An evidence-based Alert system #nlpoli

 

Communication remains the single biggest chronic failure of the province’s COVID-19 response.

As regular readers of these e-scribbles know, that means it is really a management problem.

Government officials have a hard time explaining things clearly because they do not have a clear idea of what they are doing. 

You can see this problem most clearly in the “Alert” system announced last spring.  Many countries, states, and even cities use alert systems like this for emergencies.  They are easy to understand – when they are properly put together – and all the people who need to act can know what to do, when to do it, and why they are doing it.

In the case of a pandemic alert system, people reading it should be able to see what types of restrictions went with what level of risk. There’s an internal logic to the system:  a low risk goes with very low restrictions or rules.

 In Newfoundland and Labrador, the Alert system fails all the basics of a functional Alert system. That’s because it was never intended to be a proper staged system for easing or increasing restrictions in responses to changes in the risk of COVID.  The Chief Medical Officer cobbled it together in response to a political demand. 

City bungled emergency. Residents paid price. #nlpoli

EOCs bring key people together in one spot  with the
information needed to make crucial decisions
during an emergency.

Now we know why the City of St. John's emergency response was as disjointed and chaotic as SRBP described last Monday.

The City decided not to activate its emergency plan even though they declared a state of emergency.

Here's the way CBC described the decision in a comment buried way down in story on the disastrous disaster response:

The provincial government ran its own emergency centre, and while St. John's has its own emergency operations centre, Mayor Danny Breen said it wasn't activated because communication with various channels such as city staff and first responders was able to be done over the phone.

"If we had opened the emergency operation centre and sent everyone to one place, first of all we wouldn't be able to get them there, and the resources to get them there would have been taken away from what the problem was at hand," he said.

Breen's comments don't make sense given the City had a week's warning of the huge blizzard that swept eastern Newfoundland on January 17, 2020.

The Emergency Response Disaster #nlpoli

Communities on the northeast Avalon recovered relatively quickly from the worst blizzard in the province’s recorded history. However, the recovery in the City of St. John’s was slower than that of the neighbouring municipalities.  Both the mayor and one media commentator have placed responsibility for this on the provincial government and out-of-date legislation.  However, the actual problems in the recovery in St. John’s stemmed from the City’s approach to recovery operations. Other issues that have not gained significant public notice persisted because of the province’s failure to intervene.

The General Situation

Residents of the northeast Avalon came through the largest blizzard in the province’s recorded history with relatively few fatalities and virtually no reported incidents of significant damage to property or infrastructure.  That is remarkable in itself given the storm and a smaller snowfall that followed on its dropped more than  100 centimetres on parts of the region and wind gusts hit between 1305 and 150 kilometres an hour during the peak of the blizzard. 

Of the roughly 250,000 affected by the storm, only about 10% - 27,000  - lost power during the storm and the bulk of those had their power restored within 48 hours of the last snow flake. This contrasts with 2014 when a series of events knocked out power to a significant portion of the island for several days. 

Two avalanches reported publicly damaged houses and caused people to leave their homes but without injury.  This is in contrast to a relatively minor blizzard in 1959 that caused an avalanche that The Battery in St John’s that killed nine people.

Municipalities in the region had cleared at least passable cuts on all streets within 48 to 72 hours after the storm subsided on Saturday and by Tuesday all major municipalities had begun to lift their states of emergency to one degree or another. The provincial government had also cleared the major highways to the city within two days of the storm.

Three things about Hurricane Igor #nlpoli

hard to believe but it has been five years since Hurricane Igor ripped through Placentia Bay and into Trinity Bay.

What stands out most about those events today is the same as it was at the time.

First, the devastation was astounding in every respect.

Second,  the resilience of the people affected by the disaster was amazing.

Third the capacity of senior government officials, politicians and bureaucrats alike, to polish their own knob without any justification remains as appalling in 2010 as it was at the time.

New telephone tax to pay for 911 service #nlpoli

The provincial Conservatives could haul in up to $7.7 million through a new tax on telephones to be introduced ostensibly to pay for province-wide 911 emergency service, municipal affairs minister Kevin “Fairity” O’Brien announced on Tuesday.

According to the official backgrounder, the provincial government will introduce a new tax of “less than one dollar per month” on every landline and cellular telephone in the province.  At a news conference, O’Brien and fire and emergency services boss Mike Samson estimated there were upwards of 650,000 phones in the province. 

