Mock Disaster Response Plan: Active Shooter Incident
Instructions: Mock Disaster Response Plan
Choose a fictitious emergency event to use for your project. Develop a response plan for a mock disaster involving a facility you work at or one in your community. This is a single incident of your choosing, such as a fire, active shooter, natural disaster, etc. We are looking for you to simulate an emergency response and use your paper as an opportunity to demonstrate what you have learned about the incident command process during the course.
Decide who will be the Incident Commander (IC). Or you could choose a Unified Command (UC). Develop the five ICS functional areas and specific responsibilities for each area pertaining to your specific incident. A completely developed and detailed Incident Action Plan should be included as part of your paper. You should also include maps, images as well as the completed ICS Forms (excel file) we worked on during the Week 6 Forum. This means you will most likely submit both a Word document and an Excel document for this project. (Some students in the past have used PowerPoint for this project as well.) Sample documents are included, including the scoring rubric.
Solution.
Mock Disaster Response Plan: Active Shooter Incident
The US Department of Homeland Security defines and active shooter event as a person who is actively engaged in attempting to kill or killing other civilians in a confined and populated area (US Department Of Homeland Security, 2016). Most active shooters use firearms, and they do not select their victims. The purpose of this paper is to come up with a mock disaster plan that can fully prepare an organization to curb such a threat.
Purpose
To recognize the responsibilities to an active shooter incident or a potential event such as detection of an active shooter.
Applicability
The response plan is only applicable to [name of the organization], situated at [location details].
Assumptions
In tackling such an incident, there are significant assumptions that are essential. To begin with, planning for a shooter event will increase survival rates. Also. In an active shooter event, the media and crowds of disturbed and concerned onlookers will be drawn to the event. Hence, such an issue has to be accommodated.
Definitions
Relevant definitions must be understood in this plan. To begin with, an active shooter is any suspect that is on the verge of causing injury and death to multiple individuals. Also, a family center must be established for the families of victims to collect and receive information. Community and media assistance will be instituted so that the public information officer can link up with the community through a meeting and provide them with the information.
Roles and Responsibilities
The functions and responsibilities of the people involved in the event of the active shooter incident are categorized by the five Incident Command system(ICS) functional areas. They include: the command section, operations section, planning section, logistics section, and the administration/finance section (FEMA, 2010).
- Command Section: Director of the security and safety department for the organization.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Responding to a notification of the event or potential threat
- Inform the organizational director to trigger the Incident Response Team [or Dean, Manager, (Blair, Nichols, Burns, & Curnutt, 2013)CEO, and so on.]. Also, he has to notify the employees and [clients or students] in the organization via email and text in case it is a potential threat case.
- After activation of the Incident Response Team, the director of the security department will be the incident commander in this case. In a situation of his absence, the head of risk management can assume roles.
- Responsible for conducting the regional and local resource teams. Also, he has to contact the local emergency and communication centers respectively.
- Operations Section: – Organizational Director [Dean, Manager, and so on.]
Roles and Responsibilities
- Obliged to opening community centers and family centers where families are well-informed of the current progress in the case of an attack. Communication patterns should focus on the psychological impact that can be observed in the families.
- They are also expected to determine the number of individuals involved in the better planning of events.
- Confirming with the local hotels for the victim families. An estimation should be carried out to determine the actual number of victim families to be accommodated in the hotels.
- They have to notify the emergency health services and other health services that may come in handy.
- The information officer, in this case, is the public information officer or the vice president of operations. Information officer has the responsibility of liaising with the media. Also, he is responsible for monitoring and responding to emails from within and outside the organization. Lastly, he or she distributes local resources list to the other parties.
- Planning Section: Chief Administrative Officer
Roles and responsibilities
- The chief administrator will order significant resources that will cater for a potential threat or resources after the threat.
- Record keeping is essential at this level; the administrator will have to check which plan is effective and efficient.
- Also, he or she may assist in locating the technical experts to curb the situation if necessary.
- Logistics Section: Section Chief [Branch Chief]
Roles and Responsibilities
- They must ensure that the victim families are well treated through by providing them with meals.
- They need to make sure that there is an efficient supply of each resource involved in their sector for the best services to the victim families.
- They have to ensure that there is interoperability of communication. The must make sure that communication is diverse through the local networks, and that person are well informed.
- Finance Section: Chief Finance Officer
Roles and Responsibilities
- The financial officer is responsible for adequate record keeping regarding cost tracking, compensation, and procurement. All financial records must be presented to the Board of Directors so that they can budget for any threats in future.
It is advised that after the incident has occurred that the victim families and the society as a whole undergo a process of teaching people on how to report and react to the acts of violence and threats to security. In the case of an active shooter situation, it is advisable that if an individual hears a gunshot, the first step is to do is lying down. Therefore, the community must be informed fully of other preventive techniques.
Conclusively, there are important notifications that the incident commander must adhere to. First, they are required to notify 911 when the command center is functional, and the security officers must be in place. Activation includes many emergency centers either regional or local. For example, local police station, state police, county sheriffs, transportation police and local transit. The incident commander must fully integrate wide location notifications to keep each section alert and operational. After that stage, human services must be established such as family center and media centers, and there should be controlled access to these posts. They must provide briefings twice or thrice a day by the information officer and the two centers must be separated geographically.
References
Blair, J. P., Nichols, T., Burns, D., & Curnutt, J. R. (2013). Active Shooter Events and Response. New York: CRC Press.
FEMA. (2010, November). Developing and Maintaining Emergency Operations Plans. Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 101 Version 2.0.
US Department Of Homeland Security. (2016, July 20). Active Shooter Praeparedness. Retrieved from Homeland Security: https://www.dhs.gov/active-shooter-preparedness