Centralized communications and dispatch services are perhaps the first manifestation of attempts at emergency services coordination. Such efforts were delayed in Allegheny County, which was
the last major metropolitan area in the U.S. to establish a 911 emergency number, and the last to establish a centralized telecommunications call center (CPM, 2011). Until recently, the county featured a patchwork of small, local dispatching centers scattered throughout the region.
During the early 1990s, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania pushed for the consolidation of Public Safety Answering Points16 (PSAPs) as a way to save money and facilitate the efficient delivery of emergency services throughout the state (CPM, 2011). This process proceeded slowly in Allegheny County, as individual municipalities and small regional dispatching centers clung to their turf and as political officials argued that locally based dispatchers, with detailed knowledge of their municipalities, could best direct emergency responders to an incident scene.
It was not until 2001 that the centralized 911 process began in earnest with a consolidation in the southwestern portion of Allegheny County. This process continued – as did resistance to it – until a compromise was reached in 2005, and five regional PSAPs were established (CPM, 2011). As a part of an agreement with local municipalities, the five centers operated independently, each with its own policies and procedures, and with little coordination among them. While these five centers represented a major improvement from the previous arrangement, the situation was still far from ideal.
Concurrently, Allegheny County’s Emergency Services Agency established a centralized 911 Center and allowed each regional entity to “apply” for incorporation into it (CPM, 2011). One-by-one during the first decade of the twenty-first century, the regional dispatching services were merged into one all-encompassing, multidisciplinary 911 center, which included the assimilation of the City of Pittsburgh’s emergency communications system. Yet even today, many political subdivisions insist on and are granted what is known as “ring-down” status, an
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arrangement where requests for assistance must be re-routed from the county 911 center to dispatchers in local municipalities, creating the potential for delays and mistakes in service delivery (Informant 19).
4.5.2 1998: Formation of the Region 13 Antiterrorism Task Force
Following the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, and the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995, the potential for terrorist activities within the United States came to the forefront. Emanating from discussions held by the Allegheny County Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) working group, the task force began its mission in 1998, three years prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (PAR13, 2014). Task force members recognized Western Pennsylvania’s vulnerability to domestic and foreign terror attacks, and sought to create an all-hazards organizational structure consisting of resources from multiple counties which could be mobilized to assist local emergency response efforts.
Sanctioned under Pennsylvania State Law Act 227, the Region 13 Task Force covers a metropolitan area of 3 million residents within a 9,550 square mile area and including 706 municipalities, 713 fire departments, 392 police departments, 203 EMS agencies, 65 hospitals, 15 hazardous materials teams, and 2 specialized explosive teams (PAR13, 2014). The task force has been recognized by FEMA as a model organization for intergovernmental cooperation and is often held up as an example of the type of collaboration that may one day be possible within Allegheny County’s fragmented governmental and emergency services structure (PAR13, 2014).
The Region 13 Task Force consists of a series of mutual aid and intergovernmental agreements to respond to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) events,17 chemical emergencies, and other man-made and natural disasters. The task force features specialized resources of personnel and equipment, along with an interoperable communications system, all of which are available for regional emergency events. Region 13 also coordinates grant funding and provides numerous opportunities for networking and training that allow local responders to hone their skills (Informant 19). Figure 8 illustrates the state’s regional task forces and PEMA areas.
Figure 8: Pennsylvania's Regional Task Forces and PEMA Areas (PSEOP, 2012).
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4.5.3 2001: September 11 – A Support Role for Allegheny County
The crash of United Flight 93 in rural Shanksville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, necessitated a multijurisdictional, multiagency response which was intergovernmental in character (Grant, Hoover, Scarisbrick-Hauser and Muffet, 2003). Since the event was primarily a terrorist incident, federal and state law enforcement personnel maintained control of the scene, led by agents of the FBI. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board also sent investigators to the site to assist federal authorities. At the same time, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) provided coordination for the many state, regional, and local public safety agencies.
Although the tragedy in Shanksville did not impact a populated area, Allegheny County’s emergency services agencies were nevertheless called upon for a number of supporting functions, including on-scene logistics, assistance with the search for human remains, and specialized equipment that was needed to maintain 24 hour out-of-doors operations in a remote and rural area. The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army also played important roles during the sustained incident operational period of what became a long-term disaster recovery operation.
While the Shanksville incident was generally well managed, it nevertheless brought to light the need for greater coordination among law enforcement, fire, and non-governmental supporting agencies (Grant, et al., 2003). Allegheny County officials who responded to the event were able to help bring some order to the situation, yet they noted a lack of command clarity regarding the responsibilities of the individual public safety resources assembled at the scene.
The extended response to Somerset County also highlighted a need for a greater availability of funding to support training and equipment, which was found to be lacking for this
type of distant and specialized response. In particular, it was noted that agencies which hadn’t trained together operated in an air of unfamiliarity that hampered the response to certain on- scene demands, while leading to a duplication of effort in others (Grant, et al., 2003).
