After-Action Report - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

There are four critical disaster management phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Part of disaster preparedness includes developing exhaustive and effective plans focusing on the immediate response activities that should go on around the year and constantly be evolving. Simply defined, recovery is the process of getting back a community to “normal” ( Florida Department of Community Affairs, 2010). However, recovery from a disaster takes a long time. Recovery is also the longest and most complex long-lasting cycle phase in disaster management. The recovery phase also affects the most number of people. When emergency managers plan and prepare for disasters, the majority think of the immediate response to prevent further damage to property and the provision of lifesaving services. However, on top of restoring utilities, debris clearance, and restoration of community's lifelines, recovery is a long phase that may take over a decade and may entail the efforts of the affected community and the input of outsiders. The response and recovery phase is a complex and lengthy process, requiring the input of many specialized teams and agencies from both the public and the private sectors.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Discussion

The known facts regarding this incident include the explosion having been caused by man-made action, highly likely a terrorist attack. The area affected is the NJ courthouse. Further information indicates that there are possible more devices planted in Essex County Community College. The devices at the college have not been detonated. The perpetrators are on their way to Newark Liberty Airport to board a plane to London. The perpetrators are expected to board a plane that leaves the country between 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm. With a fair level of certainty, we can assume that the explosion at the courthouse is a result of a bomb. It can also be assumed that the devices at the college are also bombs.

At this point, an assumption can be made that both New Jersey police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are involved. With the devices at the college still undetonated, it is safe to assume that no other responders are allowed and the local police and the FBI should handle the evacuation and bomb-defusal activities.

Responders are communicating with each other using police communication equipment, primarily police radio. Due to the small size of the responding team, this mode of communication is adequate. Besides, due to the chain of command, the FBI is the agency in charge of the crime scene with the local police assisting in cordoning off both the courthouse and the college.

Presently, there is no official communication between the responders and the communities they are operating within because investigations are just beginning. However, due to the lack of knowledge of what is happening, the mood of the residents in the area and the country is one of confusion and fear. In particular, parents who have children studying in college affected are anxious to see their children. However, the children are still being debriefed and headcount is taking place.

Human Factors

At this point, the human factors that must be addressed during the response are health and social services and infrastructure and public facilities. In regards to the health of the community, it is the mental and behavioral health assistance that is much needed at this point. Disasters are emotionally traumatic for the majority of the survivors (Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, 2011). Caring for the mental and behavioral health and wellbeing of residents could include the provision of special services as well as ensuring that providers of mental health have the necessary resources to deal with the influx of patients.

In this case, many people, especially those within the college and the courthouse will need counseling. According to Dass-Brailsford (2009), evidence has demonstrated that demand for mental health services often exceeds supply in many parts of the country, even without surges brought about by disaster. Also, health and social services encompass quality of life factors such as cultural activities, recreation, child care programs, afterschool activities, and other amenities and features that provide a certain community with a sense of well-being. These factors make a community a desirable place to be. Restoration of these qualities of life factors after a disaster is important to rebuild social networks.

The other factor that must be assessed in determining the outcome of the response is public facilities and infrastructure. The restoration of critical public facilities and infrastructure is a critical factor in determining if the outcome of the response to a crisis is a success or failure. Short-term and long-term redevelopment considerations for the restoration of the infrastructure must be weighed in conjunction with housing, environment, land use, and economic redevelopment issues (FEMA, 2014). After a disaster, the response should include taking advantage of opportunities to mitigate, relocate, and upgrade public facilities and infrastructure.

There are many stakeholders, jurisdictions, and agencies involved in providing utility services, public facilities, and infrastructure. During the response period, these public and private entities need to establish and maintain coordination and communication to ensure that long-term redevelopment and recovery occur in an organized and efficient way. For instance, immediately after the bombing of the courthouse, temporary recovery operations should include the erection of temporary structure to administer first aid and address the press.

In the process of disposing debris from the explosion, caution has to be taken to limit air pollution and contamination of vegetation, water, and soil. In particular, debris containing chemical contaminants will require different processing and disposal methods (McEntire, 2015). For example, if debris is not collected and disposed of well, water channels around the courthouse may be blocked leading to frequent flooding.