Although the release describes the approach as a “cost-recovery” model, neither O’Brien nor Samson would estimate the annual cost of operating the system. 

Other provinces use the same approach.  PEI charges 70 cents per telephone or working line while Nova Scotia charges less than 50 cents. Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and New Brunswick also tax telephones to pay for 911 service.

-srbp-

The politicisation of public emergencies

CBC commentator Bob Wakeham [CBC Radio audio file observed Monday morning that:

Also last week the emergency measures organization seemed to keep a low profile.  perhaps its employees were doing what they were supposed to be doing, but some of my journalistic friends working this hurricane story told me EMO seemed more than willing to hand over visual and public responsibility to cabinet ministers, to talking heads all of whom one would think know little or nothing about these matters, certainly a lot less than officials with a specific mandate to deal with, as the name implies, emergencies.

Right after saying that, Wakeham noted that there did not seem last week to be a sense of immediacy to the emergency response.

These two elements are connected.

And they tie as well to an observation made later Monday morning by the host of the morning talk show in the province.  Randy Simms wondered if the province’s fire and emergency management agency had a communications plan and any people responsible for carrying it out. Simms likened the situation to a disaster in the United States or the cougar crash.  He wondered where were the daily  - or even more frequent - technical briefings that featured, front and centre, the people actually delivering the emergency service, telling the rest of us what they were doing.

What Simms is talking about is what one expect in any other part of North America. Effective public communications are an integral part of recovery operations. Priority should go to basic information – where to find shelter, contact numbers to report problems, etc. – so that people who need help can get it.

This is a basic communications principle:  give people the information they need.

Regular operational briefings allows the emergency managers to make sure that accurate information on the entire emergency gets to the public using news media.  A typical briefing would include maps showing local situations and the type of problems being dealt with.  People get information.  They can track progress.  As events develop they can gain confidence that things are getting better. They can also better assess their own situation and make sensible decisions about their own situation;  they may need to just hang tough and weather the discomfort.  Or they can seek help.  Either way, information helps people make the right decision and have confidence.

In the modern age, officials should be using websites, Twitter, and Facebook to help push out detailed information. These can also be ways of feeding information into the emergency management room. 

News media bring pictures.  E-mails and twitter posts can give clues to where problems and that will supplement the information coming to the operations centre from health, fire, emergency, roads and other officials who should be present in the command centre.

The competence of the recovery - readily displayed to the public - instills public confidence.

Canadian Forces backgrounders: #igornl

Update: 26 Sep 10:  Third ship is actually HMCS Montreal, another FFH, not HMCS Moncton as earlier indicated.

Elements of 4 ESR are involved in bridge construction and supplying potable water to communities where fresh water is unavailable, according to media reports. in addition to army water purification capability, the three FFHs have the capacity to produce drinking water.

HMC ships Fredericton and Montreal arrived from Halifax.  HMCS St. John’s at St. John’s during and immediately after IGOR.  The week before the ship had carried the Lieutenant-Governor on his annual tour to remote coastal communities.

- 30 -

Original Post (24 Sep 10):

For those who are interested, here are some links to background information on the units and equipment involved in the Canadian Forces’ disaster relief operation in Newfoundland:

• HMCS St. John’s and HMCS Fredericton are Halifax class frigates.
• HMCS Moncton is a Kingston class coastal defence vessel.
• You can also find some good information on these ships and on the Sea King helicopters at the navy website.
• The CH-124 Sea Kings are part of two helicopter detachments (one each on Fredericton and St. John’s from 423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron at 12 Wing, Shearwater.
• 4 Engineer Support Regiment is an engineer regiment of the Canadian army:

The Regiment's primary operational task is the provision of sustainment engineering such as water supply, route maintenance and construction, vertical construction and the provision of utilities. The Regiment is also capable of performing traditional engineer tasks in the following areas: mobility and survivability.

- srbp -

Harper/Williams disconnect #igornl

According to the Prime MInister, engineers from 4 Engineer Support Regiment in Gagetown are on their way to Newfoundland to assist in disaster relief.

As well, two or three ships – HMCS Fredericton, HMCS St. John’s and maybe HMCS Moncton – and helicopters on Fredericton and St. John’s are available for hurricane relief as well.

News media are reporting that. Here’s a Telegram story complete with a picture of Fredtown offshore Grand Bank.

