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Crisis response to attacks on chemical infrastructures |
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In this exclusive report, critical incident response expert Geoff Williams surveys the risks facing chemical infrastructures and presents a comprehensive suite of response options and training by integrating corrective solutions
SUCCESSFULLY PREPARING LARGE chemical companies corporate crisis (business continuity) management teams against some form of natural or human induced disaster is an incredibly complex area. It requires a thorough multidimensional and multifunctional understanding of the company including its internal and external environment and its exposures to the threats. Moreover, corporate strategy, operational infrastructure, risk exposure and risk appetite are some of the factors that determine the appropriate approach to corporate crisis management, and they are all company specific. Consequently there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions. This is particularly true with regards to the many issues surrounding the global petrol/chemical industry activities. Chemical infrastructures can be assembled into three tiers of vulnerability categories. The first category includes the large stationary facilities that are members of major industry associations. Even though these facilities have considerable inventories of hazardous materials and are quite visible, they are usually quite well prepared against attack because of security systems and procedures that have been developed and implemented. The second tier of vulnerability category includes smaller and medium-sized facilities that manufacture or use chemicals but may or may not be members of any industry associations. These facilities are less visible, but are also, in general, less prepared and more widely distributed.
The third category of vulnerability includes hazardous materials that are in transit (by whatever means) throughout any country. In addition to being present almost anywhere in the world at any given time, this category also represents high visibility and the highest vulnerability. It could be argued that this category is the least prepared to deal with intentionally caused catastrophic scenarios.
Factors of Chemical Attacks
Some important measures to consider with regard to attacks on chemical infrastructures are:
• Active protection measures: include increased security, limited access to facilities, and background checks
• Passive protection measures: include development of exclusion areas and process and engineering measures
• Vulnerability analyses, response and recovery plans: these are needed not only to help devise the prevention and protection plans, but also to develop the response and recovery plans. In this respect, it must be mentioned that most of the large, multinational facilities that are members of major industry associations have voluntarily conducted some form of vulnerability analysis. What is not clear is whether these analyses have been used to integrate planning for response and recovery efforts in coordination with local agencies and the public. One very stark lesson from the 9/11 events is that the ‘first’ first-responders are usually members of the public. Additionally, area- and regionspecific vulnerability analysis and assessment of infrastructure availability for response and recovery have not been conducted.
• Long-term business continuity needs and priorities. Finally, a national vulnerability analysis and assessment of infrastructure availability for response and business recovery is a critical need. Natural or human induced disasters will continue to happen. Effective and successful planning and response is therefore crucial in being able to reduce the consequences and to recover from the disaster more rapidly. In this regard, it is essential to conduct efficient vulnerability analysis, response, and business recovery planning at the following three levels:
• Plant-specific vulnerability analysis and assessment of infrastructure availability and preparedness for response and business recovery is needed. Many of the large multinational facilities that belong to prominent industry associations have already conducted some form of vulnerability analysis. What is not clear is whether these analyses have been used to integrate planning for response and business recovery efforts in coordination with local agencies and the public
• Area – and region-specific vulnerability analysis and assessment of infrastructure availability for response and recovery should be conducted. Each area – and region-specific analysis should include an assessment and planning for mass evacuation and shelters etc
• A national vulnerability analysis and assessment of infrastructure availability for response and business recovery is critically needed. In doing this national analysis, impact on international issues and criteria should also be considered and prepared for.
Long-term goals and priorities to prevent and/or reduce the consequences of intentional catastrophic scenarios require clear thinking and hard work. Few would argue that making hazardous materials less attractive as a target should be a goal that all stakeholders should accept, differences arise, however, in how they realise that goal.
Inherent safety options can and should be considered; however, one should be aware of the differences in implementing inherent safety options for existing plants, as compared to new plants. Also, in some cases, a seemingly clear choice with regard to inherent safety may create some undesired and unintended consequences. Issues such as risk relocation, reduction of overall risk, and practical risk reduction should be evaluated whenever an inherent safety option is considered. A long-term strategy is to develop technology and tacit intelligence expertise with regard to resilient engineered systems and terrorism-resistant plants. In this respect, research and technological advances are needed in many areas, such as bio-chemical detection, sensors, and self-healing materials. Protection of the chemical infrastructure, like many other challenges, requires the commitment and effort of all stakeholders. Additional initiatives that should considered when preparing for a crisis scenario:
• The fact is that few chemical infrastructures and components including the individual sites, supply, and delivery systems were never built with terrorism in mind. Research to determine how companies might design and build chemical plants and the infrastructure in light of these threats. The ultimate objective for such research would be bilateral.
• First, determine options for what can be feasibly implemented for existing plants.
