Crisis Management and Incident Command System (ICS)

Crisis Management

Dilemmas of Crisis Management

Crisis management and Incident Command System (ICS):

New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina and the SARS (Severe Acute Respirator Syndrome) outbreak in Toronto

Hurricane Katrina was a natural, weather-related disaster; SARS (Severe Acute Respirator Syndrome) was an unexpected disease outbreak. Both presented logistical and biological challenges that challenged the existing disaster mitigation policies of the cities of New Orleans and Toronto respectively. While hindsight is always 20/20, according to the cliche, arguably both cities could have been much better prepared for the disasters which they suffered. New Orleans was notoriously flood-prone and had endured the challenges of poorly-coordinated disaster responses in the past; Toronto's public health system did not engage in effective disease mitigation efforts when confronted with a new pathogen.

Arguably, the extent to which Hurricane Katrina caused damage to the city of New Orleans was somewhat predictable, given the nature of its location. The city, however, although it did have a disaster mitigation plan was not fully prepared for the extent of the damage which included three significant breaches of the levees. The city filled up with water, leaving residents scrambling for their roofs (Scott 2006: 27). Despite the fact that the possibility of a horrific hurricane impacting the city had been long-predicted, almost inevitably some individuals will dismiss warnings as mere 'Chicken Little' worrying and refuse to evacuate but in this instance many residents simply did not have cars or adequate transportation to do so and temporary outside shelters were either full or inadequate (Scott 2006: 1). Prior to landfall, the city had 'felt' prepared, given its activation of emergency escape plans; readiness of shelters; and preparation of equipment (Scott 2006: 2). The city had also had 'preparation' in the form of Hurricane Ivan which posed many of these similar challenges (Scott 2006: 6). However, certain aspects of the needed crisis management for the event, including the fact that many were unable to evacuate using personal vehicles (as was originally assumed) and the long-term nature of the shelters needed, were unanticipated

The Katrina response has been called a failure partially due to a total breakdown of information sharing and communication between local, state, and federal authorities. Information-sharing is critical during a natural disaster during which the clock is ticking. The most effective means of communication were cellphones and the Internet (Garnett & Kouzmin 2007: 179). Between more formal channels of communication between responders, there was a great deal of mistrust and contempt, including state agencies which picked up a great deal of the 'slack' left by underfunded FEMA (Garnett & Kouzmin 2007: 181).

Although storms can be difficult to predict, arguably the severity of a storm like Katrina should have been better-anticipated: given the logistical nature of New Orleans' setup as a city, the question was not if a hurricane would hit the city with such a resounding impact but when. In contrast, biological events such as SARS, which had a devastating impact upon the city of Toronto (as well as Asia) can be much more difficult to anticipate in terms of their severity and method of transmission. Indeed, SARS had only been targeted by WHO as a threat three weeks before the Toronto outbreak (Varley 2005: 2).

But arguably, despite the much shorter notice, Toronto hospitals could have been far better prepared. First of all, once the outbreak was identified in Asia, Toronto should have been particularly mindful given its large Asian community and the extent of the international traffic between the city and affected nations. When the first patient reporting symptoms were hospitalized, she was not properly confined nor did hospital staff engage in effective disease containment efforts, given the assumption was that the patient's condition was a 'standard' case of pneumonia (Varley 2005:3-4). The best, rather than the worst-case scenario was anticipated. In retrospect, even if the case had been merely pneumonia, there were no appropriate measures taken to contain the spread of infection.

As with Hurricane Katrina, communication breakdowns were also to blame, in this case in terms of affected hospitals' relationship with the Toronto and Ontario's boards of public health. While still seeking to identify the cause of the first patients' deaths, hospital workers that had been in contact with the first patient were already falling ill. If the Scarborough-Grace Hospital where the outbreak occurred had shut its doors, stopped transferring patients, gone into lockdown mode and taken precautions in treating patients, the extent of the outbreak could have been substantially mitigated but there was an unwillingness to admit failure -- again, with echoes of Katrina.