Seems no one told the provincial government which delayed a newser Friday afternoon by a whole hour after the Prime Minister left town.

In addition, the Provincial Government has requested from the Government of Canada the provision of support from the Department of National Defense. [sic] The specific support being requested consists of Sea King helicopters and the ship-based naval support necessary to maintain operation of these helicopters, which have night flying and heavy lifting capabilities.

That release seems like the provincial government specifically wanted to limit the DND help available by asking only for helicopters.  And for the record, the helicopters don’t actually need ships.  The ships just happen to bring other capabilities with them, like water-purification units, medical facilities and other essential services needed during disaster relief operations.

Either the person who wrote that bit of the news release simply didn’t know what was going on or he or she wanted to minimise the scope of the help the provincial government needed.

Still no word on whether the engineers are coming or why the provincial government didn’t request help earlier.  Given the magnitude of the disaster it seems strange the provincial government would hesitate to take advantage of the considerable resources available even through the local reserve forces of the navy, army and air force.

Katrina North: the picture changes #igornl

Some four days after Hurricane Igor ripped through Newfoundland and Labrador, more and more people are calling local media to complain about the lack of provincial government action in the wake of the disaster.

On Friday afternoon, local media reports suggest that:

1. despite knowing they had a huge disaster on their hands from the beginning, the provincial government never called for federal government assistance; and,
2. for some reason the provincial government has still not requested federal assistance even as the Canadian Forces prepares to send elements of 4 Engineer Support Regiment from Gagetown, New Brunswick  and three ships from the Canadian navy to provide humanitarian assistance.

Make no mistake: responsibility for emergency response in the province sits squarely on the shoulders of the politicians who flitted around in helicopters for two days.  The federal government can only act once they get a request from the province. If the Canadian Forces aren’t in Newfoundland already it is simply because the provincial government didn’t ask for them.

In the days ahead, the provincial government may face some very difficult questions about its failure to seek help even when the magnitude of the disaster was well known.  Things were bad enough on the first day.  They were painfully obvious by the second.  By Friday – the fourth day – the scope was overwhelming.

Who knows why the provincial cabinet delayed asking for help as long as it did?  One thing is for sure, you can tell there are political consequences to the provincial government’s inaction.  Were it not so, the government’s political friends – like Bill Rowe – would not be trying so desperately to push responsibility for emergency response onto someone else’s shoulders.

- srbp -

Important #igornl Emergency Information. Not really.

Education minister Darin King called VOCM’s night time call-in show to take a pot-shot at people criticising government for its supposed lack of emergency communications.

He and his colleagues have been working hard on behalf of their constituents, Darin assured us all.  Darin and Clyde Jackman only took time away from their districts to go to a cabinet meeting in St. John’s.  Presumably, if they came to St. John’s, they flew there on a chartered helicopter but that will be another story.

Darin mentioned he has been pushing information out via his Facebook site, for example.  Okay, sez your humble e-scribbler, let’s check out the important storm and recovery info Darin is offering his constituents.

There are a couple of things on Darin’s website, as of 2130 hours Thursday night.  Like this tourism notice:

The other thing is basically a report on his helicopter ride, issued September 23, which would be the day after his ride. Note that it doesn’t really contain any official emergency response information and what it does give is pretty vague. 

As for Facebook, there are 12 notes on Darin’s “wall” in the past two days.  Two of them contain information about road repairs.  He had to get the big giant head in there though, in case people might not recall where they found the information.  Maybe it is just there as a reminder that – as Darin said a couple of times during his call Thursday night – you have to check the source of the information:

The other wall posts are essentially all pictures taken during the recent helicopter tour by the Premier and a few other bigwigs.

The comms assessment?  The noise to signal ratio is pretty high.  Lots of static:  very little useful information.

But the scarcity of solid information on Darin’s site suggests that even cabinet ministers aren’t getting good updates on what is going on. That reinforces the point that the provincial government’s emergency response system desperately needs a complete overhaul. If you take Darin’s helicopter ride “update” at face value, there’s no sign of the emergency services division at all. The whole thing seems rather haphazard.

- srbp -

Hurricane #IGORNL Emergency Response: TASFU

One thing is becoming clear a couple of days after Hurricane Igor swept through eastern Newfoundland:  for all the weather and other emergencies in the province over the past decade, the province’s emergency response system – municipal and provincial – remains woefully ill-prepared and poorly organized.

