Help! It’s an emergency!
It’s easy to panic when things are going wrong. But it’s much more effective if you’ve planned for emergencies ahead of time and practiced your response to them. This article details the elements of an emergency response plan, and gives case studies that illustrate how effective planning and mutual aid agreements benefited two systems.
Emergency Response Plans
In the last issue of The Safe Drinking Water Trust e-Bulletin, we discussed the benefits of joining a WARN in your state, and detailed steps that you can perform to assess the vulnerability of each component of your water or wastewater system. So you’ve prioritized the most vulnerable portions of your system…now what?
Robert A. Heinlein wrote, “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”(1) But that advice probably won’t help your water or wastewater system in times of trouble, and you sure don’t want your customers to see that! Just as you might remember if you were in Scouts as a kid, the key to any emergency is “be prepared.”
There are eight basic elements of emergency response plans:
Know your system information
- Establish roles and responsibilities
- Establish and use communications procedures
- Make sure your personnel are as safe as possible
- Identify alternative water sources
- Plan for replacement equipment and chemical supplies
- Protect your system’s property
- Perform water sampling and monitoring
Under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, emergency response plans have been required for systems that serve more than 3,300 people since around 2004. But planning for an emergency is just good common sense for any water or wastewater system, no matter what the size.
Know Your System
“Know your system” seems like really elementary advice. After all, you run your system—who knows it better? But imagine what would happen if an earthquake took down not only your office space, but also destroyed your computer system. Would you be able to replicate the information from memory? If you were hurt or killed in the emergency, how would others be able to provide clean drinking water or treat wastewater properly?
It’s a good idea to have a complete equipment list and map of your distribution or collection system stored in two or three secure areas. If you use asset management software, you’ve probably already done this. If not, you should create a spreadsheet with a list of the manufacturer, serial number, date of purchase, vendor name and contact information for meters, pumps, valves, tanks…every piece of equipment you’ve got. Include backup systems and interconnections with other systems, if applicable. Date the list and the system map so that you’ll know when they were created. Then make at least two copies—one for your office, and one for your local officials or system owner to keep in a separate, secure location. Update and redistribute it at least annually.
Knowing your system also includes understanding your water quality and quantity, and the reasons they may change. Seasonal events (like high turbidity caused by precipitation runoff) are fairly predictable, but what changes will occur during an emergency? How would you know if your drinking water quality was compromised? The answer to these questions might vary depending upon the emergency, but thinking about it in advance will help you prepare a response.
Who’s in Charge Here?
Have you seen an emergency situation in which no one knew what to do, there was no clear leadership or unified response, and chaos resulted? One example of this was right after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. The news stories that came out of New Orleans, especially from the folks who took shelter at the Louisiana Superdome, tore at my heart. Much of the problem with the response to that natural disaster was traced back to inadequate planning and backup communications at various levels.(2)
Your system should have a designated Emergency Response Lead (ER Lead) and an alternate ER Lead. These people are required to be reachable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The ER Lead is responsible for evaluating the emergency and changing conditions, managing staff and resources, and deciding on response actions. The ER Lead is also the main point of contact for the system and first responders or critical customers (think hospitals, shelters, retirement homes, power providers, and other entities that may depend on your services especially during emergencies).
Your state may use the Incident Command System in times of emergency, and you should at a minimum be familiar with it. Introduction to the Incident Command System (ICS) for Public Works Personnel (IS-100PW) may be found at http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIweb/is/is100PW.asp [1]. Even if your water/wastewater system is not a public utility, this course is probably the most appropriate for you. ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Incidents (IS-200.a) may be found at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is200.asp [2]; this course is intended for folks who will be assuming a supervisory role during an emergency. And NIMS Awareness Training (IS-700), found at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is700.asp [3], is designed for people with a direct role in emergency preparedness, incident management, or response. IS-100PW is a prerequisite for the other two courses.
Communications
There are three separate components to communications: one with staff, the second with police, firefighters, and other first responders, and the third with the media and the general public. If possible, a person other than the ER Lead and alternate ER Lead should handle communication during an emergency. The communications lead should contact staff and talk to the media and the public.