4.5.4 2004: Tropical Storm Ivan – Coordination Improving
During the 2004 Atlantic Hurricane season, Tropical Storm Ivan swept through Allegheny County, causing widespread damage and severely taxing an emergency response network which was not accustomed to dealing with such a large-scale event. Approximately 10,000 homes and businesses were damaged during the storm, and widespread flooding occurred as heavy rains fell on a region that had already been saturated by the remnants of Hurricane Frances just 11 days earlier (ACES, 2014). Massive flooding, wind and related damage caused by the tropical storm kept emergency crews busy for over a week, straining the volunteer fire service in Allegheny County and challenging its ability to keep up with requests for service.
Ivan was yet another event during which demonstrated the importance of cooperation among public safety agencies, and on this occasion it was in evidence. Thanks to the efforts of a strong and effective leadership team, the Allegheny County Department of Emergency Services demonstrated a rapidly expanding capacity for large-scale incident management by organizing the resources and directing the efforts of hundreds of regional response organizations. It was particularly noteworthy that these new abilities had a very positive effect on the interdisciplinary elements of the response.
Still, in spite of the work of ACES, complete coordination of all public service organizations proved elusive as incident commanders struggled to deploy the county’s limited resources in ways that would assure service delivery while not causing the response system itself
to collapse. This situation was due in part to the limited authority that county officials held over local agencies and also to the extreme variation in available manpower from one public safety entity to the next. As in previous incidents of a regional nature, a more robust system of interoperability and inter-agency cooperation was shown to be needed.
4.5.5 2009: Region 13 “All Hazards” Incident Command Team
In 2009, the leadership of the Region 13 Task Force developed a plan to establish a permanent unified command team. Known as the Region 13 All Hazards Incident Management Team, it was based on standards promulgated by FEMA for permanent, regional incident management teams (AHIMT, 2007). Although the team has yet to be fully trained and certified, its ideation represents the region’s first attempt to develop a group of established incident commanders who would be used as “strike teams” for deployment to large-scale emergencies throughout Western Pennsylvania (Informant 19).
4.5.6 2015: New Threats – Current Status
In 2014, natural gas exploration and drilling into the Marcellus Shale sandstone layer began in earnest at some locations in Allegheny County. This unconventional industrial process introduces new hazards to Allegheny County’s citizens and infrastructure, and presents new challenges to its already overburdened public safety agencies (Informant 19). The large and complex response to an uncontained gas release or explosion at one of the well sites will require coordinated activities that seem beyond the reach of the current capabilities of the county’s public safety agencies and responders.
One particularly problematic threat is that posed by the five natural gas drilling operations located on the property of the Pittsburgh International Airport. With up to 70 well heads18 in the planning stage, the potential exists for a major incident which could disrupt a critical piece of the region’s economic and transportation infrastructure. Figure 9 displays a map of the Marcellus shale formation in Pennsylvania, while a site plan for gas drilling at the Pittsburgh International Airport is included in Appendix D.
Figure 9: Marcellus Shale Formations in Pennsylvania (MCOR, 2015).
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Recent focus group sessions held by the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Disaster Management, consisting of experienced incident commanders from throughout Allegheny County, draw attention to a continuing lack of resources and coordination for the type of large- scale operations that would be necessitated by a major gas well incident, in spite of the efforts of the Region 13 task force. Local public safety professionals continue to point to the need for more funding to finance the training, manpower, and specialized equipment that would be needed to control a catastrophic well pad gas release or fire. These experts also identify another common and longstanding shortcoming – a failure to properly coordinate large-scale regional emergency events – which has plagued the region for many years.
4.6 CONCLUSION
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania is an appropriate area in which to investigate the management of large-scale disruptive events. The region’s police, fire and EMS agencies are framed by their disjointed structure and uneven geographic distribution. Varying widely in their missions, capabilities and demands for service, these public safety organizations present significant variability for research. Within Allegheny County, limited resources of equipment and personnel necessitate a multiagency response which stretches well beyond the normal mutual aid networks. Multiagency response, in turn, adds complexity to the joint management of regional disruptive events.
Efforts during the last three decades to improve coordination and effectiveness among the over 450 emergency response agencies have met with uneven results, in spite of the fact that the county features old infrastructure paired with complex and growing hazards to its population.
While some efforts toward coordination have been initiated by the Allegheny County Department of Emergency Services, these actions have been inhibited by a lack of legal authority to compel the county’s agencies to adapt modern methods of incident management.
Chapter 4 also details some of the key historical attempts to improve coordination of incident command in Allegheny County, including the centralization of emergency dispatching, the formation of the Region 13 Anti-Terrorism Task Force, and the ongoing efforts to form collaborative management teams of incident commanders. This chapter sets the stage for Chapter 5, which begins this study’s empirical exploration by examining the factors that influence unified command team formation and collaboration.