In his research into collaboration among agencies within Allegheny County’s emergency response system, Wukich (2011) finds that “once a need for action is upon them, an agency’s decision makers decide whether to cooperate with others or rely on their agency’s internal capacity” to cope with the situation. Informants of this research allude to the same decision point regarding whether to establish a multiagency command post, and discuss how it is reached during large incident operations. Analysis of the interview data suggests that it is most likely the
situation faced by the responders that determines whether collaborative management is utilized.
The situational forces of a major disruptive event usually result in a unified command post – in fact if not in name.
5.3.1 Availability of Command Level Officers
“Experienced officers are just not always available to properly staff a good unified command post, especially during weekdays” (Informant 26).
Day of the week and time of day are both critical to command team formation, especially when the situation requires a major response from the county’s largely volunteer fire service. Major events occurring during the morning and early afternoon hours of the typical Western Pennsylvania work day are particularly problematic, and serve as a major inhibitor of properly staffed unified command posts.
The disappearance of heavy industry, with its shift work, is often mentioned as a reason for the lack of availability of daylight fire service personnel in general, and of command personnel in particular. Informant 35, a paid EMS director and volunteer fire chief who has witnessed these changes over the last several decades, cites a typical example in his area:
We work with all-volunteer fire departments, but we are a career EMS service with paid personnel, just like the area police departments are. So it depends on time of day as to how you're going to engage at the command post. At ten o'clock at night, we may have 50 to 60 firefighters with a host of experienced incident commanders who can staff command post effectively. But during the daylight hours, we may have 15 to 20 firefighters and I may be the only experienced incident commander on the scene available to staff a command post, because a veteran fire officer might have to take an inside operational role because of a lack of manpower.
5.3.2 Scope of the Incident
At times, the sheer scope and complexity of an emergency event compels the formation of a unified command team. Informant 6 has witnessed events where “unified command is
established by officials who would not normally work in a collaborative setting.” Informant 52 agrees and states that although this type of UCT formation is far from ideal, “it beats the alternative of trying to manage a big incident with one IC.”
5.3.3 Interorganizational Rivalries and Personality Issues
Semi-structured interviews reveal that interorganizational rivalries are alive and well in Allegheny County, and that they are a strong inhibitor of command team formation. These rivalries are exacerbated by the disparate nature of Allegheny County’s public safety agencies; especially the fire service, which as discussed in Section 4.2, is predominantly volunteer in its personnel make-up. As Informant 9 remarks, “a command team won’t always come together naturally, and it’s usually because the members of one volunteer agency don’t like the members of another.” Informant 39 adds that the volunteer fire service is laced with poor attitudes and competing priorities. “Some people just don’t like one another, and in the volunteer fire service, unfortunately, that translates into poor command collaboration. Their focus is on the rivalry, not on the importance of public service to the community.”
Many informants pointed out that the county’s response agencies feature many strong personalities, which further complicates the establishment of unified command teams. The issue of personalities, especially when the actors possess strong egos, is complex and may either help or hinder command team formation. Informant 30 illustrates the dynamic:
With the emergency services career field, whether you’re talking about fire, police or EMS, there's a lot of ego and pride that goes into it. And it’s because of what we do and the way the public looks at us. So if the command team can all ‘play nice’ and get along with one another, the job gets done faster and there are no hard feelings at the end of it. That’s usually, but not always, the case in our area. But when I respond to other areas of the county, I see big egos in full bloom. I see command officers not accepting the advice of their counterparts at
the command post because they can’t get past their own pride in themselves, their companies, or whatever. This creates a mutual lack of respect and a refusal to communicate.
Other informants detail situations in which lack of respect between command level officers emanates from regional organizational rivalries. Such rivalries are often exacerbated by a lack of good communications prior to joint operations, which carries over into command post functions when a large-scale emergency occurs. Informant 56 cites a “simple lack of communications” between public safety officials as a reason for a lack of professional respect between them. Informant 24 adds, “these guys are pros, but they act like amateurs, like children, as soon as they have to work together at the command post. Informant 74 believes that interagency rivalries create a “toxic atmosphere that is translated and perpetuated” throughout an organization’s roster, and becomes self-sustaining as “the lower line officers buy into that nonsense.” He concludes by emphasizing that unified command is unworkable unless the players have “respect for each other all up and down the line,” and that rivalries between public safety operations “prevent respect from ever developing.”