File: 033708
---

NIC Webinar Host: Or, in the words of a famous
Texan, maybe: alright, alright, alright.

Okay, you can go ahead and take us to the next
place.

Hello, and welcome to When the Emergency
Doesn't End.

Corrections and Multi-Operational Period
Incidents.

My name is Chad Garrett. I am The Health
Programs Manager with the National

Institute of Corrections, and we are very
thrilled to have you join us for this

session. Again, we know how busy you are, and
we really appreciate you taking this

hour out of your time to join us.

Before we begin today's session, I'd like to
cover just a few important housekeeping

rules. So each webinar is going to last
approximately one hour.

The session will be recorded and once
captioned and made 508 compliant, it will be

available on the NIC website. Your microphones
are muted, but we will allow

participants to raise your hands and I can
unmute you if you like.

However, we strongly encourage engagement
through the Webex chat feature.

Please use the chat feature to share your
thoughts, ask questions, request technical

support. We'll address as many questions as
possible during the Q&A portion at the

end of the session. If you are experiencing
any audio difficulties, we recommend

connecting to the webinar audio via the
telephone function.

Using the number provided in your registration
confirmation email.

And with that, let me hand you over to one of
our librarians extraordinaire from the

NIC Info Center for a brief public service
announcement.

Mary?

Mary Coffman: Thank you. It's nice to be here.

I'm one of the information specialists here at
NIC, and my job is to help you.

If you have any questions related to the
corrections field, by all means send them

to us. at support@nicic.gov. We will take
about a day to respond to you, but we

welcome any questions that you may have NIC
has lots of training resources available

on our website at nicic.gov.

If you visit our website, we have free
trainings and webinars like this one.

And we also have something called the Learn
Center where you can take self-paced

educational courses and get a certificate at
the end.

So that's a nice thing to go view for free on
our website.

On our website, we also have free ebooks and
audiobooks through OverDrive and Libby.

You can check these out by getting just a
username and password for our website.

So we encourage you to visit our website and
see all the things we have to offer for

you. That's all for me. I'm going to pass it
over to Chris Smith.

Chris?

Christopher Smith: Thanks, Mary.

Good afternoon everybody. My name is
Christopher Smith and I'm a National Programs

Advisor with the National Institute of
Corrections or the NIC.

And on behalf of the NIC, I'd like to welcome
you to today's webinar.

This is the fourth episode in our Everyday
Correctional Emergency Management webinar

series. This episode is hosted by the Prisons
Division of the NIC.

And on behalf of the Prisons Division and the
NIC, I'd like to welcome everybody to

our presentation. Please allow me a moment to
reflect on operational security, as

this is a public webinar that will be recorded
and put on our public website Please

be mindful of what you post in chat.

Please don't use specific names, dates,
locations, or specific facility tactics or

sensitive or law enforcement only information.

We're here to learn more about emergency
preparation and response and how we can

employ it in our facilities. So let's not put
our sensitive information out there

about our or other facilities. Thank you very
much for your consideration in this

area. Now, if you experience any audio
difficulties, we recommend you connecting

with the webinar audio via telephone using the
number provided.

In your registration email. Throughout the
series, we want to hear from you.

You can always email me, Chris Smith.

I'm the webinar series program manager. You
can email me at cmsmith@bop.gov.

with any questions, comments, concerns, or
ideas for future events for this series

or others. We also have one final episode with
our partner webinar series coming up,

Correctional Staff Responses to Medical
Emergencies, and that's going to be on

September 30th. So I and my team from NIC,
including some great staff from the NIC

Information Center, will be posting some
information in chat during this

presentation. So be on the lookout for it
again.

be on the lookout for it. Again, if you have
any questions, please type them in the

chat and we will answer as many as we can at
the end of the webinar.

Today's webinar focuses on what happens when
an emergency or

the response required to manage it continues
beyond the initial response and

requires the organization to sustain
operations into another operational period and

beyond.

Some emergencies are resolved relatively
quickly.

You know, you have a fight on the rec yard,
you're able to break it up real quick, a

person has a medical issue in visiting, you're
able to take care of those

emergencies real quick. But other responses
require more time to be able to

manage them. When the response continues, the
demands of the organization can

change. In corrections, we are accustomed to
thinking in terms of shifts.

Personnel report, work their shift, and are
relieved.

An emergency doesn't necessarily follow that
same schedule shift and schedule Today

we're going to look at what changes when the
response has to continue, how ICS and

how ICS concepts can help us manage those
changes, and what correctional agencies

can do before an incident occurs to prepare
for sustained operations.

Now again, not every emergency becomes a
prolonged event.

But when an incident or your response required
to manage it does extend beyond

initial response you can expect the following
things to occur.

