USEFUL QUESTIONS
This section of the ‘Lessons Learned’ area of our site is dedicated to questions that MCA have found it useful to ask when exercising our plans and procedures, particularly during tabletop exercises. The list is not exhaustive, but may be of help to those planning exercises with a maritime element. Not all of these questions have been asked in a single exercise, of course – but all have given rise to interesting and productive debate.
We assume here that the subject of the exercise is a ship in distress.
Immediate response on board:
Q What immediate actions would you expect to be taken aboard the ship?
Q Would you expect the ship to alert anybody else at this stage?
Q If so, who, and how?
Q If not, when, who and how?!
Raising the alarm:
Q What response would you expect to the initial alert?
Q Which authorities should be alerted to the incident, and by whom?
Q What would you expect their initial actions to be?
Q What would you be doing yourself, and who do you want to talk to?
Q Are the local / regional / national / international alerting systems adequate?
The response:
Q What response is required in the circumstances?
Q Do we need further information and, if so, where do we get it?
Q What resources do we have / should we use?
Q Do we need additional support?
Q Who should you be talking to as the incident develops?
Q Outline a response plan.
Q What are the priorities? Agree a priority list.
Q Are resource deconfliction arrangements required (eg, for combined SAR and counter-pollution aircraft operations)?
Q What changes to the situation can be foreseen, and how might your plans have to adapt?
Q Will priorities change as the response develops and, if so, in what ways?
Co-ordinating the response:
Q Who is in charge on scene?
Q Who is in charge of the incident overall?
Q Will this change over time?
Q Describe the C3 network – command, control, and communications. How should it develop over time?
Q Who needs to know? How should they be kept informed of developments? How can information requirements best be managed?
Q Is there a danger of communications overload? What can be done about this?
Q Are there potential areas of conflict? How may they be avoided or resolved?
Q What is the shipping company’s role?
On-board assistance and evacuation:
Q What can be done about any requests from the ship for firefighting, medical, or other on-board assistance?
Q What should be done with the injured?
Q What should be done about the missing, and the dead?
Q How should the evacuation of the ship be organised?
Q How can the recovery of people from survival craft etc be best achieved?
Public information:
Q What are you going to say to the local radio station or newspaper reporters when they call? Or to regional, national, and international news organisations?
Q How should the overall response to the news media be handled?
Q Who co-ordinates / leads the response to the news media?
Q Who should be involved in the preparation of news releases, news conferences, etc?
Q What information should be made available to family and friends of those involved, and to the general public, and by what means?
Q Are enquiries from the news media or from family, friends or the general public likely to affect operational staff and, if so, how can this be avoided?
Action ashore:
Q What preparations should be under way ashore for the reception of survivors, injured and uninjured?
Q What effect will the number and type of casualties have on available resources? How can this effect be mitigated?
Q What preparations should be under way ashore for the reception of the dead?
Q The survivors are of several different nationalities, and people are being landed across national and/or local authority boundaries: what problems arise?
Q What preparations should be under way ashore for dealing with pollution arising from the incident?
Q A member of the Royal Family will be visiting the injured in hospital. What arrangements need to be made?
Q What are the priorities?
Q What further action is required of the local authorities, in the short-, medium-, and long term?
Q What is the shipping company’s role?
Q What legal and jurisdictional issues arise?
The recovery phase:
Q What are your organisation’s roles and responsibilities during the recovery phase, and what issues arise?
Q What is your role in assisting with the post-incident investigation and the collection and protection of evidence?
Q What environmental remediation work is required; who will lead it; and who will be involved?
Q What about the questions of liability and compensation?
Q Who is in charge during the recovery phase?
Q What communications and information-sharing arrangements will be required?
Q Describe the C3 structure that is now required.
Q Do you think longer term concerns (business continuity, litigation etc) would or should affect short term decision-making?
What if?
Q What if the incident had happened further from the coast; or closer to it, on a lee shore?
Q What if the incident had happened at another time of day or night, or on a public holiday? Or in worse weather?
Q What if IT or communications systems had failed during the incident?
Q Can you identify any other key factor(s) in your organisation that would significantly disrupt your response if not in place or operating correctly? How can you mitigate against such failures?
Q What if some of your own people were involved in the incident as casualties?
Big questions!
Q Do we know who to talk to? Is this list complete?
Q Are contact details regularly reviewed and up-to-date?
Q Do we understand local / regional / national / international co-operation plans and arrangements?
Q Do we understand the response and recovery structures?
Q Do we understand each other’s roles, responsibilities, resources, and concerns?
Q Do we have built-in resilience – enough key people and resources to cope with leave, sickness, equipment failure, etc?
Q Can we identify ways of making the system work better?
In conclusion:
Q Identify the most important points that have arisen from our discussion.
Q Is there anything else you would like to discuss?