Managing Catastrophic Transportation Emergencies: A Guide for Transportation Executives (2014)

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Assessing the Organization and Its Capabilities Success in dealing with a critical situation results from a combination of the extent to which your agency is prepared to deal with the situation and your relationship with those responsible for executing the plans. As a CEO, you need to develop solid relationships with key operations staff and give them confidence that they have your trust. To do this, you must know who they are and what they do. This section provides questions to ask of the DOT staff to find out who is who and what the current organizational capabilities are. Each state transportation agency may have its own view, but in general, a CEO is responsible for and should hold his or her staff accountable for: 1. An agency-wide emergency operations plan that gets reviewed and updated on a regular basis. 2. A training and exercise program of annual or greater frequency that involves the state director in at least one exercise. 3. A continuity of operations plan (COOP) plan and COOP site whose capabilities are assessed on a regular basis. The agency needs to ensure that it has these items in place and that staff know how to implement the plans and what to do before the event occurs. Experience with actual emergencies may be lost as key staff retire or move to other positions. Since a DOT’s plans and procedures complement the state’s overall emergency structure and plans, a CEO needs to be familiar with the state and regional emergency management community and ensure that the agency’s plans are coordinated with theirs. During an event, the success of any response depends largely on the strength of relationships among local law enforcement, emergency response personnel, and DOT local staff. As a CEO, you need to understand the extent of current relationships and how your agency can cooperate more effectively with emergency responders and law enforcement. Along with learning the capabilities of the organization, a CEO needs to know its limits. Knowing what work can be done by DOT employees and what work must be contracted out to others is critical to the effectiveness of the response. Based on advice from others who have been in the position, to be successful, a CEO must: • Have confidence in key maintenance/operations personnel and give them the freedom to respond based on their own initiative. • Reinforce to staff that the CEO trusts them and will work with them to make the operation better. • Use what is in place and what the agency has even if the CEO did not create it. “An important leadership approach is to be more focused on having the ‘right people with the right mindset’ rather than to have volumes of procedures that may or may not be read.” “Manuals and workshops, while helpful, are less important than knowing key staff, how to reach them when needed, and what they can do with the resources they have when the emergency happens.” 7

•Your organization's structure and key people are critical to being prepared. •Staff expectations before, during, and after emergencies must be understood. •Good communication and teamwork are keys to good response. •Some decisions need to be made before an emergency, some will be made during the event based on the situation, and some will be made after an emergency during recovery and after-action analysis. •The capabilities and limits of the agency both enable and bound the agency’s response. •Organizational roles and missions support agency and state plans. What You NEED TO KNOW •Knowing your staff and listening to their needs. •Having a plan for response and the means by which to pass it on to the next generation leadership. •Understanding the importance of training and exercises to maintain the plan and practicing its use. •Supporting and motivating the team. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES •Develop solid relationships with key operations staff. Reinforce that you trust them and will work with them to make the operation better. •Learn what your agency needs to do before, during, and after an emergency. •Make sure you have a plan for response and staff who are charged with maintaining the plan and have been trained on its use. •Be prepared. Understand your agency and state plans and the organizational roles and missions in support of those plans. •Create a culture that rewards individual initiative. •Ride with field response staff to better understand their jobs. •Learn before you speak; trust before you criticize. What You NEED TO DO 8

Questions to Quickly Assess the Organization and Its Capabilities Roles/Responsibilities • Who at my agency is responsible for security and emergency preparedness? • Do all of my organization’s senior managers know their responsibilities, and are they prepared for an event or situation? • Who is responsible for plans and responses at the working level? Ask for names and numbers of staff who actually perform the work in the state’s emergency operation center (EOC). Ask for non-working hours contact information. • Where are emergency response staff physically located within the DOT? Visit the DOT sites where the staff works. • What do the staff want me to do when there is a significant event? Capabilities/Resources • Does the agency have plans in place to respond to various classes of emergencies? Are the plans effective and regularly updated? • Are plans, documents, and contact lists updated semiannually/annually? Are the documents easily available online? Are there a sufficient number of paper copies available? • Do incident response staff have backup relief to sustain 24/7 coverage for an extended period of time? • Does the agency have an adequately equipped alternative command center/location from which to operate should it lose access to its primary facilities and equipment? • Could the agency handle two significant emergency situations simultaneously? • What types of resources are available for emergencies? • Does the agency have the proper equipment to respond to an incident? • What types of equipment, such as specialized equipment, are available? • Are contracts in place with vendors to acquire needed supplies or services in an emergency? If not, is a list of prequalified contractors available? Can the agency establish these contracts or are there bureaucratic, administrative, or legal hindrances? • Have expedited procedures been established for emergency situations? Communication/Coordination • Is there adequate communication and coordination between the agency’s headquarters and local units in an emergency situation? • How can the agency cooperate more effectively with emergency responders, law enforcement, and others? • How well does the agency coordinate with local governments? Are there geographic locations of concern? • What are the communication and coordination protocols with the governor’s office and the state’s emergency management organization in an emergency situation? • Is the agency’s communications equipment interoperable with that of other agencies with whom it needs to communicate? 9