Conditions can change, operational demands can
change, resources can become

strained, additional coordination may be
required, and the correctional mission, but

the correctional mission needs to continue.

The question isn't simply how long will the
emergency last.

It's what changes will we have when we have to
sustain a response.

Now, not every emergency becomes a
multi-operational period incident.

Some emergencies are resolved quickly and the
organization returns to normal

operations and that's good. Our focus today is
going to be on those situations where

the incident or the response required to
manage it continues beyond the initial

response. For corrections, we're usually
talking as an operational period framework,

we're usually talking about 8 to 12 hours as a
practical reference point But of

course that's not how ICS defines an
operational period.

ICS actually lets the IC or UC define the
operational period and that can that can

contract and compress depending on the needs
of the emergency response.

But a lot of times you see at least in the
beginning of an emergency response You

see ICS operational periods of like twelve,
twenty-four, usually like twenty-four

hours. And then it'll expand potentially into
weeks or even months in an operational

period. But for the purposes of today's
presentation, we're going to be using 8 to

12 hours, which is your standard correctional
shift, generally speaking.

So the let's just say that the emergency from
initial response moves into sustained

operations. The correctional mission
definitely must continue.

Your initial response when an emergency,
whether it's something small or something

large, Your initial response should be to
stabilize, assess the situation, protect

life and safety, and address immediate
priorities Then when the response goes from

initial response to sustained operations, you
need to reassess and not just reassess

once, but you need to continuously reassess.

You need to maintain essential functions.

sustain personnel and resources and adjust
priorities and then also prepare for

what's coming next. The important transition
isn't simply that the clock keeps

running. It's the nature of the management
problem can change.

During the initial response, leaders are often
focused on immediate stabilization

and the most urgent need As the response
continues, so you also have to think about

sustaining people, resources, essential
services, information, coordination, and the

correctional mission itself. That's the
transition we're interested in today.

All right, so you're going to have three
challenges in an extended response and

corrections. The first one is complexity, the
second one is resources.

I should say by complexity, I mean more issues
like discussions, organizations and

competing demands. When you're talking
resources, it's people, equipment, supplies,

services, relief, and support And then the
third one is coordination.

More information, more partners, and more

interdependent decisions. The bottom line is
an extended response requires the

organization to manage the emergency and
sustain the correctional mission at the

same time. All right, so these are the these
are the three themes that we're going

to keep coming back to throughout this
webinar.

As agencies become more involved, the need to
share information and coordinate

objectives become more important.

They aren't completely separate issues.

They are going to interact with each other.

So one thing I want to avoid is treating
complexity as a label that we assign to an

incident once and forget about it. Complexity
can change An incident that initially

appears relatively straightforward may become
more complicated as additional

agencies become involved, resources become
strained, or new problems emerge But the

reverse of that can also happen. Some problems
can be resolved.

Some issues may no longer be an issue.

Outside resources can arrive and the
organization become can become smaller and

simpler So complexity analysis is really about
the continuing continually asking

what has changed and what those changes mean
for how the incident management should

be continued. FEMA's ICS framework emphasizes
that ICS is designed to reflect the

complexity and demands of an incident and the
organizational structure is flexible.

So the thing you have to remember is as your
needs change throughout the emergency

response You're the way that you manage it
will change and will compress and flex as

you need it to

So

a resource that is available at the beginning
of an incident isn't necessarily a

resource that can be sustained indefinitely.

Personnel are the most obvious example, but
when the same principle is applied to

equipment, fuel, food, medical supplies,
transportation, maintenance support, and

specialized capabilities. NIMS resource
management guidance emphasizes planning for

resource management before an incident.

Identify gaps, coordinate mutual aid, and
manage resources.

through a deployment through deployment and
demobilization.

For corrections, the key question is not
simply whether we have something, it's

whether we can continue to have it when we
need it.

So we have to pre-plan, not only before the
emergency occurs, but as the emergency

response is continuing. We need to be able to
look ahead to see what supplies And

this is part of that constantly reassess.

We need to determine how many supplies we have
and how much we'll use as the

operational periods progress. And at what
point we're going to need to order the

replacement of those supplies as we use them.

The obvious example being food

and personnel.

So coordination isn't new. When an incident
becomes prolonged, it often becomes more

important. Outside organizations may become
involved because the incident exceeds

the facility's resources or because the
problem crosses jurisdiction or functional

boundaries. That creates a two-way information
requirement.

Corrections needs to understand what other
agencies are doing and planning.

At the same time, these agencies need to
understand operational realities and

constraints of a correctional environment.
That's where we begin moving toward the

unified command and a broader multi-agency
coordination.

If you guys recall, in the previous episodes
we've discussed that Where setting up

these relationships with outside organizations
before an incident occurs allows us

to be able to teach them what we need and it
allows us to be able to understand how

they'll respond.

