So.....What's Next? A 'Brady Bunch' Approach to School Safety? Seems About Right....

Who remembers a TV show in the 1970's called The Brady Bunch? For that matter, does anyone besides me remember the start to The Brady Bunch? It begins by saying "this is a story". The show, for those too young to remember, is about a blended family that includes three boys (sons of the father in the series) and three girls (daughters of the mother in the series). It took place in the 1970's, so I wouldn't be too surprised if some folks don't remember it.

Anyway, the show featured a lot of family dynamics going on. Some might even call those family dynamics dysfunctional. Things often got a bit chaotic at times by standards of the time. But the things I remember about the show include how the lessons learned by the children from their individual parents before being blended into The Brady Bunch influenced how they reacted to their new lives as The Brady Bunch. Morals of the stories presented? There was always a happy ending with lessons learned somewhere along the way in each episode.

Well, this blog post will use The Brady Bunch as an analogy to emergency management in an effort to help define the role emergency management should have in the school safety arena. I use The Brady Bunch in this analogy to try and help illustrate that school safety can be dysfunctional. That school safety doesn't always reflect lessons learned. That school safety can be chaotic. That school safety requires 'family dysfunction'. It's a short story of how difficult it can be to help people understand emergency management, and hopefully prompt them to get involved in it. The process can be chaotic at times. It can involve interpersonal dysfunction at times. In emergency management, there aren't always happy endings either. Sometimes there's even lessons learned that aren't really lessons learned.

Take the Margery Stoneman Douglas (MSD) school massacre as just one example. In their final report, the authors cited the Columbine massacre final report and lessons learned therein as an example that guided their research and results/recommendations. That's a problem. Why, you ask? Because the findings from the Columbine massacre final report were intended to have been a school safety guide for EVERYONE, including MSD officials, responsible for their school's school safety efforts PRIOR TO an incident occurring. In other words, the Columbine massacre final report should have been used as a template, so to speak, for other schools, including MSD, to address the issue of school safety BEFORE their massacre, not after.

There have been quite a few school massacres since MSD. Virtually the same song has been sung following each and every one of them. That song reflects the same song sung following the MSD massacre. A quote often attributed to Albert Einstein (some say it wasn't him, but it doesn't really matter) goes: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” When it comes to school safety, this rings so true, it's scary (even if Einstein wasn't the author). I've been at this a very long time. To keep seeing the same things over and over and over with little to no change is frustrating beyond measure!

Bottom line? Emergency management is not rocket science. Anyone can do it and engage in it. But first, those who do engage in it must also become knowledgeable about what it is and what it does.

Way back in 1990, I began my job with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BUREC). This government agency owns and operates over 300 dams in the western half of the U.S.

I was hired to work in their Early Warning Systems Program. This program theoretically consisted of 5 separate and distinct components:

1. Detection: Crap! Something's happening, and it don't look too good!
2. Decisionmaking: What the hell do we do now?
3. Notification: Well, maybe we should let someone know what's going on.
4. Warning: Up to them to notify their community, not us! Not our responsibility.
5. Evacuation: Up to them to get folks out of harm's way, not us! Not our responsibility.

Anyone see anything wrong with this approach?

First of all, Detection: What's happening? Is it a flood? Is there a structural problem? How bad is it?

Second, Decisionmaking: Is there a reasonable threat to the structure, and, if so, is it also a threat to anyone downstream?

Third, Notification: If you, as the owner of the hazard, don't know what to do about what's happening, where does that leave everyone else?

Fourth, Warning: There's a population at risk. Who should be notified if you, the owner of that risk, don't know who to contact downstream?

And, fifth, Evacuation: Who should be evacuated? Is this a dam failure in progress or something less? What if an order to evacuate is given and the potential threat isn't all that much to worry about? What if an order to evacuate is given and whatever happens to the dam is bigger than the area of evacuation and lives are lost?

Lot's of questions, no real thought given to answering them.

As the owner of a hazard (dams - Grand Coulee Dam, Hoover Dam, Glen Canyon Dam - any of those ring a bell?), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation ethically, morally, and legally has a responsibility to consider the population at risk downstream from its dams.

A colleague and I immediately began to question why a robust emergency management program hadn't been considered instead of just early warning systems? Early warning systems had their place within an emergency management program, but were no substitute for them, that's for sure! Just as drills have a place within emergency management programs for schools, but are NOT a substitute for them.

