Associations sustained a hard lesson on Sept. 11, whether their meeting in progress was abruptly terminated or future meeting planning was disrupted. The Annual Meeting, for most associations, is the bread and butter on which the entire year?s budget is based. That asset must be protected at all costs.

If "emergency plans" were prepared before Sept. 11 - if they existed at all ? these crisis management plans have since soared to the top of the meeting planner?s priority list.

To help you create an action plan that is both comprehensive and realistic, Convene asked three associations to anonymously submit their emergency management plans and documents for critique by one of three crisis and disaster planning specialists.

The critiques that follow offer a wealth of mission-critical advice and guidelines that are sure to form the basis of stronger crisis management documents. Convene thanks the associations that generously offered their plans for review so that their colleagues can benefit.

-Maxine Golding

Cover All the Questions
Develop checklists that provide specific action items, and identify the people assigned and their back-ups

Association #1's document provides an excellent, thorough orientation for its employees. This planning document should be read by every employee when hired, and reviewed at frequent intervals to ensure that everyone knows the basics. The plan has taken great care in stressing personal preparedness for all employees, ensuring them that the association has taken care of their well-being, while also explaining the emergency response structure that will be activated. It also does a good job of thoroughly documenting the association?s officer succession plans, ensuring continuity of management. Lastly, it contains the association's emergency policies and procedures for a wide variety of anticipated situations. All of these elements are necessary in a planning document.

What is missing, however, is how the assoiation will continue to operate following an event. Each group within the association should have an action plan to be used by their key teams at the time of the event. Each action plan should be a part of the overall response and recovery structure that will be activated. Who remains at the association?s headquarters and what role do they play in obtaining additional resources or coordinating other tasks remotely?

Who will continue to perform critical, ongoing business functions while others at the conference site coordinate response and recovery? (Note: This information may be contained in the separate Financial Crisis Plan.)

Communications Interface

An Emergency Command Center (ECC) will be set up on-site; I assumed the Crisis Management Teams will report to it. The Communications Team that will be interfacing with the press will need to be set up separately. How will they communicate back to the ECC? How will the ECC interface with Facilities and Security teams that will also be establishing emergency command posts as well? Facilities and Security typically will be interfacing with the police and other public responders. How will information be passed between these different groups that are all responding to the event?

Clearly define the distinct functions and tasks that each team reporting to the ECC will perform. The ECC Action Plan should be organized so that it will be very easy to use at the time of the event. Checklists should be developed that provide specific action items, identifying in advance exactly who is assigned to perform those functions, along with their back-ups if they are not available. Vendor and other contact lists should be a part of this plan for easy reference. All team members should have copies of the plan, and carry them when traveling.

What new information should the association include in its plans as a result of the latest terrorist attacks? The events of Sept. 11 forever altered our planning assumptions for a "worst case" scenario. As we go forward, any gathering of a large number of people immediately introduces the risk of possible terrorist attacks. These attacks don't have to come in the form of a plane crash or bomb. They could be as subtle as exposure to a communicable disease such as smallpox, which won?t be detected for days, or to food tampering, which could affect large numbers of attendees. The association industry has enjoyed a low and safe profile that no longer exists. Preconference brochures and other promotional literature must allay potential attendees? fears, if associations are to attract the same number of conference attendees.

Additional Actions

Expand the business continuity plan to include pre-conference discussions with the Facilities and Security teams to address exactly how to collectively manage a terrorist attack. Some of the elements to address are:

• How will the facility deal with mass injuries or casualties? One nurse will quickly be overwhelmed, while public responders will be overtaxed. At a minimum, identify triage, first aid, and temporary morgue areas that will provide easy access for emergency vehicles. Pick an area separate from where attendees will be evacuated, so that they are not further traumatized by seeing injured friends and co-workers. The morgue should be remote from the injured and in a protected area where it can be guarded by security until the local coroner arrives.
• How will the association handle inquiries from family and loved ones who want to know if their conference attendee is safe? Does the association have an emergency 800 number that can provide updated information quickly? Who will track the injured or deceased? Forms to capture this information should be prepared in advance and available to pre-assigned staff.
• How will the association manage attendees? requests for alternate transportation home?
• What if attendees are exposed to a communicable disease, and before they leave the event, many begin to show signs of illness? How will the association address an order by public officials that they be quarantined? What if other attendees must be inoculated as a precaution?
• What resources can provide crisis counseling? Will this service be available at every venue where the association conducts conferences and meetings?
• Pay particular attention to how you will handle mail and parcel deliveries to the venue site. This includes trade show displays. Ensure that contractors the facility uses have controlled access to sensitive areas such as air conditioning ducts, and are pre-approved through background checks or other security measures.
• Be particularly sensitive to food vendors that will be catering meals. Make sure they have their own security measures to eliminate the possibility of food tampering.

