What I like about the report is the more detailed analysis of the command, control and coordination of the event. It really is a bit of a higher look at the incident.
One publication identified the following recommendations from the report:
- "Senior leaders should participate in a unified command at the strategic level and avoid being pulled back into making tactical decisions and directly overseeing basic operations.
- Response organizations must develop procedures and practices to better control 'self-deployment' by individual personnel to the scene of emergency action.
- Maintaining regular and open communication with the public – through traditional and social media – should be a high priority for senior officials, even when confidential investigations are ongoing.
- Robust development, practice, exercise, and application of incident management processes and skills (codified in the NIMS [National Incident Management] system) greatly enhance the ability of emergency responders to operate in complex, multi-organizational, cross-jurisdictional crises."
- While much has been said and written about the Incident Command System (ICS) it does not appear that they had a Unified Command Post set up as part of the response planning for the Boston Marathon. The immediate response following the bombing was terrific. Many stories were written about how average citizens leaped into help with the medical response and I’m sure saved many lives. Being so close to the finish line and medical treatment facilities was almost ideal. All patients were moved from the scene in less than 22 minutes.
- Senior leaders, especially uniformed ones, need to stay out of the tactical mix of things. There were so many higher level issues to be considered their involvement needed to be at the policy level.
- It would appear they set up a second “Unified Command Post.” For a city specific event this in my mind should be at the normal Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Such a location has all the communications gear and other resources to provide for effective coordination with a multitude of agencies that will have a role to play. By using the EOC people know where to go, they might have resources at that location already, security and access is controlled. Instead this second command post was set up at a hotel—which was not necessary to be near the event and they had logistics and control issues.
- Once again we have an event where senior leadership did not start rotating on a shift basis to sustain the effort over a multi-day operation, multi-operational period. Some people were operating for 36 hours straight with no sleep. Not a good situation for effective decision making or coordination.
- The event shows how pre-disaster coordination can make a huge difference. Planning for special events paid off in this circumstance and will pay off again in the future. Planning, training, exercises, planning, training, exercises.
- We need to work harder on self-deployment instructions to our various staffs. You don’t respond unless directed to respond. Multiple agencies with varying command staffs not all under the direction or acknowledging the authority of senior leaders from other organizations. It is pretty basic, but we seem to still not have our staffs and first line supervisors trained on this issue. They were lucky more people were not shot by friendly fire.
- The chaotic nature of this event with unknown number of assailants and the potential for more attacks is an ideal situation to use social media for situational awareness, rumor control, and to feed information to the public very quickly.
Claire Rubin shared her blog post on this event.