So by setting up these relationships in
advance, we can already be that much more

prepared for when an incident occurs and we
need to interact with folks from outside

agencies.

So let

me So the thing we need to be aware of is that
the cur the correctional mission

doesn't stop just because there's an
emergency.

All of our correctional requirement items need
to continue even though there's an

emergency. This is one of the central ideas of
this webinar.

A correctional facility can't simply suspend
its normal operations because an

emergency has occurred. Even when normal
operations are disrupted, people remain in

custody and continue to require security,
medical care, food, water, sanitation

movement and other essential services.

So the emergency response isn't replacing the
correctional mission.

The organization has to figure out how to
sustain both.

This is the point where we move from
describing the problem to describing to

discussing how ICS and FEMA's NIMS system
helps us to manage it.

The end of the operational period is an
opportunity to reassess.

So when you're when you reach the end of an
operational period, whatever you set it

as, whether it's eight hours or twelve hours
or twenty-four hours.

that's your time to kind of to assess the
situation.

And by assess we mean what's happened during
this during this current operational as

this current operational period ends is when
we're asking this So we want to be able

to ask what's happened during this operation
operational period?

What has changed in the emergency and our and
our needed response to it?

What did we accomplish? What still remains?

What do we need to accomplish during the next
operational period?

And importantly for corrections is what does
the next operational period mean for

our facilities continuing mission? And this is
where the Planning P, as FEMA calls

it the tool of Planning P becomes useful.

So if you notice the Planning P is on the
right, on the left is just our kind of

tool. It's just to tell you that it's a
continuing circle.

You assess, establish, plan Brief, execute,
evaluate,

and adjust. The Planning P represents the
recurring operational period planning

cycle. FEMA describes it as a sequence of
meetings, briefings.

and briefings used for incident action
planning and shows the cycle repeating across

operational periods. The Operational O
represents the operational execution and

assessment portion of that cycle.

So for our purposes, think about this as one
recurring management rhythm.

You assess, you set, or update objectives, you
plan, brief, execute, adjust, and

repeat That's the concept. So let me just take
a minute.

If you look on the right again, that is what
FEMA calls their Planning P.

You'll see the red part and the blue part.

you heard me refer respond to a Planning P and
an Operational O during this

information. If you look, it's a P. If you if
you look at both the red and the blue.

If you look if you're not familiar with this
If you look at just the blue portion,

that's your Operational O. You can get this
off of FEMA's websites, also from some

of their training materials So the P is where
you start in the red at the initial

incident or event. That's at the bottom leg of
the leg of the P.

So you're gonna have your initial event that
occurs, whether it's a major fight and

food service or it's a hurricane or a train
accident near your facility.

That's the incident or event Then you're going
to do your notifications.

It's going to be your control officer. Start
to let your staff at the facility know

and if there's anybody outside the facility
they need to let know I'm just going to

give everybody a quick overview of this. You
can look up more as you do trainings in

FEMA and ICS, but then it goes from initial
response and assessment.

And then you start to do your initial brief,
which there's a specific form for.

And then you're going to have your initial
meeting. If it's just your initial and

it's just the institution, that's probably
going to be when your warden, your AW,

and your department heads are going to meet to
be able to start planning this.

And then that's what leads into the
Operational O.

And basically it's the cycle. You just
continue to go into that O and you'll follow

the arrows until the until the incident has
resolved itself.

So it's just as we said, you assess the
situation, you establish what you need to

accomplish during that operational period, and
then and then you go and plan how

you're actually going to do it And then you
brief all your subordinates down the

chain of command, and then you go out and
execute the plans that you made, then you

evaluate how those plans worked And then you
adjust and then you reassess.

And you just continue that cycle throughout
the entire oper throughout the entire

emergency response.

All right, so now we translate the Planning P
and Operations O into corrections.

The planning cycle isn't valuable simply
because we're using a FEMA diagram.

It's valuable because it forces the
organization to periodically stop.

Ask what has changed and what needs to come
next.

For correctional agencies, those questions
need to include things that may not be

obvious to outside responders. It needs to be
staffing, custody issues.

Inmate movement, medical continuity,
utilities, maintenance, food, sanitation, and

other essential services

This is where the complexity analysis

Sorry. This is where the complexity analysis
becomes practical.

Rather than simply saying that this is a type
blank incident or this is complex.

We're asking what has changed since the last
operational period.

The emergency itself may have changed, but
equally important, the required response

may have changed as well. For example, perhaps
the original problem was

being stabilized, but infrastructure problems
have emerged.

Or perhaps outside agencies have arrived and
the coordination problem is now more

complicated than the original emergency And
that's why complexity has to be

evaluated over time.

