Simulated Terror
May 1, 2005 12:00 PM, BY MICHAEL FICKES
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, more than a dozen of New York's police and fire officials stared at a burning 70-story building with a jet airplane sticking out of one side. Nothing in their vast experience told them how to respond to such an incomprehensible event. Under intense pressure, they had to invent a response.
While few would criticize how first responders reacted to the attack, virtually everyone agrees the nation should begin training first responders to deal with events that they have never seen — and may never see.
A Seattle-based company called Incident Tactics Inc. operates on the premise that realistic simulations may represent an effective approach to this kind of training.
“Simulations can give first responders an inkling of what they might face in responding to a major disaster or terrorist attack,” says John Mitchell, president and CEO of Incident Tactics, and a retired firefighter and paramedic.
Incident Tactics' simulations gauge the readiness of emergency personnel to respond to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and weapons of mass destruction. First responders take the simulated tests by logging onto the Incident Tactics Web site (www.incidenttactics.com) and accessing a simulation library. A single use costs $10-20, depending on the nature of the simulation.
The library contains general purpose and customized tests related to events in high-rise buildings, stadiums, campuses and cruise ships. While the new company has developed only a handful of simulations to date, CruiseLine 206 illustrates the concept. It simulates a viral outbreak on a cruise ship docked in Seattle. What must be done first? Evacuate the ship? Isolate the area? Contact the Navy? Establish a command center? A ticking clock gives a user seconds to make the decision, while the system sets off sirens and other distractions characteristic of a disaster scene. Once a decision is made, another is called for.
“The product does a good job of creating a stressful environment,” says Don Warner, a King County firefighter/paramedic, who has tested the product. “As the situation unfolds, you're faced with some tough decisions and a clock that is timing your responses. Throughout the challenge, you are also required to review written reports, radio transmissions and maps. It's elicits precisely what you don't know.”
The system judges performance against procedures outlined by the National Incident Management Systems and the National Integration Center.
“They have developed a Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program that spells out objectives for evaluations,” Mitchell says. “Our simulations help first responders make sense of these programs.”
Scores for individual simulations are compared, giving users insights into where they stand relative to others in their department, region, state or across the nation.
“The scoring system enables us to do gap analyses and identify weak points in training,” Mitchell says.
Shoreline Fire District in King County, Wash., part of a three-department training consortium in Washington state, recently commissioned two simulations: a conventional fire incident in a small commercial building and a complex terrorist event.
“We want our battalion chiefs to get hands-on experience with events they may never — we hope — experience,” says Marcus Kragness, deputy chief of operations for Shoreline. “We want them to learn where they are weak and where they are strong.”
Incident Tactics simulations are based on a recognition-primed decision (RPD) model developed by Gary A. Klein, chairman and chief scientist of Dayton, Ohio-based Klein Associates Inc., a firm that studies decision-making under stress. “According to RPD theory, people under pressure develop sophisticated ways of remembering how they dealt with a situation,” Mitchell says. “They remember patterns.”
“I'm excited about the idea of putting stress into training scenarios,” Kragness says. “Under stress you will always default to what you've trained on.”
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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.
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