Scenario-Based Planning in Critical Incident Management

Introduction: Lessons from 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina

The attacks of September 11, 2001 highlighted the need for critical incident management very dramatically — even before emergency services reviews officially disclosed that basic communications breakdowns were specifically responsible for most of the 343 uniformed firefighters who died at the World Trade Center. In the immediate aftermath, conflicts between the NYPD and the FDNY over authority and direction during recovery efforts at Ground Zero illustrated that strategic management and joint agency administrative planning and preparation are equally as important as the operational and tactical elements of critical incident management. Four years later, Hurricane Katrina illustrated that critical incident management is also essential for responses to natural disasters at the federal level, particularly since homeland security is considered the primary threat to the United States.

Unfortunately, Katrina revealed that even four years after September 11, federal emergency strategic management was ill-equipped to respond to large-scale natural disasters — let alone to a significant terrorist attack involving widespread physical damage, contamination, or mass casualties. Resolving the problems of under-preparedness requires, among other things, a commitment to implementing scenario-based administrative and operational planning across the entire spectrum of the most likely significant threats to U.S. health, safety, and security (Koestner 2006).

The Role of Scenario-Based Planning in Critical Incident Management

Scenario-based tactical training has played a major role in military and law enforcement training for decades. Virtually all modern local and state police officers, as well as federal law enforcement agencies, employ scenario-based training throughout their academies and in-service training programs. Originally conceived by military tacticians, repetitive training scenarios exploit the potential for performance improvement by developing trained reflexive responses (Lynch 2005) through repeated exposure to simulated tactical situations.

In law enforcement, scenario-based training was first incorporated into patrol officer training in connection with so-called "routine" situations, such as motor vehicle stops, restraining and subduing combative subjects, clearing interior crime scenes, and securing external perimeters. Special units such as SWAT, SERT, suicide prevention, and hostage negotiation teams expanded scenario-based training from tactical operations to include psychological components — such as establishing rapport with subjects to effect peaceful surrender. More recently, advances in computer capacity and sophisticated graphics have produced scenario-based testing programs in the law enforcement officer candidate selection process, enabling selection committees to identify personality and temperament qualities consistent with projected officer performance by observing candidates' responses to typical encounters and situations expected in the field (Lynch 2005).

From Tactical Training to Strategic Interagency Planning

The recent focus on homeland security and terrorism has provided the impetus for extensive interagency strategic planning, particularly near presumed high-value targets and population centers. In this regard, the law enforcement community has begun implementing scenario-based strategic planning in the manner used by American military strategists since the Cold War. Interagency strategic planning now includes scenario-based training in which the specific components of local, state, and federal agencies charged with responding to critical incidents participate in joint exercises simulating the foreseeable demands for their combined services (Koestner 2006).

Conclusion

Whether in tactical police training for routine municipal patrol procedures, special operations, or multi-agency joint responses to large-scale natural disasters or terrorist attacks, critical incident response that overemphasizes scenario-based training has the potential to undermine effective incident response. Ultimately, scenario-based training in critical incident planning is a valuable tool, but it must complement rather than replace direct administrative control and oversight by experienced emergency management professionals who are capable of responding appropriately to unanticipated scenarios as well.