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A Capability Assessment Model for Emergency Management Organizations

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Abstract

Natural and manmade disasters may cause a great deal of loss of life and threat to the human society. As a result, an effective emergency management organization becomes more and more significant for the purpose of minimizing loss. In this paper, a capability assessment model, namely, disaster management and control model, is proposed to provide a general guideline for different types of emergency management organization. Eight indicators are proposed for assessing the capability of the organization. The assessment process includes collecting, analyzing, reporting and planning. The result of capability assessment is divided into four levels and recommendations are presented for reporting the details of the indicators.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91646201, Grant No. 91224008).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Public Safety Research, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Xinzhi Wang & Hui Zhang

  2. Department of Decision and Information Sciences, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, 48309, USA

    Vijayan Sugumaran

  3. The Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, Shanghai, China

    Zheng Xu

Authors
  1. Xinzhi Wang
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  2. Vijayan Sugumaran
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  3. Hui Zhang
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  4. Zheng Xu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hui Zhang.

Appendix. Case description

Appendix. Case description

Assessment goal: Police station

1.1 Leakage emergency introduction

A tanker truck with 40 cubic meters of liquefied petroleum gas, whose license was XA4718, leaked liquefied gas continuously and spread penetrating odor quickly to the air at half past one on the night of September 21, 2006. It is known that the vehicle belonged to Qinghe Company of Xinjiang province in China. The reason is that the springs in the decompression valves are frozen during transport. The leaked gas may lead to explosion if the limit is reached in the presence of an ignition source.

Police assembled 1 rescue vehicle, 5 fire engines, 38 fire fighters to the emergency spot after getting the call. Under the leadership, the team finally guaranteed the safety of the neighborhood with a close cooperation after 120 min of hard work to prevent the tank leakage explosion accident. There are 2 villages with more than 4800 people from 920 households, more than 600 vehicles, a gas station and a toll station within 1 km radius of the scene. The police successfully avoid the occurrence of a serious accident, which ensures the safety of the national highway.

1.2 Process of dealing with the leakage emergency

  1. 1.

    At 1:50 am on 21th September, 2006

  • Police station:

    Get emergency call

    Sent: 1 rescue vehicle

    • 3 big tonnage vehicles

      24 fire fighters

    Sent massage to chief officer and operator on duty

  • Operator station:

    Sent: Operator on duty (Yan Sun)

Adviser (Rui Chang)

2 fire engines

12 fighters

  1. 2.

    At 2:14 am on 21th September, 2006

  • Police reach the spot.

    Police set alert area of 1 km

  1. 3.

    At 2:18 on 21th September, 2006

  • Operator on duty (Yan Sun) and adviser (Rui Chang) reach the spot

  • They set up the scene command and assign Yan Sun as leader

  • They investigate the reasons of this emergency

  1. 4.

    At 2:32 am on 21th September, 2006

  • Yan Sun deploy fire fighters and equipment:

  • Part of the fire fighters (we cannot get the exact number) surround the leaking tank car with 3 very-high-pressure spray nozzle to dilute the leaked gas in case of exceeding the explosion limit

  • The second group of fighters set up risk-removing group with one leader approaching the leaking tank equipped with essential outfit to repair the decompressed valves

  • The last group of fighters make sure the water supply for the first group of fighters is kept up with 3 big tonnage tankers

  • All the fighters get to work as deployed.

  1. 5.

    At 2:52 am on 21th September, 2006

  • The scene commander makes sure the decompressed valves have been repaired and leakage has been controlled

  • The first group and the last group of fighters keep working to dilute the gas

  1. 6.

    At 3:15 am on 21th September, 2006

  • The emergency event is controlled

  • Fire Fighters go back

  • Equipment returned back to their positions

1.3 Strength of the disposal

The condition of this emergency spot located in the No.312 national highway is special, complex and dangerous. But finally, the fire fighters get the emergency event under control and the surrounding area safe and secure.

  1. 1.

    Response timely - Equipment and fighters are deployed in a timely manner right after getting the emergency call.

  2. 2.

    Good leadership - Leaders issue orders clearly before, during and after the event and on the spot.

  3. 3.

    Excellent coordination - Police station and operators on duty work together during the whole process.

  4. 4.

    Effective equipment and water resource - Rescue vehicle, big tonnage tankers, fire engine and so on.

  5. 5.

    Good cooperation - Every fire fighter and other personnel perform their roles and responsibility and complete their mission without delay.

1.4 Weakness of the disposal

There are also some improvements that could be made. By examining the details, the emergency organization can learn from this case. The following issues need to be taken into account when planning for the future mitigation of such an emergency event.

  1. 1.

    The scene commander could not decide on the exact explosion limit as a result of not having a gas detector at the scene.

  2. 2.

    The scene commander could not guarantee long-term rescue work as there were not enough fighters and equipment.

  3. 3.

    Coordination with local villages was not efficient

  4. 4.

    The scene commander don’t make emergency plans for the latent fire disaster

1.5 Source of this case

The case was retrieved from a website named security management. This site provides information about many disaster events. Information about this leakage case is comprehensive compared with others, and so we choose this case. We have translated the main data into English from Chinese. If readers want to access the source file, please follow the following url: http://www.safehoo.com/Tech/Chemical/201210/286664.shtml

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Wang, X., Sugumaran, V., Zhang, H. et al. A Capability Assessment Model for Emergency Management Organizations. Inf Syst Front 20, 653–667 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9786-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9786-7

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