When dam emergencies happen, the Emergency Action Plan (EAP) is your community’s first line of defense. When the EAP is needed, time is the most limited resource for you, your community, and emergency responders. Planning is vital. Your community’s resilience depends on these five key factors.
Five Factors for Resilience
1. Familiarity with the EAP Document
Familiarity may seem like an easy ask. It is not. The dam owner-provided EAP is full of information. The amount of information can be overwhelming for owner staff to comprehend, let alone the responding agencies. Setting aside time to discuss and review the EAP with each plan holder will increase familiarity. This should be done minimally during annual seminars, annual drills, tabletop exercises, and comprehensive (functional or full-scale) exercises, as well as when new staff are assigned. Breaking the EAP into easy-to-understand sections and walking your partnering agency’s staff through the content is essential. Help them understand what the inundation maps mean, how emergencies affect the downstream terrain, what the time-sensitive areas are, how the notification flowchart is instigated, and what resources your organization has to help their response effort.
“During an emergency is not the time to introduce yourself, your staff, and your regulators to the emergency response team.”
2. Inter-Agency Networking
During an emergency is not the time to introduce yourself, your staff, and your regulators to the responding agencies, their staff, and the chain of command. You essentially form a team when the Joint Information Center (JIC) or Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is activated. An emergency is not the time to go through the steps of team-building dynamics (Form, Storm, Norm, Perform, Reform). Take advantage of networking opportunities like annual seminars and drills, tabletop and comprehensive exercises, community events, and any other meeting to get to know your emergency teammates fully. Being on a first-name basis with everyone, knowing how the team functions, and understanding the personalities involved will help create a positive, trusting team dynamic. This trust is vital for a smooth response during an emergency when various stressors and unknown elements arise.
3. Advanced Emergency Responder Planning
Your emergency responders know how to plan and guide a community through disasters. They deal with fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other threats as part of their job. Dam emergencies are slightly different and sometimes require slight changes to the Emergency Operation Plan (EOP). Here are a few things you may mention to your response planners during your next check-in.
Evacuation
Dam safety incidents can change the landscape in awe-struck and devastating ways. Responding to a dam emergency must take into account the volume and speed of the water, the possibility that the event is in tandem with another ongoing emergency (flood, fire, earthquake), and how those elements affect the evacuation plans. Dedicated evacuation routes may need to shift in response to a dam emergency. Here are things to consider:
- If the dam fails, will the flood path cut off the typical civilian flood evacuation route? If so, at what flood stage? Note: Smaller dam failures may not pose the same threat.
- Will the dam failure flood path cut off the emergency responders’ dedicated corridors?
- If the civilian route or corridor is cut off, what is the backup? How sensitive is that backup to other elements—does it freeze? Is it a wood structure that could be devastated by a forest fire? Is it a narrow, windy road that could easily be congested?
Temporary Shelters
Similar to evacuation routes, several questions about shelter locations for civilians and responders need to be considered beforehand.
- Will the typical shelters be inundated? If so, how soon? Is it worth moving civilians twice?
- Can supplies and resources easily be transported to shelter locations?
- Can animals be housed at these shelters? If not, where can they go? Will livestock shelters be accessible?
Recovery
Emergency supplies, damage assessors, and dedicated resources will be taxed and likely over-leveraged during a large emergency. The following should be considered while contingency planning:
- Does the EOP build in redundancies for supplies, staff, inspectors, physical equipment, and other resources needed to begin the recovery effort?
- Are Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in place with other emergency responders outside the impacted area who could more easily respond?
4. Targeted and Succinct Messaging
It is essential to have targeted and succinct message examples readily available. While scripted messages will need to be updated with location and direction-specific information, the format and template can be ready to go. Also, knowing who to turn to for this information and who will disseminate the information is crucial before an incident. Typically, the emergency responders are the lead agency to provide community-wide messages. They are supported by other agencies like the National Weather Service and local and online media. Having one source of information and the exact information needed will ease the strain on the responders and help the community through the emergency with as little stress as possible. Remember the old adage: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
- Who? The messages will go community-wide, but exactly who needs the message? Be specific.
- What? The message should tell people exactly what they need to do. Again, be specific.
- When? Time matters. Do they have time to grab their priceless photos and pack a bag? Should they grab a go-bag, or do they not have time to grab anything at all? Using the term “NOW” instead of immediately can also impress the need to promptly leave as opposed to grabbing a snack, and that picture, and then just one more thing.
- Where? Overly exact directions can confuse people just as much as overly broad directions. Telling people to move to 6,500 feet in elevation will likely garner mass confusion. The opposite—telling people to move uphill or to higher ground also leaves room for interpretation. Which hill? How far? Higher, compared to what?
- Why? This may seem strange, but sometimes, being abruptly interrupted with evacuation instructions will take people off guard and cause others to freeze in response to danger. A limited-detail, non-inflammatory reason helps them bypass the instinct to stay home and get moving toward actual safety.
- How? Can they drive? How about going on foot? Should they go to the train depo or catch a bus?
Here is a message that may seem like it has the needed information:
“Due to the dam break near Spike Forest, flood waters are heading downtown in an easterly direction. Move to higher ground. Belongings should be left.”
This example is vague and can be confusing. It leaves much room for interpretation by the public. Some may think that Spike Forest is far away and that they don’t need to move because they do not know about a dam. Others may lean into “flood waters are heading downtown” and promptly get in their car to evacuate when they do not live in the downtown zone at risk. They could drive into the flood path and get stuck in congestion, adding complexity to the response. Next, information like “easterly” may seem easy to understand, but many will not intuitively understand a cardinal direction without a compass. The last ambiguity is “move to higher ground.” This is common and can be helpful near reservoirs in mountainous or hilly areas. But in a more developed area, it will be difficult for people to know which way is truly higher ground, and they also may not know how high is high enough.
Here’s a better, more targeted example:
“Residents on Maple Street between 500 and 800 block, Evacuate Now. Walk to Taylor Street. Leave belongings. Unsurvivable flood wave imminent.”
This example targets the exact group that needs to respond with no ambiguity. The message tells them when to evacuate, how and where to go to get out of the flood path, what to take, and exactly why in no uncertain terms. The term “unsurvivable” has been used more recently to convey the likelihood of survival while sheltering in place; however, to remain impactful, it should only be used in truly dire, deadly situations.
“The more you plan, the fewer surprises you will have.”
5. Planning for the Unexpected
We often refer to this as Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Having more contingency plans for foreseeable complexities will enable a more comprehensive response. Could you have a wildfire put out by a flood of record? Yes, you can. Can you experience a flood and be hit by an earthquake? The great California Hurriquake of 2023 says yes. How are you getting out if your escape route is burned down right before a dam break? If this event happens during the Superbowl, how do we deal with the thousands of tourists in the stadium—and who are taking up all the hotels that would be used as temporary shelters? If a semi-truck jack-knifes on the evacuation route, will you have the resources to move traffic quickly? The more you plan, the fewer surprises you will have.
Key Takeaways: More time planning = Less time recovering
Helping your staff and emergency responders understand and be familiar with your EAP is essential. Building your team before an incident will facilitate trust, and that camaraderie will mean an easier response effort. Giving your emergency response planners the information they need to plan a response to a dam safety incident effectively can lead to a realistic and reliable EOP. Ensuring responders have the details to provide targeted messages to the public and prepare for the unexpected will help avoid stress and confusion for all involved. And finally, preparing contingency plans will save time during an incident, allowing responders to be proactive rather than reacting. When every minute counts, every moment you spend in planning will reduce the time needed to recover.