All the same, it is nice to know that the province’s major daily newspaper and the provincial agency responsible for emergency response have their priorities in order.  As ordinary citizens in Clarenville arrange boatloads of supplies to help people in isolated communities on nearby Random Island, the Telegram and Fire and Emergency Services – Newfoundland and Labrador want to make sure people get their paperwork in order so that those claims for federal assistance or insurance coverage will flow easier.

It’s taken FES two whole days to post a web link to any Igor information and, chronologically,  the first release is the one linked:  document everything so you can file claims.  There’s not very much solid and up-to-date information road closures, power outages or what to do if there is a specific problem. That sort of thing, by the way, is being done in exemplary fashion by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police even though it isn’t their job. For the provincial government, it’s hard to find out any concrete information.

Like say you are in one of those isolated communities and need medical help.  Where do you go?  Well, apparently the best thing to do is call the local radio station.  The government’s ever-vigilant agents will pick up the call and get on the case to deliver a peachy response.

But what if you don’t have a phone?

Maybe you can flag down one of the government-chartered helicopters ferrying politicians hither and yon so these tourists can see for themselves the magnitude of the disaster. They talk to reporters about the sights, incidentally, as if they, themselves were either in it or doing anything substantive about it.  With rare exceptions, they aren’t.

In St. John’s, two days later, the city website has one thing about Igor issued after the storm hit. It’s an advisory on where to drop off tree bits. Never mind that people have been using those spots since they started cleaning up – 24 hours and more ago – and that this information is potentially the least important stuff of all the city is responsible to its citizens for. 

But still the average citizen cannot tell where the power in town is off and what traffic lights are functioning.  This is crucial safety information for those of us trying to get to work or get children to school.  None of that is available from the city but residents of the capital could hear a councilor this morning on radio talking up the great city emergency plan.

Then this politician issued the warning that because power is off at the bus depot, they can’t keep up with regular maintenance and might have to reduce service.  One wonders why they would take such a drastic measure if there are other city facilities with power and other spaces in the metro area where they might relocate bus maintenance temporarily.

Two mayors hit on the problem this morning while chatting on a local open line show.  One is the host of the show and the other called in to advise the world that his community is now officially out of gas at the local gas stations.  The only road is down and people are hoping the road will be fixed within 24 hours or so.  Other than that there is no plan – apparently – on how someone might get fuel for generators and such into the affected area.

The two mayors talked about lessons to be learned after things were all over.  They are absolutely right.  That’s the time to figure out what to do and what not to do next time based on experience in this event.

But then one of the mayor’s offered the view that maybe the emergency response  this time has not been as good as it should have been.

He’s absolutely right.

The provincial government spends more money today on emergency response than it ever did before.  There’s a whole division of government to handle central co-ordination where just a decade ago there only four people for the whole province.

And yet:  TASFU. 

Things are still fouled up.

The main reason is that for all the lessons readily evident from other emergencies, none have been learned.  People want you to believe that 9/11 was a success.  Provincially, it was a balls-up on many levels.  The official assessment doesn’t come close to noting that.  Ditto other, more recent, natural disasters.

Instead, the government system seems geared to the sort of knob polishing that infests sections of the Telegram. Frankly, the provincial municipal affairs minister today sounds much like his predecessor nine years ago.  Lots of kudos and vacuous verbiage but not much in the way of solid information that people need.  His hasty call to an open line show Thursday came with the breathless claim that he had to rush off to catch another sight-seeing helo-ride.  Big fat hairy deal.

Sure emergency response in the province works very well out where real people – road crews, police, fire, linemen, health care workers and so forth – do real jobs. Practicality and good will are the order of the day and that is what worked during 9/11.  If Newfoundland Power needs to get to a spot, they will sort it out with the local roads guys.  The result will be haphazard and uneven, but then again, that’s what happens when the entire provincial emergency “plan” relies in 2010, as it did in 2001, on people pulling it out of their ass on the day.

Meanwhile, back in the head-shed, in the place that is supposed to be co-ordinating the hockey bag of public and private agencies - assigning scarce resources to the places they will do the most good -  heads are just buried deep in the hockey bag.  Not much in the way of light is getting through. How else would one explain a political news conference the day of the storm called for exactly the same time as a technical report from Environment Canada and an official of the province’s emergency response division?