Ever run into a brick wall? No one wanted to hear this emergency management program question. "Our dams don't fail!" was the retort we always got. Here's a snapshot of a typical conversation with BUREC personnel:

ME: If our dams don't fail, might they still pose a threat to populations at risk downstream if normal operations exceed normal operations?

BUREC: Good Gawd, man! We aren't responsible for anything downstream if that happens.

ME: If some of our dams can release huge quantities of water without even spilling from the spillway, what do you do then? Call someone and tell them to inflate their rafts (by the way, this actually happened way back in 1976 when the Teton Dam in Idaho failed and caused death and massive destruction downstream).

BUREC: Well, maybe. But warning and evacuation still aren't our responsibility!

ME: Never said they were.

BUREC: But, that's what you're implying!

ME: No, I'm not. I'm simply trying to get you to recognize that everyone has to work together in order to most adequately provide for the safety of the public in areas downstream from our dams.

BUREC: But that would mean we'd have to talk to those folks, wouldn't it?

ME: Yep. Let's get on it!

BUREC: Nope! If we do that, they'll think there's something wrong with our dams. We don't want to risk that!

ME: If something goes wrong at one of our dams, and the folks downstream aren't adequately trained on the system to begin with, and lives are lost, and there is damage to their property, who do you think they're going to blame? Y'all better be prepared to repel a horde with torches and pitchforks if anything like that happens.

Now, apply the above conversation to so many conversations that take place following any number of school massacres. You should be able to see a defintie pattern of what happens following just about any disaster, including school massacres.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this. But, suffice to say, my colleague and I weren't able to make any progress on getting emergency management programs accepted within BUREC until one day sometime in 1993, the Assistant Commissioner of Reclamation (second highest chingadeta in the organization) was standing on the crest of one of our dams alongside the project manager responsible for the operation and maintenance of that dam, looking out over a sprawling community of somewhere around 75,000 people, most of whom resided, along with the business district, in the already mapped "probable maximum flood" floodplain. He turned to the project manager and asked if "those people down there" were prepared if something bad should happen at the dam.

The project manager's response? "I don't know."

Well, that certainly didn't go over well! Although, for those of us promoting emergency management programs for our dams, perhaps it was the right answer because it certainly set things in motion for us.

Within days, our small group of emergency management specialists was tasked with developing a comprehensive set of emergency management program guidelines to comply with a new U.S. Bureau of Reclamation policy requiring full spectrum emergency management programs at every single one of our dams. And so it began.

It wouldn't be until 1995 that those guidelines were finally published. Even though it isn't rocket science, it is very difficult, frustrating, time consuming work to design, develop, and implement full spectrum emergency management programs. Sort of like establishing emergency management programs for schools, eh? But I digress.

I bring this up simply from the perspective that in Colorado, we have a state law (I've mentioned it before) known as SB 08-181 that requires every single school in the state of Colorado to design, develop, and implement full spectrum emergency management programs fully compliant with the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS).

So, now we keep seeing these types of objections to emergency management programs for schools coming from school administrators:

• "What? You're kidding! Right? Right?"
• "Where's the money to do this?"
• "We don't have the expertise."
• "Where's the guidance?"
• "But it's not our job! First responders are supposed to do this stuff!'

Is it really any wonder that many schools in Colorado have failed to fully comply with this underfunded, understaffed mandate? Now apply that to schools nationally, and we are faced with an astonishing school safety failure. 

Sure, there's been moderate attempts at implementing new technology, security systems, and even different looks at what to do in the event an active shooter tries to cause havoc in a school. But there's no national standard.....yet. 

And that's where parents, students, communities, first response organizations, emergency managers, and other key stakeholders come in. The expertise is there. There's no need to re-invent any wheels. There's no need to spend a fortune. This can be done, and done very well, at very little cost except for a commitment of time and effort. The key to success in emergency management, as it is in life as far as I'm concerned, is the ability, and more importantly, the willingness to not only be able to listen to what's being said, but also to actually hear what's being said. Not an easy thing to do. So, if anyone is looking for a moral to this story/blog post, there it is.

If you, or someone you know, is willing to dive into getting emergency management programs for schools going, a good place to start might be to find the resources that can help you, or someone you know, get started. I've put together a comprehensive, but by no means complete, list of School Safety Resources for anyone to access. Most are free of charge. There's another one at the Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technical Assistance Center (REMS TA Center). Most of those are free, as well.

Folks, somebody's gotta do this. If someone else won't, then why not you? That's not a rhetorical question, either.

My two cents....

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