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Suggested Citation:"Preface." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. Managing Catastrophic Transportation Emergencies: A Guide for Transportation Executives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22304.
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Preface To the Executive During your tenure as the chief executive of a state department of transportation (DOT), transit agency, or other transportation organization, you will likely be called upon to manage your agency’s response to and recovery from a major emergency, event, or disaster. The emergency may consist of a short- duration, simple, static, and singular incident, or it may be prolonged, complex, and dynamic, having an impact on multiple fronts and requiring deployment of extensive assets and resources. The need for emergency incident response or recovery may be due to inclement weather, the aftermath of a serious highway accident or train derailment, or a significant security threat or breach. Additionally, the same planning required for incident response is needed to manage a planned special event effectively, such as an annual holiday celebration and parade, a PGA golf tournament, or a political convention. Establishing the capability to manage and direct all-hazards transportation emergency response and recovery effectively, irrespective of the incident type, demands pre-planning, resourcing and staging of assets, and internal coordination and coordination with other affected external agencies, companies, groups, and personnel. When an emergency occurs, routine, day-to-day operations give way to a focused, practiced, and resilient crisis management approach that requires professional skills throughout the breadth and depth of the organization. As a new chief executive officer (CEO), you may initially be unfamiliar with your agency’s critical role and capabilities in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from an emergency situation. This guide was developed to assist in the transition period of your new position, and is based on the thoughts and advice of transportation leaders who have been in similar positions. Former and current transportation executives were interviewed to gain practical understanding of CEO roles and actions during emergency events. Insights were also obtained from a review of relevant literature and information about actual emergency events that affected transportation. Quotations from the interviews are incorporated into the guide, with a summary of the interviews found in Appendix A. The guide is organized to first provide basic information about the types of emergency incidents and events that affect transportation agencies. Next, managing these events is discussed, along with an overview of the types of questions and issues that should be considered to assist the agency in preparing for all-hazards emergency incidents. The guide also provides additional information about where to locate more detailed reference materials pertaining to transportation agency emergency management. Managing Catastrophic Transportation Emergencies: A Guide for Transportation Executives is a reference guide specifically designed for use by newly appointed executive-level leaders of transportation organizations. It has been written to provide executive decision makers with important leadership-level information about emergency management major event response and recovery. 2

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Web-Only Document 206: Managing Catastrophic Transportation Emergencies: A Guide for Transportation Executives provides guidance to new chief executive officers (CEOs) about the roles and actions that CEOs take during emergency events.

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