• Second, if necessary, prescribe new standards and procedures for new plants.
• Before transportation of any hazardous materials, a transportation risk assessment should be conducted using available information and methodology, as well as time-specific data that may be available.
• Development of tacit intelligent system incident databases and lessons learned.
This tacit intelligence knowledge base can then be used to improve planning, response capability, and infrastructure changes. Recent experience in this regard is the improvement in planning and response of the mass flooding experienced in the UK and Mumbai in India, plus from lessons learned from the US hurricane Katrina. This applying of tacit intelligence to support crisis decision makers should go ‘hand-inglove’ with crisis decision-making, particularly when crisis management teams are under stress.
Incident Control Analysis Programme
These types of incidents have for many years now been the subject of the International Emergency Technical Response Institute (iETRI) transformational research programme and now are being further developed by a leading crisis management company, Kingfell Global Crisis (UK) Ltd. This has culminated in the production of the world’s first commercial, tacit intelligence designed solution that is now available in the form of the incident control analysis programme system, as it is now termed the iCAPÔ system. Kingfell Global Crisis defines their iCAP transformational approach as: ‘New techniques of reasoning, imagining, training and planning, to advance the chemical industry’s preparedness for today’s challenges and those of the future’. iCAP transformation goes beyond the need for even more high-tech platforms and equipment. Even without any new IT applications at all, Kingfell has shown that all types of companies can in fact go a long way down the road to transformation by simply rethinking the way they do their current business.
The Kingfell Global Crisis CORE (Critical Organisational Re-Engineering) system is just one example of transformational processes in action. IT systems simply speed up this change process, but, it is fundamentally the human change in mindset that attains the most important aspect of any IT system, ie, the quality of the data input. Kingfell clients are now able to be trained in such iCAP transformational thought processes which have identified those generic pressure creating factors that are directly linked into how they affect their decision making during managing crises.
During the application of this new course curriculum, clients are also specifically taught new skills and techniques, which ensure they can professionally plan and manage these types of particular emergencies. New skill examples are:
• How corporate crisis teams must be able to precisely manage and pre-plan for ‘wipeout’ modes
• Understand how external bearing factors can be used to gain an advantage that will improve the efficiency of the rescue operation
• Learn to manage the generic risks that can occur to the betterment of the mission
• Be perceptive of critical periods when risk and hazards are more likely to increase
• Be able to recognise these signs and how to prepare ‘intelligence’ based solutions
• Apply the processes of ‘Incident Control Analysis’ into their planning processes • Know how to map and sector multiterrorist bomb attacks within chemical plants and surrounding neighborhoods
• Integrate specialised IT solutions to their maximum effect during response operations
• Understand how to integrate these outcomes into practical incident management planning systems before, during and after a crisis
• The need for designing ‘war campaign’ mode applications. Corporate crisis teams generally underestimate how these ‘events’ and the people that are linked to them, can severely disrupt and hinder incident response teams if they are not properly dealt with at early stages of planning.
Current corporate crisis management teams deal with the majority of these occurrences as they arise but never systematically analyse how they hinder or deviate response teams from their primary objectives. By analysing thousands of crisis incidents new generic phenomenons have been discovered which can assist crisis teams in understanding more systematically the ‘broad dynamics’ of these types of incidents and, perhaps most importantly, knowing how to practically apply them.
One such new phenomenon identified highlights the increased probability of the incident management failing during critical periods of a catastrophic incident. This is termed ‘Criticality’. Kingfell Global Crisis defines this phenomenon as: ‘Criticality is the near-chaotic state achieved when the crisis mix of elements are poised to change into something new and altogether different’.
A pile of salt on a table helps describe this phenomenon. As each new grain of salt is added to the pile it increases, causing some salt to run off until at one point one new grain of salt causes a major run off. This image of a seemingly stable system that is poised for collapse characterizes criticality, where one simple change can cause fundamental transformation.
In simple terms – when this occurs upon a crisis situation it releases an uncontrolled spiraling effect of utter chaos, or the worstcase scenario – the domino effect of uncontrollable disorder. Within crisis situations two primary areas where criticality constantly appears have been identified as:
• The corporate crisis management (macro view approach to the crisis)
• The actual site(s) location (event approach on the actual affected site)
• Both of these areas involve the human actions (or inactions) and the environmental changes that these dimensions bring upon the crisis management. It is, therefore, correct to say that ‘peaks of criticality’ are always present during crises and how one recognises that the crisis is about to change is termed ‘Habitual Value Stage methodology’.
Habitual Value Stage Methodology
This can be defined as: ‘The generic occurrences of a crisis situation that habitually occur at critical value stages of its development’. To explain this process more clearly we use the analogy of two major oil companies. These two companies both refine oil and amongst other processes, convert it into petrol. Both are major competitors in a highly competitive market.