This is an area where I want to this is an
area where I want us to be precise.

Unified command is not simply everyone is in
charge.

It is a structure that allows agencies with
different authorities and

responsibilities. To work together toward
common incident objectives.

FEMA specifically states that unified command
does not affect individual agency

authority, responsibility, or accountability.
That distinction matters enormously in

corrections. because participants may hear
unified command and wonder, does that

mean that the fire chief is now in charge of
my prison?

Not necessarily The structure is about
coordinated management of the incident while

participating organizations retain their
respective authorities and challenges.

So when an incident goes it grows so large
that it can't be controlled just by the

prison, we need to go from an incident
commander to a unified command.

And that is not to put the warden in the back
in the in the back of the incident the

warden needs to be part of that unified
command. Simply put, what a unified command

does is it takes all the all the all the
people that have a shared responsibility in

that response and puts one person as a
representative of each of those agencies or

companies into that unified command.

So if it's a hurricane hitting oh hurricane's
a bad example.

let's just say there's a train that goes off
its tracks near the facility and it has

hazmat on it. So in that case, you're gonna
have lots of people, people from the

train are going to have somebody there on the
unified command leadership.

Obviously we will have somebody there, the
warden or AW, and then you're going to

have somebody who's a hazmat expert who's
there.

You essentially want to bring everybody that
has responsibility as a stakeholder in

that response. And they get a seat at the at
the leadership table.

and that's what makes up a unified command as
a very simply put statement.

So it's not to take authority away per se from
the warden, it is to give it to the

group that all holds responsibility.

That is the question I think we that needs
this is a question that I think needs to

resonate with correction leaders. What happens
when the warden is not fully in

charge of an emergency That can happen in
different ways depending on the incident,

jurisdiction, authorities involved, and
command structure.

The important point isn't that the correction
somehow gives away its

responsibilities. It's that the correctional
leaders may have to operate within a

broader coordination structure. That requires
a different skill set.

Instead of assuming I'm the warden and
therefore I'm making all the emergency

decisions The leader needs to make sure that
the broader incident management

structure understands the correctional
consequences of its decisions.

For example, if someone proposes moving a
large number of people through a facility,

what does that mean for custody and security?

If an area is being used for staging, what
does that what effect does that have on

facility access If transportation resources
are redirected, what happens to medical

movement? Corrections has to bring those
considerations into common operating

picture. And that's why it's important that
when it shifts over from an IC to a UC,

that we make sure that we have somebody from
Corrections, the warden or AW who's

there as a as a representative member of the
UC because we need to make sure they

understand how this emergency and the response
affects our continued mission.

So this is

the practical extension of the unified
command.

Corrections has to be able to explain its
operational requirements in a way that

other agencies can understand But this is also
a two-way relationship.

Corrections needs to understand what partners
can provide and what they can't

provide, what their priorities are, and how
the broader response may affect the

facility. FEMA's NIMS command and coordination
framework emphasizes coordination

among incident operations, support,
policy-level decision making, and information

functions. For us, the important point is that
corrections needs to be a part of

that coordination rather than being outside of
it. You know, when it comes to my

example a minute ago of the train accident
with Hazmat on it, you know, ultimately

the m most of the folks on that on that are
members of the UC are going to want

their emphasis to be rightfully so on the
greater community, on making sure that

people don't get sick from the hazmats making
sure that there's no remaining hazmat

exposure threat in that local immediate area.

And so we don't necessarily as corrections
rise to the top of their priority list

And unfortunately they don't always think
about us. And that's why it's important to

have a member of your institution or your
staff, like I said, the warden, the AW,

who's always a member of the UC and you rotate
as the operational periods dictate.

But we need to have someone there. Of course
the priorities are going to be

community-wide, but we need to make sure that
our mission is able to continue even

with their priorities and not necessarily
always focused on us

I want to be careful with terminology here.

We're not saying that the incident commander
simply gets bigger and smaller.

What we're talking about is the ICS
organization itself adapting to the management

requirement of the incident. FEMA describes
ICS as a flexible organizational

structure designed to reflect the complexity
and demands of the incident.

That's important during prolonged incidents
because an organization can become

overloaded if it doesn't add the capabilities
needed to manage increasing the cre

the increase in complexity. But the also the
opposite of that is true as well.

Keeping unnecessary structure after the need
has disappeared can create its own

problems A lot of times the easy way to see
this is in the is in the ICS

organizational chart. If you guys are with us
for prior episodes, you would have

seen Prince William County's

ICS org chart that they had built specifically
for their general needs.

Some of you may have seen other ICS org
charts.

And those are specifically built by FEMA in
such a way that you can add or take away

depending on the needs of your facility.

