Dana L Stahl - Health and Safety in Emergency Management and Response

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 10
8. Chapter 12

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 8
8. Chapter 9
9. Chapter 11

Dana L. Stahl

This edition first published 2021

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Stahl, Dana L., 1965- author.

Title: Health and safety in emergency management and response / Dana L.

Stahl.

Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, [2021] | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020015446 (print) | LCCN 2020015447 (ebook) | ISBN

9781119560975 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119561064 (adobe pdf) | ISBN

9781119561101 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Emergency management Safety measures. | First

responders Health and hygiene.

Classification: LCC HV551.2 .S726 2020 (print) | LCC HV551.2 (ebook) |

DDC 363.34/80289 dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015446

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015447

Cover design by Wiley

Cover image: Isaac Howard

Set in 9.5/12.5pt STIXTwoText by SPi Global, Chennai, India

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

My first exposure to the field of Emergency Management came when I was working as an Industrial Hygienist at the Port of Seattle. Michael Mandella, Chief of the Port of Seattle Fire Department and later the Airport Emergency Operations Manager, decided that it was important to include an Industrial Hygienist in the Airport Operations Plan, and provided me with my introduction to the Incident Command System and the National Incident Management System.

In 2008, I changed jobs, and began working at the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority, known locally as Sound Transit, first as a Senior Safety Specialist and later as the Manager of Health, Safety and Emergency Management. When I started, Sound Transit was getting ready to begin light rail operations, and the Safety Division had the responsibility of coordinating interagency emergency response exercises in support of the light rail safety certification plan. This involved working closely with emergency responders in the region, including Seattle and South King County fire and police departments, and my former colleagues at the Port of Seattle.

We had many meetings with our colleagues in these departments, and these meetings were peppered with acronyms commonly used in emergency response. Since I was the only person in my department who had taken any incident command system (ICS) training at the time, I was the only one who knew what these acronyms meant and fully participate in these conversations.

My Division leadership was impressed: Somehow I had suddenly become the expert on emergency management at Sound Transit, and my Director decided that I should be given responsibility for the emergency management program that we now realized that we needed.

I later learned there is a term for what had happened. It is called a Field Promotion.

I, of course, knew that I had a lot to learn about emergency management. I have a master's degree in industrial hygiene, and am a Certified Industrial Hygienist, and knew that I didn't have nearly as much background to fall back on as I took on the challenge of emergency management. Today, students can obtain degrees in Emergency Management, but this type of training was not so readily available in 2008. Fortunately, I had excellent resources to work with, and I am extremely grateful to my former colleagues at the Port of Seattle, Michael Mandella, Kathleen Gleaves, Ron Harmon, and Kristine Ball, as well as Barb Graff, Laurel Nelson, and Grant Tietje from the Seattle Office of Emergency Management for helping me get started on this program and for patiently answering all of my questions.

I am also grateful to my Division leadership, Hamid Qaasim and Peregrin Spielholtz, for giving me the opportunity to take on the emergency management program, and to my colleagues Selena Ngo and Lori Bisping for the work they did in making this initial emergency management program a reality. Lori, I know the program has come a long way since those early days.