could take to any event and be ready for any incident within the event. And so the first thing, and we won't quite have a BetweenTheSlides 5, but we'll have some kind of amalgamation of that, is to treat your work scenarios like tactics meetings and so forth. The management practitioners out there, the tactics meeting, if you recall, is that key meeting where we have operations taking action on the objectives that command set to tell us and ask for the resources or the people, the stuff, the areas they want to go,

what work hours, the operational period, where they want people to report. They're working really closely with that resource unit leader to make sure that, hey, can you account for my folks? Can you get them checked in at all these different locations? They're standing right next to logistics. This is going to make sure they can get them the stuff and the radio channels or can't. It's going to be that very interactive thing. And also, of course, safety is there to ensure or do their best, right? We can't. It's going to be that very interactive thing. And also, of course, safety is there to ensure or do their best, right? We can't always ensure anything. That's why we don't use ensure on our objectives. But safety is there to kind of check operators, not to say no, but to say,

okay, I'm not saying no, but let's consider this, the old let's wear PFDs or personal flotation devices within 10 feet of the water. So yes, your folks can operate near the water all day, but you're going to wear that device. So that tactics meeting is really where we get into putting the tactics, go figure, the really ground level work together. And so while we're not asking for resources, what we're doing in these tactics meeting like contingency planning sessions is we are looking at the setup and the resources we have and where and thinking about any one of those scenarios 18 or so scenarios that we looked at and I may

have just blown that one number out of the water but the ones I read earlier and saying okay so for the bomb threat let's look at our org chart and what do we want to do and again when we do this we want to have the subject matter expert. So we want someone from the bomb team, missing persons, we want law enforcement, hazmat, we want fire, mental health, we want social services, health department, right? So you want your subject matter experts to know or to be there. And so you don't necessarily have to just have the ops chief. You also, for these specific responses, want to know, and you also have to have the resources there, right? So you can't have a subject matter expert that really knows this stuff, but you're not actually going to have the resources to respond. So that's a

challenge when you do this contingency planning based on tactics meetings you've already done, but treat them like that, right? Set them up, do the wall charts. You don't have to do 215, but at least, you know, game out who's going to do what. And we'll get into more of that when we go through the examples. But the first thing I would say is treat your contingency planning like a tactics meeting. Set a schedule for it. Make sure people are there. Make them commit and make them be serious about it and not just go,

ah, that'll never happen here because we've all been around long enough. You all see the news every day just like I do. It does happen here. It'll happen in your backyard. It's happening in areas I've been in. So let's just do the best that we can for everybody out there. The second thing I would say and definitely consider, and I talked about this in the Gettysburg Leadership episode on episode 10, is to always be thinking about and then what? And I talked about that a bit as well. So we're always thinking we're always thinking, we're gonna have 10 people deployed over there.

They're gonna patrol this area, and then what? Okay, so then we'll get into contingency stuff, thinking about the eaten by wolves thing. What if this happens? What if that happens? Okay, first we're gonna respond and secure the area, and then what? Okay, then we're gonna try and get medical people in there

and just building on that. The other thing I would say is use the PACE model. That's for contingency planning. So that means we're going to have a primary, an alternate, a contingency, an emergency plan, right? And we're going to look at all those things. And we are also going to make sure that folks two levels up and two levels down know our jobs. So part of contingency planning is what if the leadership is taken out? What if a key person that has information is injured or stuck in the rubble of a collapse and you're now in charge of the unit that you were a staff member in? Was that knowledge shared with you? That's key. So make sure we're paying this knowledge forward

as we're getting ready for this event. And The other key factor I would say to consider when you're doing this is that time wedge. The time wedge means, boom, something happens. The longer we take to make a decision, the less options we're going to have. Imagine the greater than, less than, it's alligator pointing to the left toward the incident. The further we go to the right as time's going, the less options we're going to have. You have to think about those things and think about how we're going to build those in to each section or the unit or the resources that are going to respond. So the key elements that we use and that I would suggest because they seem to work pretty well.

And of course, they could morph. And if you find them and use them and you make them better and it makes people safer, then absolutely do that. So when I built the checklist, the one pager, for folks that use Incident Command System forms, you'll recognize it looks just like one. It's different because it's color coded on the left by kind of the standard ICS section colors. And for me, what I've always used and would recommend is white for command staff, blue for planning, red for operations, yellow for logistics, green for finance. And then honestly, I just picked one. So we had an information and intel section. I made them gray.

