RE: Treatment of Contaminated Personnel -Reply -Reply

[Michael S Ford <MFORD@pantex.com>]

David,

I'm at a loss to understand how you think the DOE could take on a
public sector practice and NOT "skew" it... <big grin>

As a former member of our site's Incident Command Group within
our EOC and a current Radiological Assistance Team Captain, I
understand the dissimilarities in the way the public sector and the
DOE implement the IC structure.  

I believe Rick was referring to the DOE Incident Command Structure
that does lend itself well to a DOE facility Emergency Management
program, but is not well-suited to a rapid, coordinated offsite
response.

However, regardless of the design of the "immediate" response
procedures, you still have to account for team member notification,
response time (what happens when everyone is at home and
asleep?), vehicle prep/loading, and transport time ---  which typically
reaches into multiple hours (at the very least) before the response
team arrives on scene.  Unless you're fortunate enough to have the
incident occur within a few miles of your assembly point.

You might be able to drastically reduce your response time by
having personnel man positions around the clock, but I'm not aware
of any federal government group that currently does this for
on-scene responders.

Our procedures designate the RAT Captain as the on-scene/incident
commander.  We travel with a DOE Team Leader that works as a
liaison between the local jurisdiction and the lead federal agency. 
The DOE Radiological Assistance Program is a fully scalable
response that can accommodate very small to very
large/catastrophic events and is independent of facility-specific
incident command designs.

In the end, we understand that our response team will be working in
a recovery mode in the vast majority of cases, although we train for
and are prepared to handle the requirements of the initial
responders.

My own *personal* musings,
v/r
Michael
*************************
Michael S. Ford, CHP
Radiation Safety Department
Battelle Pantex
Amarillo, TX
806.477.5727 phone
806.477.4198 fax
mford@pantex.com
*************************

>>> "Richards, David" wrote Wed 3 Mar 99  13:25 >>>

Michael,

I appreciate your comments but your concept of the Incident
Command System is somewhat skewed. What you are really talking
about is Emergency Management activities that occur generally
some time after initial response has occurred, normally at some sort
of remote response facility such as an EOC, TSC and/or EOF. A
properly implemented IC system is an immediate response structure
that is really only designed for organization and operations at the
INCIDENT SCENE. ...

DJ Richards
Hazards Assessment Team Leader
Emergency Preparedness
Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site
David.Richards@rfets.gov
djrichards@earthlink.net

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