Communications planning

 The aim of this section is to introduce to you the concepts and principles around which communication systems, plans, processes and arrangements are developed and put in place for emergency management purposes. From this understanding, you will then be better able to analyse, assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the communications systems, plans, processes and arrangements that were in place during the pre-impact phase of your selected event. Well planned and initiated communication strategies and processes are essential to the successful management of any emergency incident. Emergency communication plans and planning should be the first step in ensuring the provision of effective communication systems.

The basic aim of a communications plan should be to:

• ensure that the decisions and actions of the emergency manager are never limited or inhibited by the lack of efficient, reliable communications.

Before proceeding, I would like you to take a few minutes, think back to previous subjects where you were required to develop a planning project proposal and subsequent emergency plan - try and recall the processes that you employed to develop that plan.

If you are having difficulty recalling these processes take the time to revisit your EMG103 study materials and familiarise yourself again with the planning process before you proceed.

I would expect that you have included some of the following areas in your suggested planning sequence:

• define the communications requirement;
• assess the suitability and availability of existing communication resources to meet these requirements;
• if deficiencies are present, identify and arrange for the provision of resources, including those required to back-up primary requirements;
• write the plan in cooperation and consultation with potential users and resource providers, where necessary.

Remember that the communications plans and strategies should only be prepared after the completion of a relevant hazard analysis or risk assessment which should have identified any risks to existing or future communication facilities/systems. The communications plan itself will then be only one component within the wider emergency management strategies.

Having now established what a communications plan is and the processes needed to go through to develop such a plan, where do you go from here?

Firstly, establish a list of questions that you will need to interrogate the emergency management arrangements that were in place prior to your selected event occurring. These arrangement will hopefully include communications plans and procedures that were in place, the analysis of which will enable you to assess their effectiveness and viability with respect to the preparedness of the emergency services and the community in the pre-impact phase of your selected event.

Some other questions I believe would need answers are:

• What type of systems and arrangements were in place and who was responsible for providing them?
• Were there any back-up systems/power sources identified for hardware systems?
• What arrangements were in place to access back-up communications and/or power sources, and who was responsible for arranging these?
• Was there any training required to use them? If so, was this done?
• Were there Emergency Operation Centres (EOC) identified? If so, was there a back up EOC nominated in the event of the primary EOC being disabled, and were they located in a safe environment?
• Were the systems and procedures exercised regularly?

I have only listed several questions that I would need to have answered; you have probably listed several more, specific to your selected event. The one thing I will stress here is that you need to bear in mind that when we are analysing the communications systems, processes and arrangements, we are not solely looking at hardware such as radios, telecommunications etc. We are also looking at inter-personal communications between the emergency managers, planners, government agencies and members of the community.

Did our lists differ greatly? Did you have any problems listing some questions? If you had difficulties please feel free to use the above list as a starting point. I expect that as you progress through the analysis of communications for your selected event, you will identify more questions that will assist you in your analysis.

Having now established this list, you need to work through each of these questions individually as the answers to them will provide you with the information needed to address the analysis of communications within your project report (Assignment 2).

Remember: be sure to document these findings as you will need them later on.

I will use the list I have provided as an example of how you could use such questions to interrogate the status of the communications arrangements prior to the event and determine their effectiveness in the pre-impact phase of an emergency/disaster.