And then we had the emergency operations center because we want to be connected with them. And I made them orange. It doesn't matter for those colors, but just so it stands out, right? So if I'm looking at this sheet and it's a color copy, whether it's electronic or a handout, and I work in one of those sections, I can immediately go there, right? So it's a visual cue. So the key elements are the name of it. You know, at the top, it says hazmat release, or let's go to our example, mass casualty incident.

So as soon as I get to this page at the top of the page, it tells me what it's for. Then in number one, just like any other form, it says event. What is this event? What is it for? Pretty straightforward. We're going to let everybody know it's an MCI contingency plan for this event. Number two, just like other forms, what's the operational period, right? The date and the time.

Then a little bit of a variation is what's the date and time this plan was initiated. So that's what's in box number three. So our standard ops time or ops period is in number two. When did we kick off this contingency plan that we're going to go on this checklist for? That's what we want to know. Depending on the type of contingency plan, the type of response, this could be part of your legal documentation. I've mentioned this as far as documentation in the last episode, particularly with active shooters or other things that you know are going to have lawsuits and tons of scrutiny. Did you prepare together? Did you plan for it? Did you have some sort of systematic response? In many of the MCIs or shooters or other disasters, a lot of times

communication or lack of coordination. This is another way after you've done your regular planning, you get back together or in parallel do the contingency planning and then you have this out there. So it's just another layer of communication and coordination that you've done together, which is great. Block number four at the top, I have objectives. And objectives for not just the event, but what are the objectives for this particular incident, right? And you can make them and I'll go through. So for the mass casualty incident, these ones are pretty standard. So provide for the safety of emergency responders, spectators and participants, determine if the threat exists and the level of threat,

assign appropriate resources to mitigate the situation and maintain clear and effective communication. So those are pretty high level. It doesn't say provide triage treatment and transport, set up a casualty collection point. We'll get to that when we get into the other sections. So pretty standard things, pretty high level things because you have objectives. Now we have an incident within the incident, right? So what we want to do is send some folks, and we'll get into this when I break down who we suggested would do what and who we planned for to do what by section and unit and specific assignments is we can't send

everybody from the command posts, right? We don't want the white wave of leadership to leave and go to the scene. That makes its own level of complexity, right? We need leadership to be where they should be in the policy area. And, you know, back when they show up on scene, it makes everybody a little more tense. Also, they are better used in clearing obstacles and making calls to get us whatever we need if we're on scene, right? Or if you're that person, if you're in leadership, if you're a part of the white wave, try and do your best to stay back. Make sure you get resources to people. Ask them what they need and support and coordinate.

All right, so let's go in number five. Section five is actions. So this is where we're going to get into the position slash section and what we want them to do when this. And for us, we're using a mass casualty incident or MCI as our example so for command slash agency admin or organization reps here's what we want them to do maintain situational awareness and notify and coordinate with event sponsors that's it right so I just mentioned you know we don't need all the leadership to go to the scene or any when it gets to the high level folks. So we're going to make sure they have that situational awareness and we want them.

So in this case, it was a planned event. So if you have, you know, Carnival wherever and wherever America or anywhere across the world that, you know, they are going to work with the event sponsors, the sponsors, depending on what's happening or paying for it, it's really their event where they're supporting them. When things happen, obviously the dynamic changes with public safety and with event sponsors, but that's their liaison, their leadership,

primary function and power there is to really work with the folks that are in charge of that event, that we're there supporting the agency administrators and the organization reps and help get us what we need, help get folks out of our way, make sure that we're there supporting the agency administrators and the organization reps and help get us what we need, help get folks out of our way, make sure that we're all working together, and that's pretty much it, what we looked at.

Safety, we're gonna coordinate situational awareness with planning, right? We're gonna gather information from assistant safety officers if you have them. So safety is gonna help us or help coordinate if they have assistant safety officers out in the field spread out across this event. If it's a big geographic area, then that's a big thing. And they're going to coordinate with us with the situation unit because the situation unit is going to be the one that's going to be able to tell them how many patients, how many reds, yellows, where they're going, all that kind of stuff.