Initially during response, the emergency
response is going to be huge And you're

going to need a lot of people and equipment
and supplies and movement to in order to

respond to that incident But as an emergency
starts to settle and get resolved, you

don't need to keep the same personnel and
structure and equipment.

that you did in the beginning. So you can
start to compress that and not only remove

people but remove stuff and remove levels of
your organizational chart as well.

and that's important because you don't want to
keep ten thousand people responding

to an emergency if the need to respond to it
is down to five thousand because you're

gonna wear those folks out. You're gonna burn
up resources that you may need as this

incident quells, another incident may come in.

An example may be like the hurricane season.

You may have a tropical storm and if you wear
everybody out in the tropical storm

when that hurricane hits in two weeks in your
same area then they're not going to be

ready or able to respond to it because we wore
them out and overexerted them during

the during the current emergency.

So that's what I'm talking about

This is where the issue becomes very tangible
for corrections.

Staff is not an infinite resource If people if
people are kept on duty longer than

expected or cannot leave because of
transportation security or other circumstances

prevent relief, the organization has created a
resource management problem.

Fatigue isn't simply an employee wellness
issue.

NIOSH notes that work-related fatigue can
affect reaction time, attention,

concentration, memory, judgment, and safety.

Corrections is among public safety occupations
where shift work and long work hours

can create fatigue risk in normal situations,
let alone during an emergency.

So when we're talking about staffing during
prolonged emergencies, we're talking

about operational capability, not simply

employee comfort. And you also the other thing
you need to think about too is this

incident may have impacted if it's impacted
the whole local community, it's probably

impacted your local staff on a personal level
as well.

You know, if it's a hurricane, it may have hit
their home as well, and their home

may be damaged. So they're going to be split
between needing to work on their house

and their family and working at the
institution.

Medical continuity deserves specific

Attention because the medical mission doesn't
disappear when an emergency begins.

Some medical needs may actually become more
difficult to manage because staff

because staff, transportation, facilities,
outside providers, or supplies are

affected by the incident The World Health
Organization identifies continuity of

essential health services during emergencies
as a core component of resilient health

systems and notes that emergencies can disrupt
routine and essential services

through the changes in workforce supplies
access and demand.

for corrections that means medical continuity
has to be considered as part of a

sustained incident planning not treated as if
something separate from an emergency

management. So what we need to be aware of is
that in corrections, not only

can the actual incident or emergency create
medical need in amongst our inmate

and staff that are at the institution, but the
prolonged nature of the response can

also add emergency or medical needs to the
inmate population as well, not to mention

their continued care also needs to be
addressed while the emergency response

continues

And an extended emergency can expose how
dependent correctional operation An

extended emergency can expose how dependent
correctional operations are on systems.

that aren't always thought of as emergency
response functions.

Power is obvious, but consider water, HVAC,
fuel, food,

sanitation. communications, transportation,
maintenance, and security systems.

I would add in there a power generator. I was
at a facility.

where a hurricane hit the facility and even
though we routinely tested the p the

generator, we ended up having to get the
generator fixed because it didn't work

after the initial event. A correctional
facility may be able to tolerate a

short disruption differently than it can
tolerate the same disruption for 24, 48, or

even 72 hours. The longer the incident
continues, the more important it is to ask

not simply what can we operate without, but
how long can we operate without this

particular item? You know, and just to bring
up one example of probably something

you're not thinking about right off the menu,
if we think about some big emergency,

we're probably thinking about lots of big and
important things.

Like I said, medical is big and important.
Getting food in and out into the inmates

and staff is important You know, but maybe
something that doesn't get thought about

ahead of time is the roster of the inmates
that you have on your on your compound.

You need to if you don't have power, you need
to make sure before that incident

occurs, if it's like a hurricane coming where
you can plan on it.

You need to make sure that you always have a
copy of the roster of inmates that you

have there. Because if power goes out, you
still need to maintain knowledge of what

inmates are there and be able to conduct
counts To ensure that all the inmates that

you had on your roster before the incident
occur are still there throughout the

incident and when it ends. So we don't think
about things like that, being able to

have an accurate roster during an emergency.

So always make sure as part of your planning
that you do you think about that.

But also you need to be mindful of that when
power goes out, that's one of those

things that you need to address as soon as
power comes back on

So this is an important way to think about
sustained operations.

In normal circumstances, we tend to divide an
organization into functions.

Security is security. Maintenance is
maintenance.

Medical is medical. Transportation is
transportation.

But during a prolonged emergency, those
boundaries become much less meaningful.

A maintenance failure, like a fence outage or
electricity being out, can then affect

security You know, if your if your fence is
down, that's going to affect security

potentially. A transportation shortage could
turn out to be a medical problem If you

have an inmate with a sudden medical incident
like a heart attack or maybe their

blood sugar skyrockets in the response and
they're having a they're going into a

diabetic coma You got to be able to transport
that inmate to a medical facility

where you can get advanced care. So not having
a vehicle to do it can take it from a

transportation shortage and that can affect
your medical care.