For terrorists, there are no "rules." They don't care if they win the hearts and minds of "the people." They are out to kill in mass quantities. The last taboos on use of weapons of mass destruction have been erased. Expect the worst as you plan.

Assess your vulnerabilities in light of this new era. Plan for the unimaginable. Train and exercise your Crisis Management Team often and thoroughly. Most importantly, remember that a plan that hasn?t been tested isn't a plan.

Judy Bell is president & CEO, Disaster Survival Planning Network, which provides consulting, planning tools, and workshops (www.disaster-survival.com). She can be reached at (800) 601-4899 or jbell@dspnetwork.com.

About Association #1

Trade association
Membership: 2,500
Annual trade show and convention: about 16,000 attendees; the October 2001 meeting drew 14,400; 550 exhibition companies in 1,800 booths Meetings per year: approximately 20, including annual trade show and convention (above); 1,500-attendee meeting; 300-attendee meeting; and 15-plus smaller meetings

Association members are involved in the food industry.

• What is a crisis and what happens during a crisis.
• Emergency basic procedures, covering accounting for participants and taking actions on facts, not rumor.
• Guidelines on Staff Safety and Health: in metropolitan areas, in cases of illness or injury.
• Emergency information for health insurance and Workmen's Compensation, with contact names, account numbers, phone numbers.
• Convention and exposition security contractor: whom to, how to, when to contact.
• Emergency health and paramedic services: 14 points describe how the on-duty nurse is empowered to act.
• Medical emergency procedures: 11 steps to take, with a list of 13 association staff certified to perform first aid and CPR.
• Emergency command center and chain of command: description of center and listing of chain.
• Crisis management teams: five teams, areas of responsibility; listing of leaders and team members.
• Hotel group staff leader per hotel: with staff room numbers, assignments.
• Association emergency spokesperson: identification and responsibilities.
• Convention crisis response communications plan: identification of possible crises, key audiences to address, resource materials to tap, team evaluation, actions to take.
• Bomb threats: guidelines on handling, steps in an evacuation, building search.
• Response sheet checklist for call-in threats.
• Natural disasters, fire, earthquakes, weather emergencies, power failures, food poisoning, social and political disruptions/disturbances/riots, war/acts of terrorism, death: actions, responses, survival steps. Incapacity of association president: consultation, notification, actions, designation of temporary replacement.
• Association contractors: emergency contact names and phone numbers.
• Association finance crisis plan: identifies separate plan and staff responsible.

Strengthen Your Preparedness
The association needs to be prepared, with built-in alternatives, for dealing with multiple scenarios

The plan contains many basic functions I would expect to see. Because only fragmentary information was provided for some areas of the plan, and the identity of the organization was not provided, I made certain assumptions including the probability that many meeting attendees are medical personnel trained in procedures for handling medical emergencies and injuries, but that the association's staff members are not trained medical personnel. Also assumed is that the size of the association membership and number of meeting attendees will attract speakers to the meetings that include high-ranking government officials and other high-profile dignitaries.

Plan Strengths

The plan's primary goal is clearly stated: to provide life safety over any considerations of property. Many businesses' crisis/emergency management plans discuss in detail protection of equipment and property, but contain only a brief section on life-safety considerations for employees.

The plan index includes several very specific topics, with each topic containing good concise procedures for staff to follow. Reference to each appropriate situation is simple.

Reliance on local security and maintenance and engineering personnel within the hotel and convention is wise. They are trained to handle emergencies and, better yet, are both qualified and familiar with the immediate location, building, and evacuation procedures. An association holding a meeting at a hotel and convention center should always use procedures already in place as the core of its plan.

The call tree currently under development will contain critical information and prove valuable. However, built-in redundancies are important.