And safety can help get a handle. They could send an assistant safety officer to the scene, help support and coordinate other folks like that. But that's what we want them to do is awareness and get info from their people in the field. So again, we're not sending them out there. If you have one safety officer and it's a smaller event, makes sense. We happen to have a lot of folks, so it was a big deal. Public information, huge, right? Every time you see something on the news right after it happens, it's usually wrong. Number of victims change, number, you know, hurt, injured, killed, et cetera. It's usually wrong because the media, every channel wants to be first, not right. So the first thing we want our PIOs to do is monitor the media for rumors. What are they saying? What's right? What's not right? And updates, right? So send alerts out. We want them to start doing the

prescripted notifications and reports to the media that they are good at doing. They hopefully already have relationships established with our media partners because it's a big event, whatever event you're hosting or that we happen to host. And so we are going to coordinate with them and make sure they're getting the message out, right? And whatever that is, there's a whole public information course and thing that we won't get into, but that's their deal. Check for rumors, get the message out. The liaison officer, we're going to make sure that our partner agencies are all in sync and in the know, right? That's totally in line with what the liaison officer does all the time. In a crisis situation, if an incident within the incident happens, anyone that has sent people

to your event, and for big events, particularly sporting, there's usually mutual aid or people from other localities there, they're going to be wondering what's going on with their people. So liaison can help us alleviate fears or help, you know, pass information to our partner agencies. And that's a huge conduit for us. Planning. So the planning section, planning section chief in particular. First thing I'm going to do is a PAR, a personnel accountability report of all of my people. Right.

I want to know that everyone in the planning section is good to go whenever this mass casualty happened. That's the first thing. And you'll see that repeated throughout sections. The most important thing to any of us is our people. So the first thing I'm going to do is do a par check. Hey, unit leaders, how are you? How are your people? Right? It's on down the line until I know that 100% of my folks are good to go. I'm not going to the next step. In public safety and special events and incident management, if good to go, I'm not going to the next step. In public safety and special events and incident management, if you recall, and I'm sure many of you do and know and live this every day, it's you, your partner, then the public. No different, right? So if my people aren't okay, I'm going to be worried about them. So I'm going to shore that up for the right reasons

and to make sure that they're good to go. And if not, then that goes down a whole nother road of checking on our folks. Next thing I'm going to do is as needed and as requested, keyword as requested, I'm going to send people to support the incident. I'm not just going to shove people out there and send them. And we talked about some of the perceived active shooter response or, you know, responses I've been to and folks go in the capacity of, you know, one vein of responding as an EMS provider, and then you're doing IMT stuff. When you're already at a planned event, you already have, you know, resources and stuff there, try and control that dispatch, you know, self dispatch, self deployment to different areas. That doesn't mean if someone that's got, you know, the extra

bag of tourniquets that's around the block shouldn't run over there if they know there's a lot of injuries. But just do that balance. So first thing is, hey, do you need some folks? Do you need someone with a notepad to take accountability? Good, cool, I got one. They're going with you. That's what's up. And then I'm going to maintain situational awareness.

So I am also not going to run in the scene as the plan chief. So despite what my primary job is, my overall job for the event is to keep the planning section running, which is huge now, more importantly with the mass casualty incident, because that includes accountability in the resource unit for everyone, all our people and the situation unit, as we mentioned, it's linked to letting everybody know what's happening, Who has forward observers out there, right? That's going to be able to let us know what's really happening. So speaking of which, the situation unit. We are certainly going to increase the frequency of our situation reports, right?

That's huge. That's very important. We're going to have to spin those up every few minutes. You know, just like we do when we're treating a trauma, we do vital signs more often. Well, these are the vital signs of our incident within the incident. We are going to send those forward observers to, you know, a safe area close to what's happening and get some face-to-face communication. And that also can help cut through rumors that can then, we can feed back to the public information officer, right? And we can de-conflict that with maybe some of the ops folks that are out there

or whatever other calls are coming in. We are going to make a verbal announcement in the command posts, right? And tell everyone we have this going on, whatever it is for us. Let's say hypothetically, we have a mass casualty. And here's what we know right now. And we're also going to let our Emergency Operations Center partners know. So part of their situational awareness, you know, providing that is to whatever Emergency Operations Center you're in and your partner agency's Emergency Operations Center representatives, right? Typically your emergency managers.