Staff contact information should include numbers for land lines and cell phones, pagers, and street addresses for everyone that will respond during trouble. This list should be updated twice a year, at a minimum.
A strategy you might find helpful is to have pre-printed press releases for various emergencies that may happen to your system, such as line breaks, flooding, or weather-related natural disasters. You could format your press releases with “fill in the blanks” for the area affected by the event and the estimated time for recovery to a fully-operational system. It saves time (and face) to be able to give the media information quickly, to show that you have prepared for the problem ahead of time, and are working diligently to solve it.
Safety First
The most important part of keeping your people safe in an emergency should occur before any emergency happens: training! We previously mentioned ICS training, but other training that may help employees evaluate a hazardous situation and approach it with appropriate knowledge and caution includes confined space entry, lockout/tagout, electrical hazards training, trenching and excavating safety, and more. The Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration (OSHA) has information freely available at http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/index.html [4].
Personal protective equipment should be ready for use, kept in an area that will be accessible during the hazard. Designate safe assembly areas and shelters for use during emergencies, so that you can keep track of the folks working for you. Run an evacuation and assembly drill annually—your employees will take comfort from knowing where to go and what to do if the unexpected occurs.
What If Repairs Take a While?
Imagine that the disaster takes out your entire treatment system…how will your customers get safe drinking water or have their wastewater treated until you’re up and running again? Planning for alternate water delivery and wastewater treatment ahead of time will not only save you a bunch of headaches, but it will help your customers recover from the disaster emotionally, too, by giving them confidence in your system. Think about providing bottled or bulk water at a centralized location, connecting to another system on a temporary basis, or buying water from private well owners who were unaffected by the emergency.
Parts and Chemicals
JFK said, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” So too, the time to think about replacement parts and chemicals is before an emergency happens. Negotiations to provide parts or chemicals with other systems that use the same pumps, motors, or other equipment as your system uses may be possible. Imagine the delivery system that provides you with these items failing—a flood washes out a highway, or a rail line breaks. Alternate delivery methods should be planned as well.
Property Protection
Protection of your system property during and after an emergency may not be intuitively obvious, but what if the emergency is caused by an intentional act of vandalism? Crime scene evidence preservation, chain of custody, and restricted access to the site will be required by local or federal law enforcement so they can perform an effective investigation. You will probably want to consult with your local law enforcement people to understand what they may require in this type of situation.
Monitoring Your Water Quality
In 2008, the US EPA developed the Water Laboratory Alliance (WLA), a network of laboratories within each of the 10 EPA Regions to support monitoring, surveillance and remediation when water is contaminated, either intentionally or unintentionally.(3) If your system is currently doing in-house lab analysis for water quality or wastewater treatment, you should know that this is available to you for backup in emergency situations. For more information on the WLA, go to http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/wla.cfm [5]. Don’t forget to include a provision for obtaining replacement sample bottles and other containers in your emergency response plan. You may also want to designate alternate sampling sites if the primary ones have been adversely affected by the event.
And There’s More!
Once you’ve completed this work, you may want to certify your emergency response plan with the EPA. See http://www.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/pubs/util-inst.pdf [6] for instructions on how to do so. This certification is mandatory for systems that serve more than 3,300 customers, but is also a good idea for very small systems. Not only is it a concrete way to demonstrate your responsiveness to your customers, but the review of your plan may turn up things you hadn’t considered including.
Now that you have made an emergency response plan for the different situations that may face your system, you need to evaluate it. Choose one weather-related emergency, and run a drill to see how well your plan works. It’s preferable that the drill be actually performed, with your workers using the ICS, activating your emergency communications chain, and going out into the field to perform emergency shutdowns and re-starts of equipment. However, if this is just not practicable with your situation, a tabletop drill should be done. If problems arise that you haven’t foreseen, change the plan, run the drill again, and evaluate it once more.
Now let’s look at a couple of real-life experiences with mutual aid assistance and emergency planning.