Each process that they undertake to transform oil into petrol costs a certain amount of money. This therefore places a ‘value’ on that process, eg, the drilling processes used to locate and withdraw the oil from deep down in the earth and bring it up to the surface. The transporting methods from the actual oil well to the petrol refinery and then the actual refining processes etc has a value. The total amount of these values (processes) will contribute to determining what their actual final profit margin will be. In business terms this process is the ‘value chain’. Where costs are kept low but efficiency is at its maximum at each stage of the process, the bigger the margin for increasing profit exists. Therefore the petrol-chemical company that has the most efficient and effective processes achieve what is termed the ‘competitive edge’. This means they can possibly gain superiority over their competitors and gain an ‘edge’ in the market and subsequently increase their profits. In the crisis situation scenario we also need to examine each of our processes to see what we can do to increase our efficiency and effectiveness and subsequently achieve the competitive edge in rapidly repelling any such attack on the risk.
In this context, the value chain now represents the stages that are generic and occur before, during and after an emergency situation. In doing so companies can now identify how best intelligent solutions can be designed. These will simply reduce the chances of ‘peaks of criticality’ being realised. Therefore designing and building intelligent solutions must start at the beginning of a company’s vulnerability assessment and undertake an analysis of the habitual value stages of a crisis situation developing within their specific complex or building(s). This would be from the perspectives of a) the corporate crisis management (macro view approach to the crisis) and b) the actual site(s) location (event approach on the actual affected site). Once a solution has been identified which resists a peak of criticality it is then further reanalysed to ensure that its outcome helps the actual frontline response teams. We term this process ‘Adding High-Leverage Activities’ into a company’s procedures and planning.
High-Leverage Actions
Simply discarding existing emergency plans to the ‘trash bin’ and starting again is not the answer to preparing for crisis situations. It is however vital to re-assess their practicality in light of the catastrophic environment they may be expected to perform in. Attempting to make old planning thoughts and processes manage a totally new dynamic, catastrophic incident without reviewing their content is like trying to pitch a tent in a typhoon; it is totally inadequate and a complete waste of time. It is important to appreciate new stresses and multi-faceted activities will come to fruition during a terrorist attack induced incident. Predicting how, where and when criticality will appear in these activities is an important key to successful preparation.
Existing plans, systems, procedures and skills etc therefore need to be exposed to a very different type of scrutiny. Spotting trigger points such as when activities have potentiality to rapidly or instantly escalate to maximum service capacity is a fundamental principle of preparing for such complexity. Kingfell Global Crisis use the term ‘High- Leverage Actions’ in integrating corrective solutions for such situations. Because many companies’ processes, functions, and systems are complex, eg a petrol-chemical site, they are often poised at the edge between chaos and order.
Advantages can usually be identified when the elements of a system are tested to reach critical mass. In practice this is hard to simulate en masse, but similar results can be achieved by undertaking a thorough analysis of each known generic, habitual value stage of a breakdown of given process from the paradigm of corporate crisis management to the actual site(s) location and then the process being reversed. Within catastrophic incident pre-planning it is possible to realise disproportionate gains where an incident is prone to leverage. Small inputs at specific situations can be amplified throughout an incident to have a major effect. These are high-leverage actions.
This process involves developing a fine tuned understanding of how specific activities can affect the different roles of a company’s employees and any geographically located, adjacent communities. By using the criticality principle and habitual value stage methodology, what was once plain information now becomes transformed into expert, intelligence-based solutions and are applied under the title of high-leverage actions.
Safety Quest
In conclusion, tacit-technology is now where the chemical industry need it to be, ie striving to make the tasks safer for people living and/or working near or in highly dangerous environments.
Companies need to be constantly asking crisis management professionals what tools they need to do their job more effectively, efficiently and safely. There is no room for complacency. They must never let up in this quest to guard and improve the safety of their personnel, businesses and adjacent communities.
The new threats and battles that the chemical industries are being expected to fight are increasing all the time therefore they need to protect them to the maximum. They need to ensure that these new ‘weapons’ are available to their crisis management teams as quickly as possible. The incident control analysis programme includes all these subjects in detail and is now available to help in that difficult but achievable task.
Acknowledgements: Averting Corporate Crisis Freefall – iETRI Publication. G Williams Report to the Sub-Committee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection of the Committee on Homeland Security USA House of Representatives. Dr S Mannan. 6 Powers of extremely effective collapse rescue – GCC.Com Production. G Williams Developing the efficiency of a Chemical Industries Crisis Management – iETRI. G Williams. |
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