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Time to learn from the past

Taiwan's latest uncoordinated response to the damage caused by Typhoon Toraji demonstrates the lack of an adequate hazard relief, emergency planning and integrated response system. It appears that little has been learned from the mistakes made in the aftermath of the 921 earthquake.

Many other countries long ago adopted the Incident Command System to coordinate the response efforts of the numerous government, private sector and non-profit organizations that respond to major emergencies or disasters. The command system was first developed in 1972 as an emergency management mechanism and resource allocation process to coordinate federal, state and local resources needed to battle wildfires after a fire destroyed 250,000 hectares across seven counties in Southern California. In the early 1980s the US Federal Emergency Management Agency adopted the system as a model for handling all emergencies in the US.

The ICS structure is composed of several major components to ensure quick and effective resource commitment and to minimize disruption to the normal operating procedures of responding organizations. While this system has a number of major concepts, the most critical and that which Taiwan appears to lack, is unified command.

Unified command allows all agencies with responsibility for the incident -- either geographic or functional -- to manage an incident by establishing a common set of incident objectives and strategies. This does not mean losing or giving up individual agency authority, responsibility or accountability. This concept means that all involved agencies contribute to the command process by determining overall objectives, planning jointly, and maximizing the use of all assigned resources.

While a coordinated res-ponse is important, disaster mitigation and planning are even more critical. Again several countries have adopted various forms of the 13-step Integrated Emergency Management System developed by the US federal agency in 1983. The management system was developed to improve the ability to respond to major emergencies and disasters with the goal of planning, developing and maintaining credibility by integrating activities along functional lines at all levels of government and -- to the fullest extent possible -- across all hazards.

How many more disasters will Taiwan have to weather before the government decides to take proactive steps to ensure that the effects of disasters are reduced by mitigation and recovery times are improved by pre-planning and coordinated response efforts?

Moray J. Taylor-Smith

Taipei
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