05-02-2008

David Tomkinson

David Tomkinson (left) is thanked by Lauren Christie for his presentation on "Emergency Management from a Practitioners' Perspective". David's riveting presentation included the following points:

• I am the District Emergency Management Officer for this District, employed by the Police Force, but not a police officer. I am also, however, a RYLArian from a long time ago, and a member of the SES for 40 years. I resigned as Controller of the SES in 1990 to take up the second in command role.
• I've been on the go since 4am this morning when I got a call about flooding in a retirement village.
• Although I work under an Assistant Commissioner of Police, and am paid by the Police Force, I am not part of the Police Force.
• The operational side of emergency management takes a large slice of my time. Last September I was asked by the Department of Primary Industry to help with the equine flu vaccination.
• My District takes in a large slice of Sydney, including most of its water catchment. If something happens in Sydney, I am usually involved.
• Emergency or Disaster? We cover storm events, train wrecks, bush fires, and so on. At one train wreck we had containers that had broached and we were told by the railways that one container had sodium cyanide. Fortunately, it wasn't one of the broached containers.
• I was involved in the operation to stop the spread of Newcastle disease. We had thousands of hens to destroy at Mangrove Mountain. We tried burning them using stocks of railway sleepers supplied by the railways, but chickens don't burn so well. We ended up burying them and the contaminated ground and their waste in big pits. Their waste acted similarly to lye, and helped to destroy the bodies.
• We deal with all agencies. Arrangements were put in place in legislation in the 1990's to cover all hazards.
• "Operation Safe Haven" dealt with Kosovars and East Timorese.
• In dealing with terrorism, the police catch them, while we manage the emergency. In the Sarin gas attack in Japan, for instance, they had 13 dead people to deal with, but that was easy, logistically. The real problem came when 5,000 people attended hospital with varying degrees of Sarin contamination.
• In the 911 attack on the World Trade Centre, the airspace was closed at 10am. Aircraft past the halfway mark in their journey were diverted to other places, such as Mexico or Canada. Those not yet at the half way mark were told to return to their point of origin. The 1500 planes normally flying over Canada were also grounded. Some of the planes were diverted to Gander in Newfoundland, which, with a normal population of less than 10,000 suddenly had almost 7,000 visitors "drop in". The passengers sat in their planes for 23 hours, before disembarking, without their luggage which had to be checked. There are only 5 hotels, so people were billeted in the locals' homes. Locals had no idea what their visitors' language, culture, or country would be until they turned up, or even if they were terrorists or not. No-one's phone worked, because Canada works on a different mobile phone system, but even for those who had phones that would normally work in Canada found that their phones were blocked.
• Emergency Management is about managing consequences rather than the crisis which precipitates them.
• In the Lockerbie Disaster, Pan Am flight 103 crashed into the town of Lockerbie after a bomb exploded in mid flight. Although not a target, 11 people on the ground were killed as well as the 259 on the plane itself. To manage things was a huge task; there were 3,000 meals a day to serve, water and sewerage failures to contend with, and VIP visits by politicians, royalty, and others. Soil contaminated with aviation fuel had to be removed, and replaced, but this had to be surveyed first so it was know how much soil had to be used.
• The management of foot and mouth disease in Britain was a huge event. Families were marooned on farms, because people didn't want to pick up the infection when they went to town and spread it to their places. Weddings were cancelled, and schools were closed. Agribusinesses closed. There were losses of £20M / day for agriculture, but the losses for tourism were £150M / day.
• A crisis can be escalated - it can go from local to district to state to commonwealth, as the need occurs. There are some events which are beyond the state's capacity to handle - two examples would be a foot and mouth outbreak and an avian flu epidemic.
• In managing risks many agencies have a role, but in responding to emergencies, the combat agency controls it.
• The State Emergency Services Coordinator is appointed by the Governor, but works with the Emergency Services Minister and the Police Minister.

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Last changed: 03:21:25 04-10-2008