So we're sending out info. We're providing awareness, setting that picture at the same time and just as if not more importantly, resource unit. We are going to do a personnel accountability report of the entire event staff. So plan chief, I'm worried about my folks. Resource units entire job that whole day, well up to that day, until everybody gets home, is accountability and personnel accountability, right? So that's the first thing they're going to do. Okay, where's this MCI? Are any of our people involved? They're going to already know or should

know. And if you're a resource unit leader out there, at the drop of a hat, at a click of the fingers, at whatever, if I say MCI at this area, who's there, you should be able to look at your T card rack or your list on the computer, whatever you're using to keep that kind of accountability and give me an answer within a minute. Right. I made up that minute, but that's pretty accurate. If not sooner. Um, if you're not tracking resources like that at your planned events, then you are wrong. And that's what you should do. That's the level you should work. Because like, I'm in the woods, could I get eaten by a wolf? We know darn well, any given day, someone can drive a truck down a sidewalk. Mass casualty could be from something else. You know, the food truck vendors,

propane cylinder happened to explode, right? Something happened. It doesn't have to be some malicious thing, some accident happens. So first thing I expect out of resource unit leaders is you're going to tell me who was in that area and are they okay, right? It's going to be tons of chatter, but you will have worked that out ahead of time with operations to figure that stuff out. A good way to do that is you're not going to check with every single resource on the event, certainly not within the incident, is that you're going to reach out to either team leaders or group supervisors so they can tell you that they've checked on their people because they're going to be doing the same thing. And then you're going to assist with incident related accountability.

So what that means is if you have status check and recorders, you need to already have pre-planned the one that you're confident you can send out into the field to do what you would do if you showed up. So you're going to send that status check and recorder that you know can do some accountability. A lot of times it's fire, right? They do that at every type of incident, both with tags and writing things down or if you're trained in it from any other discipline. But give them the notepad. Say, hey, you're going to pair up with someone from ops that's going out there, and your job is accountability, and you're going to have the notebook, and you're going to find out who's

there, and we're going to shore that up. We're going to do a lot of back and forth between the person in your field and the resource unit back of the command post. Operations. Every other section, every other position that I have talked about or will talk about is here to support you, to support your people. So you are going to tell us what you need. We're going to help provide those answers, but you're going to designate a supervisor to go manage that incident within the event, right? Your operations. So whether it's a group soup or division supervisor or a team leader, whoever it is, you're going to send somebody there and they are going to be in charge of that. We are not going to run that from the command post. If you're the type of person that tries to run something bad that happens within your incident from a command post, but you

have no knowledge and you're trying to get it third or fourth hand, that's a problem, right? Send someone you trust, get people trained up so they can do that and send them to there and let them tell you what they need. You're going to continue to coordinate resources that are already assigned to the event. Because again, if you're the operations section chief and you have, I don't know, 600 people, right? And out of those 400 and something are in operations, you still got a big priority

if an area of 25 folks are involved, right? So again, this is where we have to wear our strategic hats, separate somewhat, detach. Thank you, Jocko Willink. For those of you that are Jocko podcast fans, you'll recognize the detachment. Detach a little bit, right? And say, okay, I still have this big job here, but I'm going to send somebody and I'm going to trust them and decentralize them, command there, and they're going to tell them and decentralize them, command there. And they're going to tell me what they need. If you're that branch director,

group supervisor, a team leader that's there with the incident within the incident, you are to conduct a PAR personnel accountability report, right? That's huge. Are your people okay? If they're not, who's missing?

What do they need? Do you need more tourniquets? Do you need more medical people? Do you need a bus to get folks that are fine out of the way? Whatever it is, you're going to start gathering that kind of information. The supervisors, you're going to establish that new command. You're going to secure the entry and exits, ingress and egress, right? You're going to self-monitor health and wellness, meaning you got to recognize if some mass casualties can get pretty nasty. You've got to look at yourself and your people.

And if it's starting to get a long time when you're there, recognize that you need to tap out or your folks do. And we all have pushed through long days, long nights, tough scenes. Some stuff's just pretty wicked. So you need to get your folks out of there if they need to. You need to talk with, you know, we talked about those agency administrators. So whatever kind of event you're doing, are we stopping this whole thing? Are we just going to worry about this area right here? We close in the course or the track or the festival, whatever it is, you need to help,

you know, make that decision on what's going on. If it's a mass casualty, you know, so typically that means we can't handle it on our own with the resources that are there. We're getting a bunch of stuff in, you know, that's a tough call. It depends on what section or area or, you know, how much is affected from that event that you're doing. You're going to certainly coordinate medical resources and EMS. That's pretty specific to MCI as well. You're going to give updates to ops, right? So if you're that person, that branch director, group soup team leader, that's in charge of that incident within the incident, just keep them informed, just like in the business world and, you know,

in projects, keep your leadership up to date. If they say, Hey, you don't have to tell me this, every little thing cool, but let's just make sure they have the picture. So there's less guessing. That's just good. Anyway. You'll make sure you declare the picture so there's less guessing. That's just good anyway. You'll make sure you declare that mass casualty once you've gotten that good size up. Where are the casualty collection points? Who's doing triage? Who's treating? Who's transporting?

