CBRN and Hazmat Incidents at Major Public Events: Planning and Response

CHAPTER 18

Consequence Management and Other Related Measures

While the focus of this book is on the immediate response to CBRN/HAZMAT incidents, the nature of emergency planning and preparedness makes it difficult to divorce planning and preparing for crisis management from planning and preparing for consequence management. Indeed, there is not a firm border between the two, and definitions vary widely around the world. If a response plan is to be at all adequate, much of the planning effort is going to have to deal with consequence management. Dealing with CBRN/HAZMAT at a major event is likely to involve practically every sphere of public life. While the majority of this book has been devoted to preparedness, initial response, and the crisis-management phases of such incidents, it is important to get a grasp on the long-term aspects of response. It is not possible to go into too much detail in this vital area for two reasons. First, long-term consequence management after CBRN/HAZMAT incidents is a very complicated subject, worthy of a book in its own right. Second, much of this subject is generic to disaster management as a whole and is not peculiar to major public events. Therefore, this section will focus on aspects of direct relevance to the major-event environment.

CONSEQUENCE MANAGEMENT

One of the better schemes for breaking consequence management down into useful components is the concept of “emergency support functions” (ESFs), which has been developed by FEMA and is currently ...