A staffing shortage can affect supervision.

A utility problem can affect everything.

If you have no water or no power, that's going
to impact everything.

not only to be able to eat and drink and cook
food, but to for the inmates to be

able to shower and take care of other hygiene
needs.

that literally having no utilities can
seriously impact you for a while That's why

sustained operation plans need to look across
functions rather than treating them

each independently. Remember, one can lead to
another, which is what our slide is

showing us here

This brings us to the correctional reality
together.

These aren't six independent categories
They're interconnected, and the central

question is whether the organization can
continue performing its correctional

mission while sustaining the response.

And that's the question we want participants
to take back to their agencies Alright,

so you just can't think of all these things as
separate independent things.

These are all things that not only stack on
themselves, but also interconnect.

if we could update our slide, you know, you
could always draw lines between them.

Again, remember, as we said in the last slide,
it may be a maintenance problem now,

but that becomes a utilities problem. And then
the utilities problem becomes a

security custody issue. And then that becomes
the medical.

So it's not just one thing leads directly to
another.

All these things are stacked, but then they
can also move horizontally or laterally

to affect other things as well.

So what we're suggesting is for everybody to
build your own sustained operations

planning process. And at one point we thought
about giving everybody like a

simplified checklist. But we didn't want to do
that.

We didn't want you to start with a checklist.
We wanted you to start thinking about

an operational period. Just think about your
shift If you have eight-hour shifts or

12-hour shifts, think of those when you're
doing this pre-planning process, not as

shifts, but as operational periods.

This is intentionally not a checklist for
participants to take home to simply check

boxes. Instead I want you to understand how to
build your own planning process.

Every correctional agency is different. And
even within agency, in each institution

will be different. If you're a medium, which
is male inmates, if you're low, which

is female inmates, if you're a jail that has
both pre-conviction, post-conviction,

male, female, and different medical That's
going to be different than a c than a

than a prison that has just male low security
inmates.

Those are going to be completely different. So
each planning process is going to be

different A state prison, a county jail, a
juvenile facility, a correctional, a

community correctional operation, and tribal
correctional agencies may have

different vulnerabilities and resources. So
rather than giving everyone the same

checklist, we want to give you a way to
develop questions that are appropriate for

you to build your own operations planning
process.

Start with the operational period. Again, for
the purposes of us in the prisons and

corrections, you know, use something as simple
as your as your shift structure,

eight and twelve, eight or twelve hours.

and build from there. Ask what changes need to
would need to occur if a response

continues. You know, you can start to think
about that now.

If you have if you're planning based on your
eight hour shift What do you need to be

able to make sure that you could do to go from
one eight-hour shift to the next to

the next? And you can start to plan that. You
can you have things that occur

regularly. You know, you're always gonna have
to have to hand out meds a few times a

day. You're always gonna have to have a sick
call.

You're gonna have to feed meals a few times a
day So those are things that you can

plan on that you can start to work into your
planning process.

Then work through people, missions, resources,
services, coordination, and the next

operational period. That becomes a repeatable
planning method.

All right, so I want you to ask, what if this
lasts?

What if what if your emergency Whether it's
the hurricane or the train accident.

What if it goes past one or two or three
shifts to a month, three months, six

months? when that hurricane hit Florida a
couple years ago that caused just

catastrophic flooding in the mountains of
eastern Tennessee and western North

Carolina, they did not get that resolved in a
shift or two.

It went on for I mean in some areas there may
still be a response going on, but it

definitely lasted for months and probably a
year.

so you need to be prepared for what if it goes
beyond one shift or two shifts This

is where I would slow down, engage your
audience.

Your audience is going to be your staff at
your institution.

Your regional folks or your agency folks
probably ought to be your part of your

audience as well We could use a generic
scenario rather than a highly specific

disaster. For example, we could tell them that
an incident began early in the

morning. The initial response went reasonably
well, but by the end of the shift, the

incident isn't resolved Then ask participants
to think what has changed.

At this, the point isn't to produce a perfect
answer.

It's to get them thinking in terms of
sustained operations.

And then we can extend it. What if it lasts
another shift?

What if it lasts another day? What if key
partners become unavailable?

What if a critical resource becomes scarce?

The exercise reinforces the planning cycle and
the need to anticipate the next

operational period. The best example I can
give for that is when COVID hit.

If everybody remembers when COVID hit,
suddenly everybody was wanting to get face

masks. And everybody was wanting to get gloves
and everybody was wanting to get

Plexiglas. I don't know that we could have
said, hey, what happens if a COVID hits?