Now, this sounds like, oh, I can just check this and do it by the book and it's never going to work just like the book, but try and set those things up, at least get them done, right? Those are critical factors that have worked and they're proven through work on the street, through the wars we've been in or still in now. So again, it's not going to look just like the book or just like this checklist, but these are things to be thinking about. And make sure that EMS is dispatched, tell them where to go, where do you want them to stage,

where do you want to report straight to or something like that. Part of this in operations is you're going to coordinate with your medical control. So who's your hospital that's going to help you know what beds are full, what hospital to go to, what level trauma centers there are. And you're definitely going to need to have the kind of rescue task force or at least law enforcement paired up with fire and MS or MS folks for whatever caused this. So even if it was just a random explosion from a food truck, you know, crowd control was huge. Right. Bystanders made a huge difference in the Boston bombing. They save lives. Tourniquets pinching arteries with their hands made a huge difference, right? Sometimes though, crowds, you know, cannot be helpful where you can't get there. So we're going to have to

make sure that there's space around and we just do the best that we can. There are probably many more things that could happen again in operations and that will happen. The goal of this was a one pager, right? I can pick this up and use it to at least get my mind going. Certainly things are going to spin off this and come up that don't fit just that list I read. So whatever works for you, make it happen. When you have ground truth that doesn't match what's on a checklist, follow your gut and what's there and what's the right thing to do. That's true about that. So let's go to logistics. Guess what their first thing is going to do? Par check, right? Logistics section is going to check their folks because logistics also is going to have people in a warehouse, out in the field, all over the place, right?

They may be running radios and supplies and water and food and whatever. They're going to check on who's where. They're going to check with their units. Hey, units, tell me what's going on. Hey, branches, units, tell me what's going on. They're going to work with the resource unit and the emergency operation centers on any logistical requests. Maybe at this event you have a stockpile of tourniquets and we need them somewhere.

Maybe the EOC does and they can get them to you. So they're going to be doing a lot of that supply coordination both with resource looking at where are the people and what do they need and the emergency operations center with what can you send me or what can I send you kind of back and forth more of the EOC to you because the EOC shouldn't be on scene. The unit logistics we focused on here because it's such a critical link is the communications unit or the incident communications center. So if you set up kind of a 911 center at your event, and if you don't, I would suggest trying to do that to get a couple dispatchers, a couple radio operators. Hello, Ben Gomes. give you a shout out there he loves that um so

your 911 dispatch is right have a couple of those folks trained to work uh events or incidents and think about a system you could use there's plenty if you can already use a mobile data terminal and just use your regular dispatch system cool there's some other systems that can be set up using spreadsheets or other dispatch things where it's really you're isolated to just that event, but you can connect to the main system. I'm clearly not a communications unit person or dispatcher professional. That's why I'm talking in generalities, but that's what they can do. So what the comm unit is going to do for us is they're going to decide on the activation of the expanded incident channel. So let's jump way back to the tactics meeting the actual one, you should have included a contingency channel or expanded incident channel or

oh crap, or what if channel in your communications plan that's also on every single incident command system 204 work assignment, right? So at this point, when we're in the contingency plan, we don't have to guess what those are, because they're everywhere in our incident action plan. So again, if you're not doing that, start now. So you're going to decide, hey, do we need to stand this up? They're going to be talking operations, most likely, yes. And they're either going to move everybody to the incident channel or move everybody on the incident to their own channel, however that works out. They're going to be working really close with the situation unit to provide updates to emergency operations centers, other public safety access points or PSAPs, 911 centers.

They're going to be communicating a lot. They should not, if we have an incident communication center that's within us, be getting hit with calls from the media. If you're running your event with your regular 911 center, you probably will for sure. So that's where, and I mentioned this great thing that we did in the area I was in, um, our 911 folks were able to say a scripted message to the media a couple of times in the event of like an active shooter, active threat, something bad like this or mass casualty, say it twice and hang up. Right. So we're going to tell you who to call, go somewhere else, tell you who to call, go somewhere else, click, right? So we're going to tell you who to call, go somewhere else, tell you who to call, go somewhere else, click, right?

Because they're actually trying to save lives. They don't have time to sit there with the media and try and give them the scoop or get the scoop or whatever. So within the event though, if you've set up that place in your event near the command post or however you do that, hopefully they're not getting hit with media a whole lot.

