Local damage assessment is a very important function within the disaster operation scenarios. What I would encourage you all to do as you walk out into your jobs to assess the damage, that you be always aware of the surroundings around you. One of the things I will mention is, as a safety and health professional with over 25 years of Federal experience, I was recently able to find information that was actually professionally illuminating to me dealing with the Tennessee floods, and what it amounted to was that as I was moving around in a vehicle just after the Nashville incident, I looked across at an elevated rise on the highway, and I’m looking at the tops of trees. Now, these trees are about 25-30 feet above the ground level that is surrounding us down below, and I’m seeing wooden pallets, like 60-pound pallets that actually would normally have materials such as barrels and drums that forklifts use to ship materials lying in the tops of the trees. I also saw metal debris. Once the waters have receded, as you’re walking down below, be cognizant of the hazards above. This was completely a surprise to me, even as a seasoned professional. So I encourage you to not take for granted what is underneath your feet, and most especially what could be above your head as you do your damage assessment. This is always to be considered, you as a precious resource, because you are the first people out looking at the damage, to actually keep yourself safe, and please report any issues that you consider of significance to your chain of supervisors so that others following in your footsteps can have this either remediated, removed, abated, or have people behind you avoid such a scenario.

Get out there quickly. Use the people that you have. In many instances there are already going to be people out there. There are going to be emergency responders. There are going to be firefighters potentially, and even think about things like sanitation workers. You know, after any event there is going to be waste everywhere; you still got to pick up garbage, and those people are going to be out there, they’re going to be working. It’s likely they have the ability to communicate. So you want to use them. So recognize that those people are out there, and don’t forget about them.

Then there is the idea of special consideration for people that you send out. And this is really, really important when it comes to the idea of their safety. For example, if electrical lines are down, how do you satisfy them, how do you tell people that are headed out to do damage assessment that if they head down a road, and there are electrical lines down, that those lines are no longer hot, they are no longer charged, and they are not going to be in danger? The sad fact is that from things like down power lines people die in this country almost every year. That doesn’t have to happen. So their safety is key, and the people that are a part of the team can help with that in every aspect of what they do and everywhere they go.

One key member of a damage assessment team may very well be a representative from the local power company. And those are the kinds of things you take into consideration. You have to look at how their ability will be to travel about, what their skills are, and what their ability is to capture information and how they get it back to the people that need it. When you look at that and when you put those people out there, their key role and their primary responsibility is to get that information and get it back to the people that need it. But they also may find themselves working in the role of a local emergency responder. They may very well come upon a situation where somebody needs medical help. Those people need first aid training; they need to have some minimal level of first aid with them. They are not intended to be emergency medical responders, and that’s not their job. But they may very well find themselves dealing with that kind of a situation, and they need to be prepared for that. Beyond that they need to have the ability to communicate to the people that they meet. They need to have some small level of handout with contact information, who to call, where to get it, and where to go for information.

Although the primary mission of the assessment teams is to deploy to quantify the damage done to your community’s homes, businesses and infrastructure, there is a human element that cannot be ignored if you want to serve the needs of the people. One is Field Intelligence, maximizing the team’s ability to gather information on immediate life/safety issues, debris, power, sewer, water, individual needs and an overall snapshot of what the teams see on the streets. This information, communicated to the coordinating authority as soon as humanly possible will enhance appropriate immediate response efforts to the community and will assist the policy makers in making enlightened decisions on recovery issues such as rebuilding infrastructure, post-disaster redevelopment and the other myriad of issues that will face your community for years to come. Another is even more immediate. The damage assessment teams may be the first authority figures that the public-at-large may see and will want their needs known and dealt with as soon as possible. Part of the pre-deployment briefing should include distribution of fact sheets, press releases and information on FEMA contact numbers, your local citizens information numbers, locations of disaster recovery centers, locations of point of distribution centers and mass feeding. The teams should take along bottled water for the survivors and other comfort items as available to give to the people they encounter. Doing due diligence to deal with the public in a calm and compassionate manner and gathering the field intelligence for the decision makers to consider can only lead to a much more successful response and recovery for your community.