You can hear the same old excuses already bubbling up.  This was an unprecedented disaster, they are already saying.  Yes,  it was.  And so was the one before that and the one before that and the one before that.  We’ve heard it as an excuse for failures every time.

No one should doubt the sincerity of politicians in wanting to relieve the suffering of their fellow citizens.  But the time for their intervention is not now.  The time for that was last month, last year and five years ago when they should have been making sure the emergency response system worked.

They’ll get another chance to fix things when this current disaster is over, as two mayors suggested already. This time, though, everyone needs to face the things that didn’t work – yet again – and fix them.

Otherwise, when the next hurricane barrels through, we’ll just face the same old fumbled responses and the same “never saw this before” excuses.

The people of the province deserve better.

Let’s put an end to the emergency response TASFU.

- srbp -

Day-ja vue Update:  Nothing like a bit of perspective.

Via nottawa, a reminder that this same bullshit – send us your receipts and get your forms properly filled out – came around the last time Mother Nature roared through town on a bender. 

Back then of course, the local Reform-based Conservative Party  - as the Old man now likes to think of it - wasn’t speaking kindly of the federal Reform-based Conservative Party.  So it was Stock Day telling the Old Man to make sure his paperwork was done properly.

And yes, there was also the effort to turn disaster relief into some sort of infrastructure funding program, as if then or now the provincial government didn’t have the cash to fund improvements to roads, bridges and drainage systems. If Marystown mayor Sam Synyard, for example, wants to install bigger culverts on the local roads, then Sam could be and should be looking to the tourists in the helicopter for some cash.

Nottawa’s also got some other pithy observations on emergency response.

Emergency confuddles

Someone released a bunch of letters between the provincial and federal governments about emergency response funding.

From a media standpoint, yesterday belonged to the feds:

The province argues Ottawa has not made good on outstanding claims for flooding in Stephenville in 2005 and a storm surge in February 2006. The province asked in August for an advance on damages caused by Tropical Storm Chantal.

But federal Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, in letters to the province obtained by CBC News, said that the ball is in the province's court, and that the federal government has not received the appropriate paperwork.

Newly minted municipal affairs minister Dave Denine responded today with a news release.

There's a brave attempt to blame the federal government, but the essence of the release is contained in the lede, namely the provincial government is having problems collecting because it is having problems, "most of which relate to difficulties associated with requirements under federal accounting and audit processes."

There's nothing surprising in that, nor in the subsequent paragraph in which Denine says that information is submitted, further information is requested by the feds and that - quite obviously - slows the process. Anyone who has dealt with the federal government, especially in the wake of Gomery, will know that federal financial controls are pretty stringent. That may come as a bit of a culture shock to people used to dealing with - ooooh, maybe the House of Assembly - but the federal system is the kind of accounting and audit system one would expect from a competent administration looking after other people's, i.e. public, money.

At that point, though, Denine's release goes a bit off the rails:

"Federal representatives have made misleading statements to the media in stating that they have made advancements of $21 million in recent years. In fact, these payments date back to events between 1973 and the present," said Minister Denine. "We are also concerned about statements made by federal officials that advance federal payments can be provided to the province when, in reality, the federal program does not provide for any payments, advance or otherwise, until work has been completed and documentation is submitted which, in some cases, can take years."

That comes right after he acknowledges this:

In relation to events since 2000, the province has received $7.1 million in interim payments from the Federal Government through the DFAA program, including $2.3 million for Storm Surge 2000, $2.6 million for Tropical Storm Gabrielle 2001, $1.0 million for Badger Flood 2003, and $1.2 million for West Coast Flood 2003. [Italics added]

That's basically what the feds claimed in their letters. "interim". "advance". Potato, potato.

After trying to accuse the federal officials of making misleading statements, Denine gets back to the core of the issue: the provincial government has been having some consistent problems in getting the paperwork filled out properly. And yes, to its credit, this administration has put in place a new emergency response organization within government that takes emergency services out of the basement and gives it the prominence it deserves.

And, unfortunately for those who really want to understand emergency response, Denine leaves the most important point to the end: emergency response is a provincial responsibility. The provincial government policies should provide compensation and it is the provincial government which is reimbursed for its costs.

The people should not be inconvenienced, if they are at all.

Has anyone bothered ask if the province hasn't been compensating people until it receives federal cash?

-srbp-