But we need to think about those things,
because if you recall I was part of the

ordering process for the institution I was at.
To get a few boxes of gloves may take

months for us to have gotten So you need to
think about that.

What are those things that you're absolutely
going to need if it continues well into

the into an extended period of a response?

All right. I have talked really fast.

We're going to get done a little earlier than
an hour.

But here are three things we want you to do
before your next sustained emergency.

We want you to identify, build, and develop.

This is where I'd slow down and engage your
audience.

Again, your audience is

what your staff, your local staff, your local
community, maybe your regional or

agency folks. All right? You're going to use
generic scenario rather than a highly

specific disaster. For example, when you tell
them that an incident began early in

the morning, the initial response went
reasonably well, but by the incident, by the

end of the shift, the incident isn't resolved.

So that's the were the scenario that you
introduce to your audience or your staff

Maybe you want to have a table planning
session with your exec staff and your

department heads. That could be how you bring
in that how you can bring in the

initial response and you can get people
talking from there All right, so then you're

going to ask your participants to think about
what has changed through your

explanation of the of the scenario.

And again, there's no perfect answer I'm
reading the wrong notes.

I apologize, everybody.

if participants remember only three things
from today's webinar.

I'd like this to be them. First, understand
what happens to your organization when

the normal shift cycle is disrupted.

That's where your emergency occurs. Second,
establish relationships for an emergency

before an emergency requires them.

NIMS resource management guidance specifically
emphasizes advance planning,

coordination, identifying gaps, and mutual aid
relationships.

the previous webinar that we did, the episode
three, should be

on our website here very soon. That was a
really good webinar on how to build the

relationships with outside first response
agencies.

And then another video I'd recommend is the
one before that, episode two, or webinar

two. That talked about as simply how you could
build a relationship and it used

local offices of emergency management
examples. So I would watch episode two and

then episode three. to back that question this
question up.

And then third, don't plan only the current
operational period.

Build a process that allows your organization
to ask What's changed, what comes

next, and what resources and capability will
be required to sustain the mission So

again, this is something that you can do on
your own. This is this is the three

things that you need to remember. And it's
very simple.

It can be as simple as your executive staff
and your department heads.

And you sit down in a in your conference room
and you have a tabletop

discussion. And you go through this cycle.

And you can plan all sorts of emergencies
doing this.

But that will allow you to think about as an
emergency progresses from an immediate

response through potentially weeks or months
of a response what you need to plan on,

what you could build at your institution in
preparation, and what you need to seek

out in advance. Maybe you realize that you
need more potable water capability if an

emergency was to be in months. And so maybe
you can work on either building a

relationship with an outside agency that can
help you with that or build your own

capabilities to be able to provide water in an
emergency.

All right, so key takeaways.

When an emergency doesn't end, the problem
changes.

The planning and operation cycles repeat.

The correctional mission continues, and the
organization must adapt.

What I would also say in addition to this is
build relationships now with your

emergency response partners that are in your
area.

the better relationship you have with them,
the better able that you guys are all

gonna respond to an emergency. And that may be
your local agencies, but if you have

it like a for the example of the train track
running behind your facility, a lot of

prisons speaking from my own experience, but a
lot of prisons are out in the

country. And a lot of times that's also where
your train tracks are.

Inevitably, a lot of times facilities have
train tracks within a couple of miles of

their institution It would be a it would
definitely be a strong thing to build a

relationship with that train company, whoever
owns that tracks or runs on those

tracks, so that you could be given you know
access information the moment a train

wrecks has anytime you have a train wreck,
there's a list of people they're gonna

call. You know, if you build a relationship,
you could be on that list So that your

institution isn't waiting to see it on the
news and then responding.

You're getting a much quicker response because
they're you're on the list that train

that train company calls when there's an
accident in your area so that you can start

to respond. That makes a big difference if
it's a if it's a chemical that's airborne

that's a it's a it's a gas or something and it
can reach your facility quick.

So if you're already built a relationship with
that train company and they reach out

to you, then you can decide at that point
based on what it is and how quick it's

moving if you need to structure some sort of
shelter in place or if you need to

start doing an evacuation. So building
relationships ahead of time are gonna are

gonna immensely help you in a response.

And then the other thing is I would work with
your staff, prepare for them for a UC,

knowing that the warden may not only the
warden but other people other supervisory

staff May not be their facility staff.

You know, maybe because of how the UC is
structured and how the org chart is, maybe

there's a private You know, maybe the city
plumbing works comes in and is managing

part of the response, they're over your
plumbing department at your institution

simply because that's the way the UC
structured it and that was going to give them

the best response and the best benefit for the
institution.

So I'm just using that as an example.

