Md. Altamash Khan is DRR Consultant and Field Correspondent at Know Disasters Magazine
Emergency Operation Centers, or, EOCs might not be a very known term among people but I am sure everyone of us, while enjoying a Hollywood thriller, must have felt fascinated to see lots of futuristic technology whirring and flashing, with dramatic situations, heroic (or antiheroic) incident commanders, stressed out people and great visuals. For instance, a recent Netflix hit, Money Heist (La casa de papel), which revolves around a bank robbery being controlled from a command post set up at a distant place outside, aptly captures the usefulness and functioning of EOCs. However, in practical world it requires strong governance and empowered institutions to match the agility and outcomes of such sci-fi movies.
The unprecedented happening of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has sharply exposed the poor state of emergency preparedness and response among the global community. Over 90 percent of countries have already activated multi-agency coordination plans to achieve timely detection of and response to COVID-19. A large-scale emergency like this needs multi-sectoral and interagency response capacities and capabilities. Thus, a useful Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) is the need of the hour since it is an important platform for the coordination of information and resources toward a goal-oriented response. Yet, the activities undertaken by EOCs and their supposed goals haven’t been fully optimized in current situation. In simpler ways, we may say the governments around have not been able to develop and utilize it completely which gives an impression that it has been be the most underrated tool in disaster risk management yet.
Let’s understand the conceptualization, purpose and development of an EOC and what is needed to increase its efficiency and meaningfulness for achieving enhanced resilience in Build, Back, and Better.
What is an EOC?
An Emergency Operation Center or EOC is an ultimate nerve center in a crisis situation. FEMA defines it as “The physical location at which the coordination of information and resources to support incident management (on-scene operations) activities normally takes place. An EOC may be a temporary facility or may be located in a more central or permanently established facility, perhaps at a higher level of organization within a jurisdiction”. (2008)
An EOC provides a crucial support function throughout a disaster situation. Effective response will rely on the EOC providing the key services of support, coordination, information management and operational planning, and any shortfall in the provision of these services is likely to aggravate the disaster situation and adversely affect the effectiveness of critical response actions such as rescue and relief.
EOC plays an important role in the Emergency Operation activation. It coordinates the flow of information with respect to activities associated with relief operations. During the normal times it maintains a systematic database of the resources available, important phone numbers, names and addresses of important government and non-government officials, international bodies, NGOs. During crisis it is expected to function as a center for decision-making and help flow of information horizontally and vertically to the respected departments for smoother relief operations.
An EOC follows general emergency management principles with a wide range of risk assessment, preparedness, response, and recovery.
It is engineered upon the incident management system (IMS), internationally recognized as the best practice model for all hazards and emergencies. In essence, the IMS is a scalable and adaptable command-and-control system with the flexibility of organizing emergency response and resources in individual events, agencies, and jurisdictions. Within the IMS, five essential EOC functions are theorized, including management, operations, planning, logistics, finance and administration. An integrated EOC platform requires plans and procedures, physical infrastructure, information and communications technology infrastructure, information systems and data standards, and human resources.
EOCs in India
The National Policy on Disaster Management NPDM, 2009 recognizes the “establishment of emergency operation centre at the National, State, Metros and district level and equipping them with the contemporary technologies and communication facilities and their periodic up gradation will be accorded priority. EOC are to be established, managed and controlled by National, State and local entities.”
As per the Government of India’s national framework for disaster management, the States are being assisted to set up control rooms/emergency operations centers at State and district level. Assistance for this had been given under the GoI-UNDP project in the States. Assistance under the Modernization of Police Scheme was also available for setting up EOCs. The control rooms, which function round the clock, are composite control rooms to look after law and order issues as well as disaster management. Equipment were also provided for these control rooms under the disaster risk management {GoI-UNDP DRM programme, (2002-09)} to the selected states. Hazard zone-wise standard layout, structural design and construction drawings have been developed for State and District EOCs.
At the national level, there is National Emergency Operations center (NEOC) being set up at Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi, equipped with satellite phones, GPS, computers, emergency lights, GIS etc. and five on-site emergency coordination kits in ready-to-use mode. It is a state of the art underground, all-hazard resilient facility with superior structural features and communication facilities. Similarly, all the states have their own State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOCs) and a District Emergency Operation Centers (DEOCs).
The function of an EOC is not only to control disaster but also to look after rehabilitation and mitigation. It monitors different disaster mitigation programmes and co-ordinates with different organizations. It also conducts evaluation of the programmes, and immediately takes up necessary measures. Besides, the EOCs may act as control rooms for various other purposes such as law and order problem, elections, VIP movements and other activities requiring coordination.
Opportunity of EOC for pandemic response
A recently published paper in Global Health Journal which is titled ‘Leveraging the Public Health Emergency Operation Center (PHEOC) for pandemic response: opportunities and challenges’ supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, studies how the development and implementation of Public Health EOCs (PHEOCs) have advanced public health preparedness and response capabilities in many countries. It cites an example of Nigeria’s rapid actions to the 2014‒2016 Ebola outbreak and the positive role in containing the virus in Africa was attributed to an early established PHEOC that was set up for the 2012 polio eradication program. The coordinated response guided by best practices and the framework led to the successful control of the reported cases in cascade. The on-scene adaptation of PHEOCs to local circumstances managed to contain the outbreak with streamlined actions, limiting social and economic disruptions.
Challenges in implementing EOC best practice guidance
The best practice guidance remains, in effect, less compatible with resource-limited countries
Since the concept of an EOC is still relatively new, high-level government support in terms of money and expertise must be cultivated to make a difference. However, for underdeveloped countries, the national governments must prioritize limited financial and human resources to the most immediate and dire threats. Emergency preparedness planning, which requires freestanding, regularly staffed, and dedicated EOCs, seems like an unaffordable luxury of time and resources. Moreover, the proper establishment of EOCs lies not only on the commitment and input from national governments, but also requires a comprehensive, progressive, and coordinated emergency management system to be fully operational.
Another issue that has to be addressed is how EOCs maintain readiness between activation periods. This is particularly relevant to low resource settings, as they cannot scale up human resources and technical capacity in the short interval.
What lies ahead?
National, sub national, and district agencies ought to collaborate and share information effectively in order to provide health or disaster management services through a clear command hierarchy. Information on adapting a best practice guidance to local circumstances could incentivize the full implementation of prevention, early detection, and response to disasters. Identifying and correcting deficiencies in the evaluation of effectiveness is going to provide the basis for continuous EOC improvement.
With the gradually reopening economies and public services in some countries, there is an urgent need to emphasize and validate the collective efforts undertaken by HEOCs for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic as part of lessons learnt. It is vital to tailor the emergency preparedness and response strategies to the specific geopolitical and socioeconomic contexts. The scale of the pandemic and its damaging economic and social impacts ought to be a chance for national governments to overhaul and validate their emergency operation structures.
Disaster risk management cannot be efficient or effective without strong governance and empowered institutions. That requires leadership and political commitment. Taking into account the SFDRR’s four priorities of actions viz. Understanding disaster risk; strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk; Investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience and Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better” in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction, the strengthening of EOC will surely be in pursuance of the expected outcome and goal of achieving resilience.
