Technical Rescue – Part IV

The typical demands associated with the response to a site-specific collapse rescue incident or a region-wide disaster with collapse considerations can quickly overwhelm even the largest of emergency service agencies. Even with an effective in-place incident management system, the planning and logistical demands placed upon incident managers coupled with the varied requirements for meeting tactical deployment requests can impede or impair the most efficient of organizations or departments.

Due to the potential complexities associated with collapse rescue situations and the variety of conditions and parameters that may be present at site specific or large scale disaster collapse incidents, external resource allocation and deployment becomes a necessity in order to enhance and support operational incident requirements.

The need for comprehensive community risk assessment and planning for complex collapse or disaster responses forms the foundation for subsequent incident operations. One component of community risk assessment planning focuses upon the development of a database of external resources and technical support that could be deployed and utilized in order to facilitate strategic and tactical objectives.

Community Resource Planning

Community Resource Planning - CRP provides the means by which an agency or jurisdiction can enhance identified internal deficiencies and provide a system for external resource allocation that will provide on-scene incident commanders and assigned management and supervisory personnel with the necessary resources to augment the agency's ability to respond and operate at collapse incidents. This would be considered a crucial element when considering the burden that may be placed upon the ICM functional area of logistics and finance at demanding incidents.

As with any incident response, the successful intervention, operation and termination of the incident is directly related to the degree of resources available or deployed, coupled with the effectiveness and efficiency of their respective tactical assignments, objectives and time management parameters.

Effective deployment of a community resource plan provides for a pre-determined and coordinated means of supporting the planning and logistical demands associated with collapse rescue incidents, and allows for the substantial reduction in the time allotments required to identify, locate and subsequently contact and call-out resources for anticipated or required deployment needs.

Community resource planning is not an entirely new concept within the fire and emergency service delivery system. The identification and utilization of mutual-aid agencies and companies to augment daily fire, rescue, and ems alarm assignments is a commonplace element in many jurisdictions. The need to enhance local jurisdictional manpower and equipment needs through mutual-aid establishes the ability of the receiving agency to deploy adequate resources at a given incident and to increase the ability to mitigate the conditions present at respective incidents.

The size, organizational structure, internal capabilities and resources, operating environment and technical rescue capabilities of the department, coupled with the identified community risk hazards will determine to what extent the community resource plan will be developed. The magnitude, severity and frequency of collapse related incidents and responses will also dictate the methodology of the planning process.

The community resource plan is unique to each department or agency in the identification and formulation of select resource criteria and on the subsequent development of the community Resource Directory-CRD. The focus of both the Community Resource Plan-CRP and Community Resource Directory-CRD, is to augment and enhance the limitations of the jurisdictions capabilities during collapse rescue operations and provide the framework and operating structure to build effective, safe and timely rescue operations.