A Guide to Emergency Response Planning at State Transportation Agencies (2010)

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TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2010 www.TRB.org N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP REPORT 525 Subscriber Categories Highways • Planning and Forecasting • Policy • Public Transportation • Security and Emergencies Surface Transportation Security Volume 16 A Guide to Emergency Response Planning at State Transportation Agencies Charles E. Wallace TELVENT Gainesville, FL Annabelle Boyd Jason Sergent Anne Singleton BOYD, CATON & GRANT TRANSPORTATION GROUP, INC. Earlysville, VA Stephen Lockwood PB CONSULT Washington, DC Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. This program is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of the Association and it receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies was requested by the Association to administer the research program because of the Board’s recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. The Board is uniquely suited for this purpose as it maintains an extensive committee structure from which authorities on any highway transportation subject may be drawn; it possesses avenues of communications and cooperation with federal, state and local governmental agencies, universities, and industry; its relationship to the National Research Council is an insurance of objectivity; it maintains a full-time research correlation staff of specialists in highway transportation matters to bring the findings of research directly to those who are in a position to use them. The program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators of the highway and transportation departments and by committees of AASHTO. Each year, specific areas of research needs to be included in the program are proposed to the National Research Council and the Board by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Research projects to fulfill these needs are defined by the Board, and qualified research agencies are selected from those that have submitted proposals. Administration and surveillance of research contracts are the responsibilities of the National Research Council and the Transportation Research Board. The needs for highway research are many, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program can make significant contributions to the solution of highway transportation problems of mutual concern to many responsible groups. The program, however, is intended to complement rather than to substitute for or duplicate other highway research programs. Published reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at: http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America NCHRP REPORT 525: VOLUME 16 Project 20-59(23) ISSN 0077-5614 ISBN 978-0-309-15503-8 Library of Congress Control Number 2006902911 © 2010 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The members of the technical panel selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance. The report was reviewed by the technical panel and accepted for publication according to procedures established and overseen by the Transportation Research Board and approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this report are those of the researchers who performed the research and are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, or the program sponsors. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, and the sponsors of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of the report.

AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This report was prepared by Charles Wallace (Area Manager), Telvent; Annabelle Boyd (President and Senior Analyst), Jason Sergent (Senior Analyst), and Anne Singleton (Technical Analyst), all Boyd, Caton & Grant Transportation Group, Inc. (BCG); and Stephen Lockwood (Principal Consultant), PB Consult. Douglas Ham, the original Principal Investigator for Telvent, contributed some research and inputs to the document before he transferred to the Department of Homeland Security. Other staff from Telvent and BCG assisted in the research, analysis, and development of the report. CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP REPORT 525, VOLUME 16 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs S. A. Parker, Senior Program Officer Tom Van Boven, Senior Program Assistant Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Hilary Freer, Senior Editor NCHRP PROJECT 20-59(23) PANEL Field of Special Projects—Area of Safety John Corbin, Wisconsin DOT, Madison, WI (Chair) Gordon Aoyagi, Justice and Security Strategies, Inc., Rockville, MD Robert E. “Chris” Christopher, Washington State DOT, Olympia, WA Henry DeVries, I-95 Corridor Coalition, Rhinebeck, NY Patricia Faust, Federal Highway Administration, Dover, DE Jonathan L. Gifford, George Mason University, Arlington, VA Steven M. Mondul, Office of the Governor - Virginia, Richmond, VA Calvin Roberts, Michigan DOT, Lansing, MI Jeffrey L. Western, Western Management and Consulting, LLC, Madison, WI Mark Wikelius, Minnesota DOT, Lindstrom, MN Ernesto L. Acosta, TSA Liaison David Helman, FHWA Liaison Ken Lord, FTA Liaison Regina McElroy, FHWA Liaison William Brownlow, AASHTO Liaison Mark S. Bush, AASHTO Liaison William Grizard, APTA Liaison Vincent P. Pearce, US DOT Liaison Joedy W. Cambridge, TRB Liaison C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S

F O R E W O R D The 2010 A Guide to Emergency Response Planning at State Transportation Agencies replaces a 2002 document, A Guide to Updating Highway Emergency Response Plans for Terrorist Inci- dents. Many states have used the 2002 Guide to institute some kind of emergency response plan; however, the risk environment of threats and hazards has changed since 2002. In addi- tion, new technologies and new, more comprehensive laws, policies, and guidelines require that transportation agencies broaden their operational agenda beyond traffic and weather events to include emergency response planning for all hazards. The 2010 Guide is designed for use by executive management and emergency response planners at state transportation agencies as they and their local/regional counterparts assess their respective emergency response plans and identify areas needing improvement. The 2010 Guide reflects accepted practices in emergency response planning and incorporates advances made over the last decade in Traffic Incident Management (TIM), Emergency Transportation Operations (ETO), and supporting programs. In addition to the introduction, background, and institutional context for emergency response planning, the 2010 Guide has two major sections: • Sections 3–5: Design an Emergency Preparedness Program—this contains a program-level review of the all-hazards approach to emergency management, which will help transporta- tion agencies assess their plans and identify areas needing improvement. • Section 6: Resource Guide—this contains guidance on organizational, staffing, and position decisions; decision-making sequences; a full emergency response matrix; and a purpose and supporting resources for action reference matrix. The 2010 Guide provides links in its appendices to model emergency operations plans, policy and procedural memoranda, and training and exercise plans. These are supple- mented on line with • Appendix K, an annotated bibliography; • Appendix L, which consists of the white paper, “Identification and Delineation of Incident Management and Large-Scale Emergency Response Functions,” and a spreadsheet tool ref- erenced within the White Paper; • Appendix M, a downloadable Microsoft® PowerPoint slide show; and • Tracking Emergency Response Effects on Transportation (TERET), a spreadsheet tool (developed under a previous NCHRP project) designed to assist transportation managers to recognize mass-care transportation needs and identify and mitigate potential transportation- related criticalities in essential services during extreme events. By S. A. Parker Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