Finance. So this is hit or miss, I would imagine. Hopefully they're not getting hit with media a whole lot. Finance. So this is hit or miss, I would imagine. It was for us, kind of for you all, for a really big event. We actually have had them on scene. For a small, maybe local festival, you may not and most likely will not. However, if you have someone that you're going to be in touch with that you've designated as part of your incident command org. They also need a conductor par. Or what if they have folks that are collecting, you know, time or pay slips or whatever they're doing,

maybe somewhere out there. So make sure their folks are good. They could come in if they're not already or be there and track resource requests, compensation claims, right? So if we have a mass casualty, if some of our folks are injured, we are going to need to make sure they're okay first or if not, be providing the care and do what we need to do for them. And everybody knows paperwork comes with that, processing, insurance, all that kind of stuff. So they can really help us get a jumpstart on the compensation claims and those kind of things. Information intelligence. So if you have a heavy law enforcement, whether it's

local, state, federal, integrated in your event, especially if it have a heavy law enforcement, whether it's local, state, federal, integrated in your event, especially if it's a really big event with potential for bad things to happen, I suggest that they're going to do a par check. Most likely big events, I will assume, have undercover folks, plainclothes people throughout. And so in that case, let's make sure their folks are okay. So it's a recurring theme, the PAR check. Always be thinking about the PAR check. The resource unit should be doing it at regular pace when the sky is sunny and everything's fine. That's going to get ramped up and everyone's going to do it when bad things happen. It's similar to like every other slide when I would

do preparedness things when I was a public health emergency preparedness person, it was wash your hands because it's critical. Part checks are key, you know, for all the right reasons. And they're going to establish to that information and tell what they're going to establish is a good information sharing on top of what we already have with operations in the SIT unit. So there's going to be a mix of operations folks, sit unit folks, information intelligence folks, right? Kind of like a standup contingency fusion center, if you will, because we're going to need to shore up rumors. Are there two shooters? Three? Is there zero? Was it a truck? Was it a propane? And again, early on, other than an obvious person in a truck or an obvious person with a weapon, there's going to be a lot of questions there, but they can help shore up and give some ground truth. Last but certainly not least, our partners in the Emergency Operations Centers are emergency management professionals.

They are going to be getting updates from the Situation Unit. They are going to be ready to support and coordinate. They also, like other sections, but for them even bigger, have a whole other locality, city, county, township, whatever, to look after. Even though there's horrible things going on and they probably know people that are there. So they're going to get those updates. They're going to be two-way communication with the situation unit. They're going to support and coordinate resource requests. Most localities, cities, towns, townships, whatever, have more stuff than what's in this event,

and they can help do that, whether it's mutual aid, pallets of things, information, ham radio operators, whatever. They are a great conduit, and they know the lay of the land in that area like nobody else does. So we're definitely going to rely on the emergency operations centers to support and coordinate resources. And they can also support and coordinate with the public health folks, other emergency support functions, not just health, of course, some bias is where I came from, hospital coordinating centers, any other entity that we need to partner with. This one is for a mass casualty incident. So regional hospital coordination center. That was a, you know, is something that we have in the, in Virginia. And I think is replicated in a bunch of other places. And then emergency support

function eight, which is public health and medical. And that varies by locality at the federal level. It's, it's with medical services, so they're certainly going to be involved with that. But we want that EOC to be a key partner there. So those are actions by position or section that I would suggest folks consider for the contingency plan of a mass casualty incident. You can imagine variation if it's a bomb, if it's a missing person, if it's severe weather, if it's severe weather if it's something actually blows up if we just need to shut the event down for some reason so the difference would be the actionable items after you do your

par check right is the big change and so that was an example just for a mass casualty incident the rest of the form itself is a very standard at the bottom who prepared it what's their position itself is a very standard at the bottom who prepared it, what's their position and title. Um, and then again, at the bottom left of the plan is this contingency plan MCI. So whether you're looking at the top or the bottom, you can tell what it is. So I hope this was a bit thought provoking on how serious we should consider our contingency planning and have them.

Again, I'll share this checklist with everyone out there on the betweentheslides.com website. Feel free to reach out to me. Between the slides, there's my Twitter link, P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G. Also Instagram. If you want to email me direct, kp.bts.podcast at gmail.com. Thank you all so much for helping me get to episode 40. I appreciate you all coming on the journey with me. Godspeed.