Due to air pollution and emission standards, incineration may not always be an option. Hence, debris removal must ensure that the environment does not suffer from prolonged exposure to environmental hazards while clean-up procedures should not cause additional pollution to the environment. Debris management may require staff training to implement best practices to debris management including recycling and reuse operations. Sometimes, to prevent repetitive damage, the restoration plans could include relocating the damaged public facilities and infrastructure rather than rebuilding in the same location.

So far, little has been done apart from the arrest of four foreign nationals attempting to enter the airport using forged documents. Besides, with the suspects refusing to cooperate with the security agencies, there is little information to lead the investigation or the response efforts. At this early juncture, there is little that has been done correctly, or rather there is little record of what has been done correctly besides the arrest of the suspects.

The handling of the survivors of the explosion could have been done better. Immediately following the blast, the survivors should have been provided with a psychologist so that they can process this traumatic event in a healthy manner. The mental health of the survivors at the courthouse and the country community college is critical to the long term recovery of the society as a whole. Besides, it would have been prudent to deal with the devices suspected to be in the college, either through defusing them or performing a controlled explosion. The presence of active explosives adds to the fear and anxiety within the community.

Apart from continued counseling of the survivors, in the future, the debris around the courthouse should be disposed of safely. After samples are taken and the scene opened, the debris should be disposed of far away safely. As a public facility, the courthouse is to be visited by a lot of people. Chemical residues of the explosives pose a health threat to the people besides hazardous elements in the damaged sections of the building including fine dust and asbestos.

The debris, therefore, must be disposed of safely shortly. Also, the college should be opened up as soon as possible because it provides vital services to the students and the community at large, including the afterschool activities. Such factors make a community a desirable place to be. Hence, the restoration of these qualities of life factors after a disaster is important to rebuild social networks and go back to normalcy.

Facts

Some of the facts of the incident so far include the availability of a delivery truck that has broken down at the tolls at the New Jersey entrance to Holland Tunnel. Due to this incident, all traffic appears to have stopped. From a traffic report, it appears that the police are in the vicinity and questioning the driver of the delivery truck. Besides, the police have also closed all traffic in and out of the tunnel.

In this incident, the police did the correct thing in closing all traffic in and out of the Holland Tunnel. Irrespective of the intentions of the driver, the Holland Tunnel represents a vulnerable structure in New Jersey. In case of an explosion inside the tunnel, people and property would severely be injured and damaged inside the tunnel. Hence, stopping and diverting the traffic away from the tunnel was the right thing to do to protect lives and properties. Nothing could have been done better at the time. In the future, the police should consider erecting a roadblock and CCTV cameras at both entrances of the Holland Tunnel. The move would discourage any plans to target the tunnel.

Communication capability may be the single most crucial resource of the response team. However, responding teams face a host of challenges in quickly establishing communication during a disaster event. One of these challenges is that of the limitation of the abilities of the human body and mind. First of all, it becomes difficult for humans to hear clearly when a lot of people are talking at the same time (Burroughs, 2017). If a person finds it difficult to discern who is talking, it becomes even more difficult to comprehend what is being said.

Due to the chaotic nature of the disaster scene, at least in the initial stages of response, the human body is exposed to high levels of stress. The stress on the body is a serious challenge to effective communication when responding to a disaster event. Besides, lack of sleep and a change of routine may pose a serious hurdle when communicating during an emergency. It takes a lot of training for a person to adjust to a certain routine. When a person is exposed to a different routine, he or she is unlikely to perform routine tasks well, including communicating. When a change of routine is added to a lack of sleep, the body and mind may experience a high level of fatigue that the person simply cannot function well.

Conclusion

Finally, another formidable challenge to effective communication during a disaster event is a technological failure. After a disaster, considerable damage could have taken place in the area of the disaster, damaging communication equipment in the area such as masts, boosters, and cell towers. Without this equipment, telephone lines, radios, and cell phones may be completely useless. Besides, topography and weather conditions on the ground may render some of the communication technology inadequate (Lewis, 2015). For example, dense tree cover, mountain topography, and dense smoke may pose a serious obstacle to the ability of the multiple communication equipment to work, often over the same network.