This volume of NCHRP Report 525 was prepared under NCHRP Project 20-59(23) by Tel- vent; Boyd, Caton & Grant; and PB Consult. Surface transportation agencies are recognizing that because of their broad policy respon- sibility, public accountability, large and distributed workforces, heavy equipment, and robust communications infrastructure, they are uniquely positioned among civilian gov- ernment agencies to swiftly take direct action to protect lives and property. The institutional heft of such agencies also provides a stable base for campaigns to mitigate or systematically reduce risk exposure over time through all-hazards capital investments. This is the sixteenth volume of NCHRP Report 525: Surface Transportation Security, a series in which relevant information is assembled into single, concise volumes—each per- taining to a specific hazard or security problem and closely related issues. These volumes focus on the concerns that transportation agencies are addressing when developing pro- grams in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed. Future volumes of the reports will be issued as they are completed. To develop this volume in a comprehensive manner and to ensure inclusion of signifi- cant knowledge, available information was assembled from numerous sources, including state departments of transportation. A topic panel of experts in the subject area was estab- lished to guide the researchers in organizing and evaluating the collected data and to review the final document. This volume was prepared to meet an urgent need for information in this area. It records practices that were acceptable within the limitations of the knowledge available at the time of its preparation. Work in this area is proceeding swiftly, and readers are encouraged to be on the lookout for the most up-to-date information. Volumes issued under NCHRP Report 525: Surface Transportation Security may be found on the TRB website at http://www.TRB.org/SecurityPubs.

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 5 Section 1 Introduction 5 Background 6 Object and Scope of the 2010 Guide 6 Guide Scope 7 Guide Audience 8 Guide Organization and Structure 8 Guide Development Process 10 Section 2 Institutional Context for Emergency Response 10 Emergency Response Authorities 10 Public Laws Governing Homeland Security and Emergency Management 10 Homeland Security Presidential Directives 11 National Emergency Management Policies and Guidelines 13 National Transportation Policy 13 Institutional Architecture of Emergency Response 13 Institutional Authority Context 15 Organizational Context 15 Guiding Principles 19 Key Definitions 19 Emergency Incident Characteristics and Terminology 22 Section 3 Assess Agency Status in Emergency Response Training 23 Section 4 Develop an Emergency Preparedness Program 23 Emergency Planning Phase 24 Step 1: Form a Collaborative Planning Team 28 Step 2: Conduct Research to Identify Hazards and Threats and Analyze Gathered Data 34 Step 3: Determine Goals and Objectives of Emergency Planning and Response Activities 35 Step 4: Develop and Analyze Courses of Action and Identify Resources 38 Step 5: Write the Plan 41 Step 6: Approve and Implement the Plan 42 Step 7: Exercise the Plan and Evaluate Its Effectiveness 44 Step 8: Review, Revise, and Maintain the Plan 44 Prepare for the Emergency 46 Step 1: Develop Approaches to Implement State Transportation Agency Roles and Responsibilities During Emergencies 51 Step 2: Establish Communication Protocols and Mechanisms for Public Outreach

57 Step 3: Emergency Evacuation/Shelter-in-Place/Quarantine Plans and Traffic Control and Management Protocols and Procedures 62 Step 4: Develop Mobilization Plans for State Transportation Agency Personnel and Resources 66 Step 5: Ensure Cost Tracking and Accountability 67 Respond to the Emergency 69 Step 1: Initiate Emergency Response 71 Step 2: Address Emergency Needs and Requests for Support 74 Step 3: Manage Evacuations, Shelter-in-Place, or Quarantine 77 Step 4: Implement Emergency Response Actions 80 Step 5: Continue Response Requirements 82 Step 6: Conclude Response Actions 83 Recover from the Emergency 83 Step 1: Restore Traffic to Affected Areas 86 Step 2: Identify and Implement Lessons Learned 89 Section 5 Nature and Degree of Hazards/Threats 89 Range of Hazards 89 Impact on and of the Transportation System 91 Example: Escalation of Incidents and Response 95 List of Acronyms 98 References 100 Other Resources 101 Section 6 Resource Guide 101 Introduction 101 Organizational, Staffing, and Position Guidance 101 Planning-Level Organizational Principles 102 PREPARE for Emergencies 103 RESPOND to Emergencies 103 RECOVER from Emergencies 103 Decision-Making Sequences 104 Detailed Self-Assessment Tools 104 Full Emergency Response Matrix 126 Purpose and Supporting Resources for Action Reference Matrix 137 Appendix A Guide to Using Portions of the 2002 Guide 139 Appendix B Emergency Response Legal Authorities 140 Appendix C Emergency Response Stakeholder Responsibilities 146 Appendix D Key Emergency Response Definitions 150 Appendix E Key Traffic Incident Definitions 153 Appendix F Intelligence Fusion Centers 155 Appendix G Transportation Emergency Response Effects Tracking (TERET) 156 Appendix H Model Emergency Operations Plans

157 Appendix I Policy and Procedural Memoranda and Memoranda of Understanding 158 Appendix J Training/Exercise Plans