But if you prepare your institution for
knowing that There may be somebody other

than the warden that's helping to lead you
through this, that will better prepare

your staff for the incident as well So I like
I said I talked really fast

faster than I normally do these so we got
through it really quick so we definitely

have time for questions Chad, if you want to
come back on, have we had many

questions in the chat? And while we're looking
or bringing that up, I know we only

have a few folks here, but if you have a
question and you want to ask it, go ahead

and type it in

NIC Webinar Host: So we do have a question
here.

Okay. With these infrastructure and essential
services, doesn't it motivate a person

on the street to commit crime?

than staying on the street because they can be
taken care of in a correctional

facility, which is better than being on the
street

Christopher Smith: I mean that's I mean that
certainly is a motivation for some folks.

I'd be lying to you if I told you no.

I started my career off at a county jail.

I won't say which one but there I can remember
two or three guys every winter that

would get arrested for public intoxication.

because where it was it have it would have
cold winters and they would get arrested

for drinking on the street and they would
bring 'em in And they would stay there for

two or three days, be in a warm place, get
meals for a couple of days, and of course

we'd have to release them. It's a it's a
relatively minor charge A few days later,

they would get arrested again for public
intoxication.

You know, you're gonna have some people that
view this as a part of a plan for them.

I mean that can't affect how we respond or
whether or not we allow people I mean if

a person gets arrested and or sentenced
depending on whether we're a jail or a

prison. that regardless of what their
motivation was, it shouldn't affect us or our

response. You know, our job is to is to
maintain people in a correctional facility

that were sentenced by a court and that's our
job, regardless of what the person's

motivation was to do the offense. so that
shouldn't affect whether or not we have

them in our facilities, if that makes sense.

does that answer your question

NIC Webinar Host: Yes. All right, great.
Appreciate it.

Any

Christopher Smith: anybody else have any
questions?

I give you guys another minute or two to type
in any questions.

Let me just say here real quick, you know, I
think a theme of our, even if it's not

official, unofficial theme throughout this
entire web series is about trying to

demystify the ICS and NIMS process.

It's about making it accessible and tangible
to you and whether you are a small,

small tribal facility that has you know two or
three people inside

your holding facility or you're a federal
correctional complex with several thousand

The point is, is we're trying to make this
accessible to everyday corrections.

We want this to not be a scary thing. We want
this to be easy for you to manage and

for you to think about in advance. So it looks
like we have no more questions.

NIC Webinar Host: Nope. It looks like you did
a wonderful job, Mr.

Smith.

Christopher Smith: I appreciate it, Chad.
Thank you. This is my contact information.

If you want to reach out with any questions or
comments, please feel free to do so.

We also, I know there's only a couple of folks
here, so it's really important today.

As if it's not important every other day, it
is But if you guys could please

complete the survey, I would greatly, greatly
appreciate it.

Everybody from me to the director reviews
these and applies it to programs.

This is This is what we use to determine
whether or not a program continues or

doesn't continue. This is what we use to make
sure training trends of the future

occur. There's a question on here that asks
you what you'd like to see in the

future. That's an excellent place for you to
put what you'd like to see in the

future. If it's a topic you haven't seen from
me or from another division, then

that's your place to put it. Also, you know,
whether it's good or bad news, if you

say I was great, great If you say I could I
need work on stuff, then that's great

too. I mean this is how we get better, and
that's all about us getting better to be

to build a better product for you guys.

You guys are our customers. So this survey is
what gives us the ability to do that.

So I'll leave this up here for another moment.
You can use your if you have a phone

with you, you can scan the QR code or you can
write down the hyperlink and key it

into your website later or your computer later
and access it and please complete a

survey i would greatly appreciate it

NIC Webinar Host: and i'll put the link in
chat here real quick

Christopher Smith: All right, thank you, Chad.

Put that back up. And folks, I want to thank
you for coming to this webinar.

Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate you
being here.

I hope you enjoyed not only this episode, this
was our fourth episode of the fiscal

year. This is our final episode of the season.

So of the of the fiscal year.

so hopefully this was beneficial.

They will be if some of them are already on
the website Please access them whenever

you need it. You'll be able to watch the
videos.

And of course this one as well once it's made
508 compliant.

So it'll be up there. You can re-watch it with
your exec staff or with your

department or just by yourself to better
prepare.

as I mentioned earlier, we also have our final
When Correctional Staff Respond to

Medical Emergencies episode coming up on the
30th.

So please go to our website, look for that,
and the registration link should be

there in the next day or two. If you could
please register and come to that webinar,

we'd greatly appreciate it. Chad and I will be
there for that one as well All right,

guys, that is all I have. I really appreciate
you being here.

Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed it and
I hope you learned at least a couple

of things. Thank you. I appreciate everybody.

NIC Webinar Host: And thank you, Mr. Smith.