Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria Crisis Intervention

Crisis Intervention Plan: Hurricane Relief in Puerto Rico
I. Goals
The goals of the crisis intervention plan are to improve overall resilience. Resilience factors include improvements to public infrastructure, especially water treatment, waste and wastewater services, the power/electricity grid, and the telecommunications grid. Another critical aspect of resilience is inter-agency communications before, during, and after a hurricane. Hospitals, social workers, law enforcement, coast guard, insurance agencies, community leaders, public servants, and the private sector all need to coordinate their information and communications, and their service delivery models. Ancillary goals include community outreach and coordination of special services, improving the dissemination of information and facilitating access to services. Prevention also needs to be incorporated into the intervention plan.
II. Timeline
Infrastructure improvements could take years. Each critical service (water, electricity, telecommunications) will have its own timeline, with short-term goals for improving service delivery to underserved and rural areas.
In the meantime, the crisis intervention will include water deliveries from the mainland United States, coordinating water delivery on trucks to rural communities. This can take place within the next few days.
Power, water, and telecommunications are already working in old San Juan and affluent areas of the capital. If restoring power to rural regions is not possible within the next week, it should be possible to deliver food items at the very least.
The communications and information interventions can take place immediately. Within a month, it will be possible to have fully operating teams dedicated to resource coordination, communications, outreach, public relations, and customer service.
III. Incident Command System
The Incident Command System (ICS) is recommended by Jackson-Cherry & Erford (2011), and by Frostburg State University (2010). The ICS helps law enforcement, healthcare, and other organizations coordinate their services and responses to the incident. It is important that the media also be included in the ICS, to ensure and facilitate communications and information delivery.
IV. Triage
Not only useful for the healthcare community and first responders, the triage system can also be applied geographically. Areas with critical needs can be identified as Code Red. These may include those areas with contaminated drinking water or isolated areas without access to any services at all. Code Orange can apply to areas that have had some service delivery but are still in need of further assistance. Finally, the Code Yellow can apply to suburban areas with limited but still reliable access to some services.
V. Alternative Settings
A hurricane rarely hits one building or even one neighborhood, the damage being spread out. If the setting were different, such as in a single home or school, the crisis intervention would be more focused. It is always possible that one house remains unscathed and the one next door is demolished. Therefore, the crisis intervention plan for a hurricane is unlikely to change. The most important goals are helping to coordinate resources and improving community resilience. Every day, the affected people need updated information. Every day, deliveries of food and water are critical. Every day, the people need to know how to go about accessing the services that are available to them, and how to overcome barriers to communication due to damaged telecommunications infrastructure.





References

Frostburg State University (2010). Crisis intervention plan. Retrieved online: https://www.frostburg.edu/fsu/assets/File/about/EmergencyInfo/crisismanagementplan.pdf
Jackson-Cherry, L.R. & Erford, B.T. (2011). Crisis Assessment, Intervention, and Prevention. 2nd Edition.
“Warren County School Crisis Intervention Plan,” (2011). Retrieved online: http://www.warrencountyesc.com/docs/Warren%20County%20School%20Crisis%20Intervention%20Plan-0.pdf