Case Study: Greensburg, Kansas(4)
Kansas is right in the middle of Tornado Alley, and the damage and destruction caused annually by these storms costs millions of dollars. In May 2007, Greensburg, Kansas, was hit by an F4 tornado that totally destroyed the town. Valves, meters and hydrants were buried under tons of debris, and electrical power was down. Mutual assistance crews worked to mark the location of water infrastructure and to restore power to the one working well and a communications tower. But emergency management officials insisted that the crews stop this work to first restore power to streetlights at the courthouse where their command post was located. It was at that point, Bill Callaway of the Kansas Mutual Energy Agency (KMEA) said, “I knew right then that we needed the Kansas Rural Water Association (KRWA) and other utility people working together on disaster planning as well as utility restoration.”
The mutual aid water teams located, flushed and disinfected lines to four critical customers around Greensburg, and eventually restored service to the town. Besides KMEA and KRWA, employees from the Kansas Department of Health and Education rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help with the project.
Lessons learned from this disaster include:
- Emergency planning takes input from all providers of essential services. What seems like common sense to you might not to someone else.
- Priorities for service restoration should be clearly identified and communicated in writing to all stakeholders.
- Money and time can be saved if critical infrastructure is marked prior to an emergency, to avoid damage to and speed location of services.
Case Study: West Point, Georgia(5)
West Point, Georgia, is located on the Georgia-Alabama border, and serves about 4,600 people. The water treatment plant only runs in the daytime, and shuts down at night. In November 2006, the operator starting up the plant one morning noticed unusual foaming, and a granular substance in the troughs between the sedimentation basins and the filters. He shut down the plant immediately and notified the local police department and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. Subsequent water testing showed phosphate at ten times the normal level.
But what to do about water provision? West Point had a one-to-one mutual aid agreement with Lanett, Alabama, which provided for emergency water service through an 8-inch connection. However, the valve to this connection was frozen shut, and neither city had the expertise or the equipment to open it. Assisted by the Georgia Association of Water Professionals and neighboring cities of Columbus and LaGrange, the valve was unstuck, and water was provided to West Point customers without interruption.
Lessons learned from this incident include:
- An observant operator is worth his/her weight in gold.
- Valve exercising on a regular schedule can save time and money in an emergency.
- Planning for alternative water service is vital—you never know when you’ll need it.
- Employee training and equipment availability should be negotiated with your neighbors, if your system is unable to provide them.
If you’d like more information, the US EPA wrote Emergency Response Plan Guidance for Small and Medium Community Water Systems to Comply with the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 in April 2004; it is available at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/pubs/small_medium_ERP_guidance040704.pdf [7]. The Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) wrote the Emergency Response Plan Guidance for Wastewater Systems in 2004, available at http://www.werf.org/pdf/03CTS4S.pdf [8]. And the EPA has more information on emergency and incident planning available at http://cfpub.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/home.cfm?program_id=8 [9].
About the Author:
Pat Kline started her professional career in Washington State, doing nuclear waste remediation at the Hanford Site. She relocated to Denver, Colorado in 1995, and shifted her focus to the water industry. She served as an environmental project engineer for Owen Engineering and Management Consultants, doing treatment plant and infrastructure design, and then as Operations Engineer for the American Water Works Association (AWWA). During her time at AWWA, she was technical liaison to the Small Systems Division and several standards committees, and wrote a monthly article in the AWWA publication Opflow. She is currently a freelance writer, specializing in water, wastewater, and environmental issues. Pat has a B.S. in physics and a M.S. in civil engineering, with a focus on environmental engineering, from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.
REFERENCES:
(1) Heinlein, Robert A. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Berkley Books, New York City, New York, 1985, p. 24.
(2) Congressional Reports: S. Rpt. 109-322 – Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, Chapter 6 (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/sr109-322/ch6.pdf [10]) and Recommendations (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/sr109- 322/recommendations.pdf- 322/recommendations.pdf [11].
(3) US EPA, Water Laboratory Alliance fact sheet, October 2008, http://www.epa.gov/safewater/watersecurity/pubs/fs_watersecurity_waterlaballiance.pdf [12].
(4) Knupp, Dan. “Mutual Aid Brings Relief,” Water & Wastes Digest, volume 48, number 1, January 2008.
(5) Rammo, Amy. “Georgia Water Incident Emphasizes the Need for Mutual Aid and State WARN,” ASDWA Security Update, volume 6, issue 2, Spring 2007.