What is emergency planning?
Emergencies are happening somewhere in the country almost every minute of every day. The emergency services (police, fire, ambulance and other organisations) deal with them quickly and efficiently. These incidents can include traffic accidents, fires, medical emergencies and other serious incidents. The local authorities do not necessarily activate their emergency plans for these incidents.
It is when a more disastrous event takes place that is beyond the capacity of the emergency services to deal with unaided that the Borough special plans are put into action. These plans are designed to support the emergency services in their difficult task.
- What sort of disaster could happen?
- What plans have been made?
Definition of major emergency
We define a "major emergency" as any emergency that requires the implementation of special arrangements by one or more of the emergency services, the NHS or the local authority, for:
- the initial treatment, rescue and transport of a large number of casualties
- the involvement either directly or indirectly of large numbers of people
- the handling of a large number of enquiries likely to be generated both from the public and the news media, usually to the police
- the need for the large scale combined resources of two or more of the emergency services
- the mobilisation and organisation of the emergency services and supporting organisations, for example a local authority, to cater for the threat of death, serious injury or homelessness to a large number of people.
When the immediate life threatening period has passed, the Local Authority will play a major role in restoring normality to the area affected as quickly as possible.
What sort of disaster could happen?
Disasters can happen anywhere and any time and they can take many forms. Violent storms, the Lockerbie air-crash, the fire at Kings Cross station and the terrorist bombing of London's Dockland. Whatever shape a disaster may take, should it happen in Walsall the people affected would look to the Council to react promptly as promised in their public charters.
The type of disaster and the extent of its scale will determine which Council Service area(s) will be the most heavily involved. It is probable that the consequences will involve a large number of personnel for a considerable time and will call for much effort and dedication from all.
Why should we bother to make plans?
When a major emergency occurs the speed of response, and particularly in the first instance, is critical. This is not the time for any of us to ask "Where do I go and what do I do?". Generally speaking, local authority staff will be asked to carry out their normal working functions; but in crisis conditions. They will also be operating with many other organisations and agencies, including those from the voluntary sector. Under these circumstances co-ordination of the total activity becomes paramount otherwise chaos could well reign. Therefore, plans are prepared to ensure that we are not caught totally unawares.
Procedures have been developed to help in the setting up of a model organisation in the shortest possible time. Once in place the senior managers can assess the situation and determine the appropriate level of response. It is essential that the planning is flexible so that the response can be expanded or contracted should circumstances change. If there were to be no guidelines, or a basic organisational response, much valuable time would be lost, to the benefit of no one.
What plans have been made?
It would not be sensible to try to produce individual plans for every event that may happen. We can instead concentrate the planning into three broad areas:
Site specific
Applies to major industrial sites, such as the British Gas / TRANSO Gas Holder at James Bridge at Darlaston.
Foreseeable events
A number of potentially hazardous events can be foreseen and planned for accordingly.
Unforeseen events
The extent that possible disasters - natural or man created - could affect Walsall is limited only by the imagination.
The approach to planning for such events must be as flexible as they are various. A framework developed in which all of the responding organisations and agencies can be brought together quickly, their efforts co-ordinated and the available resources used to maximum effect. A generic plan, known as the Walsall Emergency Plan is written to cover all of these eventualities.