EU responders combine forces against flooding
Published: 01 September, 2008
The EU FloodCommand project, a joint venture between three European Union countries – the UK (Maritime and Coastguard Agency), Ireland (Irish Coast Guard) and Sweden (Swedish Rescue Services Agency) – was initiated in early 2007 with the aim of improving pan-European response to massive coastal inundation from tidal floods, storm surges and tsunamis. The project was co-funded by the Civil Protection Mechanism of the European Commission and Vector Command Ltd (a developer of command and control, training and exercising systems for emergency services and agencies), and launched at an inaugural conference in May 2007.
Over the 18-month duration of the project two major exercises were held and the key findings of the project were presented at the final conference, held in Sweden in June 2008.
Niels Ring Andersen, Executive Chairman of VectorCommand, launched the conference with a keynote presentation about the Recast Civil Protection Mechanism and the modules concept – predefined and agreed packages of multi-national emergency response capability – which provided the context for the whole EU Flood Command project.
Substantial progress has been made in defining the make up of these modules and, according to Andersen, the EU is taking an increasingly proactive role in ensuring that Member States are well prepared and more effective when carrying out multi-lateral emergency response missions.
Andersen explained that so far 13 modules have been defined and that these now had to be put into practice. “After having propagated the 13 modules and invited the member states to come forward, and make offers on modules that they are prepared to commit to, there have now been some 70 offers from most member countries,” he said.
Rod Stafford, Project Executive for EU FloodCommand, provided an overview of the aspirations of the EU FloodCommand project. The main goal, he said, had been to create a system which was in the truest sense a combination of knowledge, understanding and technology. However, the underlying aim had been to create a streamlined business process.
“The emphasis of the initial conference in May 2007 was to gather a large number of international experts on flooding and to focus them on answering certain questions. What protocol and assets existed already? What understanding was there of the risks of catastrophic flooding? What made this type of SAR different from simple rescue in shallow water? The outcomes from these workshops were absolutely key in initiating the rest of the project, and therefore the development process was significant in order to create the right technology and protocols.”
EU Flood Command was then able to exercise the technology and protocols in two simulated disasters. Stafford described these as “trials by fire”, but said they had delivered important lessons on the capability required to improve multilateral emergency cooperation.
Stafford explained that the first exercise consisted of a command team simulation involving eight command teams, reflecting different aspects of national and international disaster response.
The Command Support System itself, in terms of building and sharing of a common operational picture, had been key, he said. “In essence, the contingent commanders sit with the recipient nation and identify the needs of the recipient nation. As the next step, the tasks get divided up between them and are communicated to the relevant parties. Each participating nation gets reports back.”
According to Stafford the final exercise (a simulated tsunami in Bulgaria) was the largest multi-national exercise in recent years, because it went across national control rooms in four separate countries on a non-guaranteed communications network. The aim of the exercise was to complete a matrix of activities, which took the participants through the whole process of identifying the need for collective response, negotiating the elements that were involved, getting those elements into theatre and then coordinating them.
“Throughout all its activities and discussions with the Commission, the EU FloodCommand project learnt that there is a real challenge here, because even within individual nations there is a reluctance to allow command relations to exist across organisational boundaries.
“The particular challenge is to make sure that command and control solutions in the future have the flexibility to make best use of the scarce resources available to ensure the best response possible, given the circumstances.”
So what support do organisations need? According to the participants in the EU FloodCommand programme, there is a compelling need for fast and effective access to critical incident data. That information must be clear as well as quickly accessible, and then commanders must have the ability to use that information effectively.
“Clear command communication is not only important in terms of procedures, but it is just as imperative to create a common operational picture,” concluded Stafford.
