Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning

This paper outlines the context of emergency management in Canada and identifies some of the key factors that have contributed to public emergency preparedness initiatives reaching a saturation point. Readers will gain insight and actionable suggestions from the proposed Community Resiliency Framework. Readers will learn how emergency management agencies can engage and collaborate authentically with communities and leverage existing preparedness initiatives with new methodologies to increase community resiliency...

The process of measuring the overall maturity of a disaster recovery programme can be accomplished by measuring the maturity of the individual processes that make up the programme, and then looking at the results in aggregate. For each process, two aspects require particular attention: the maturity of the process itself, and the extent to which the process is utilised through the organisation as a whole. This paper discusses the process of measuring process maturity, and outlines a practical methodology for applying that process to the appraisal of disaster recovery programmes...

This paper discusses how Carnegie Mellon University launched a cyclical enterprise risk management framework that incorporates both emergency preparedness and response and business continuity into its purview, to deliver greater organisational resiliency. The paper goes on to describe the governance structure that defines roles and responsibilities throughout the organisation, before discussing how faculty, staff and students are engaged and educated to sense risks, and to collaborate with leadership at all levels in prioritising risks for deep-dive assessments and employing feedback loops to support continuous process improvement...

This paper describes how Hurricane Ida exposed gaps in emergency preparedness planning and coordination in New Orleans, particularly related to the health and safety of the residents of multi-storey independent living facilities designated for seniors and persons with disabilities, where at least ten lives were lost due to the power outages and extreme heat that occurred following the storm. As this paper discusses, New Orleans Health Department leaders responded by taking swift policy action, working with the mayor, city council and community stakeholders to ensure better coordination, preparation and accountability for owners and operators of certain independent living facilities...

While it may be more common to think of a disaster volunteer as someone from outside the community who comes to assist during times of need, it is important not to forget those members of the community who are well poised to build grassroots resilience when provided with the necessary training and tools. This paper examines the state of disaster volunteerism in Latin America and Spanish-speaking communities in the USA who have been exposed to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programme, with an emphasis on the perceptions of and motivations for grassroots volunteerism from the perspective of both local emergency managers and CERT volunteers...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

This paper explores how advances in technology, widely expanded consumer communications capabilities and the lessons learned from response and recovery efforts to address large and/or complex incidents and events have all contributed to changes in how the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and incident command system have been used since their introduction in 2007. NIMS underscores the importance of providing incident response and recovery personnel, along with other key personnel, with access to the tools and information they need to make and communicate decisions...

Over the last two years, agencies have experimented with new systems and tactics to reach as many people as possible with critical preparedness information. This paper describes how COVID-19 forced FEMA Region 10 to adapt its public education and outreach strategy to a fully online space in order to keep the public informed about potential disasters. The paper discusses how the Individual and Community Preparedness team at FEMA Region 10 reaches thousands of people around the world by hosting regular webinars, live events, workshops and training sessions, and publishing a monthly newsletter...

Ransomware attacks are increasing in complexity, scope and frequency. These attacks have had mounting impacts on critical global infrastructures and populations, with significant financial ramifications. This paper underscores the business case for the investment and execution of preparedness efforts to increase the readiness and resilience of business and technology teams. It begins by exploring the present characteristics of ransomware and the landscape of organisational preparedness, as described in various reports cataloguing current and forecasted trends in the field...

In 2021, Texas experienced a historic winter storm that paralysed the state. In particular, the city of San Antonio experienced a weather system which, over the span of seven days, created a pattern of cascading issues. This paper describes how the situation forced the San Antonio Fire Department to adapt its policies and procedures to respond to issues and circumstances that were never even thought possible for the area. The paper shows how critical thinking and innovation provided the department the ability to respond to the needs of the residents of San Antonio...

The business impact analysis (BIA) is a major component of risk management and business continuity planning. It is the process of assessing the impact over time of a disruption on the organisation's people, products, services, and to its customers. This paper offers guidance on establishing and completing a comprehensive BIA that represents the organisation, department or process to achieve compliance and, ultimately, resilience. To remain competitive, organisations must examine and adapt their BIAs when circumstances change, whether internally or externally...

With the initial disruption of COVID-19 now settling down, organisations are finding themselves in a new situation, where some of their previously onsite workforce is now fully remote or working according to a hybrid model of onsite and remote work, and some new employees have been hired as fully remote. This new model of dispersed employees presents managers, supervisors and leaders with fresh challenges when it comes to checking in on employees and providing them with the guidance, they need to perform their daily functions...

The COVID-19 public health emergency severely limited the ability of emergency managers to conduct emergency exercises, particularly at the functional or full-scale level. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic response, other emergencies continued, and local emergency management was called to respond, ensuring that local guidelines and COVID-19 restrictions were observed. This paper describes how the pandemic impacted on the City of Puyallup's emergency management training and exercise programme and how the City adapted to conduct a full-scale exercise in the autumn of 2021...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Effective communication with internal and external stakeholders is an indispensable component of a successful response to crises both brief and long-lasting. Employee communication must increase in volume and frequency, and effectively inform, educate and empower employees. The development, testing and delivery of clear and easy-to-understand messages must be prioritised along with the enablement of continuous employee feedback. Drawing on industry best practice, personal experience and an extensive review of the literature, this paper concludes that the systematic planning, implementation and evaluation of a company's employee communication must be conducted on an ongoing, company-wide basis so that management can rely on it to minimise crisis-related damage, seize the opportunities a crisis may present, and convert the resulting organisational change into competitive advantages...

Certain social psychological variables can result in delays to essential steps in IT data centre disaster recovery response, including the formal declaration of disaster. These delays can result in failure to meet recovery time objectives, additional financial losses, regulatory issues and a significant loss of customer goodwill, all beyond what would have been incurred in the absence of delays. This paper describes a failsafe model to counter these variables. The model will help ensure that any disaster recovery response step earmarked as a failsafe point is completed in a timely manner, from the moment of disaster to the resumption of business...

In 2017, Washington State passed a law requiring life-safety alerts and warnings to be delivered to its residents in languages they understand. In response, King County Emergency Management and its partners developed an inclusive emergency communications plan to address this challenge. A key goal of this plan was the development of a trusted partner network (TPN), run by volunteers from the county's various language and ethnic groups, to relay timely life-safety alerts to their communities, in order to save additional lives and property...

This paper describes how the Government of Manitoba employed the incident command system (ICS) to support its COVID-19 response from March 2020 to March 2022. The paper describes how the system evolved during this period to optimise the efficiency and effectiveness of emergency response and recovery efforts. The paper supports a more comprehensive implementation of the ICS to manage emergency and recovery effectively, with specific reference to the Omicron wave of the pandemic.

This paper draws on the literature of nanomanagement and organisational resilience to explore the reality of surge capacity in the context of the Egyptian government's effort to contain the recent COVID-19 pandemic. It utilises nanomanagement networking to explain the significant models of decision making, communication and sense making, taking into account the resilient interconnections and interdependence among organisations, to understand how these impact on the resilience of crisis management surge capacity...

The workforce rallying point model is intended to activate within the first 24 hours after a catastrophic earthquake. Its purpose is to provide employees with access to critical information and early response assignments following a Cascadia subduction zone-type event. The consequences from a catastrophic event could include loss of communication with departmental leadership, as well as loss of safe worksite facilities. A systems failure of this magnitude requires rethinking traditional centralised disaster response models...