A single point of failure in the call tree can lead to a breakdown in the entire process, so back-up personnel must be assigned at each level. A simple solution is to use an automated notification system. These services can be programmed to contact thousands of people almost instantaneously - all appropriate people, not just staff, including attendees, hotel services, vendors, speakers, and VIPs. Call lists should be updated at registration time.

Plan Weaknesses

While the core of the plan is well defined, some areas need to be shored up or enhanced in order to strengthen the overall level of preparedness and address additional contingencies.

Information gathering: In recording the information for the Control Room where meeting services personnel are located, additional information should be gathered, such as:

• Number of people involved in an incident?
• What type of injury is apparent?
• What is the condition of the injured?

Safety of child care centers: In the background specifications, a special note emphasizes extreme concern for the safety of the children in care centers provided for two of the largest annual meetings. However, there is no mention of the child care centers in any of the emergency procedures provided for the review. The following issues should be included in addition to normal concerns for evacuation, fire, power outages, etc.:

• Positive identification of the parent or guardian authorized to take any child from the center.
• Storage of milk or food during the time the children are in the center.
• Identification and separation of personal items such as blankets, bottles, teething toys.
• Control of dosages for any medications to be administered to children while in the care of the center. Isolation from the healthy population of any children with infections.
• Communications with parent/guardian during the meeting (message boards, cell phones, pagers).
• Special considerations for evacuation where babies and toddlers are involved.

Communications: The plan does not indicate that it is to be distributed to meeting attendees. Only management of the association and association staff members are referenced. The entire Emergency Response Plan should be available to anyone with access to the Internet. With proper identification and password they can be informed of the status of the plan. Because many people travel with either a personal computer (laptop or hand-held organizer with Web capability), communications to staff, management, and meeting attendees can be simplified by putting notices regarding emergencies on the Web.

All communications documented in the provided materials specified use of the telephone for communication. Many emergencies are normally very disruptive to the hotel and convention center's private branch exchange (PBX) and telephone systems. Consideration should be given and documented for supplemental communications, such as:

• POTS lines (Plain old telephones - without PBX).
• Hand-held radios and base station.
• Walkie talkies.
• Cellular telephones.
• Alphanumeric pagers.

Contingencies omitted: The plan of a high-profile organization may also include:

• Biohazards.
• Potential terrorist activity.
• Catering: Personnel background checks for food processors and handlers, and F&B quality control.
• Extortion.
• Kidnapping: Adults as well as children.
• Personal safety (out-of-town survival): Selection of local transportation; use of ATMs in well-lighted areas; avoidance of risky areas of town; items to carry, such as cellular phones, small flashlight, and medical emergency data for diabetics, cardiac patients, or other special needs.

Team structures: The plan makes no mention of alternative team members. It is most likely that during potential emergencies listed in the plan, some association management or staff may become casualties. Alternates for all team positions should be identified, as well as alternate sites for teams to convene should a location be unavailable.

Final concerns: The final document should be mistake-free. Yet some procedural steps seem out of context and need to be fixed. For example, the statement: "Do not attempt to enter into, defend a position, or subdue anyone involved in a disturbance," is appropriate for civil disturbance, but inappropriate for either flood or structure collapse.

While this plan is a good start for crisis/emergency preparedness, it has room for improvement. A sound plan does not have to include information on how to deal with all types of disasters, but should provide information useful for most occurrences. Not all disasters fall easily into one category or another; power outages and fires often occur simultaneously with earthquakes. The association needs to be prepared for dealing with multiple scenarios and should have built-in backups in communications, team assignments, and meeting locations.

No amount of preparedness will eliminate all potential disruptions, but sound strategies can mitigate many disastrous results.

Don Hughey, a senior consultant for Strohl Systems with 25 years of experience, specializes in crisis planning and disaster recovery. Strohl Systems provides business continuity planning software and services to protect billions of dollars of global assets. Contact: www.strohlsystems.com.

Association #2

Professional association
Membership: 55,000
Meetings: Annual meeting with 11,000 attendees; about 30 continuing medical education courses per year.

Members are involved with medical care. (One improvement to the emergency plan, not already included, is a phone tree that will be added. The phone tree will be updated for each meeting.)

• Introduction: a comprehensive emergency management plan to aid in ensuring maximum safety in the event of an emergency situation at the convention and hotel facilities.
• Overview: identifies address and key numbers for headquarters hotel, convention center, other locations, and accompanying attachments.
• Advance preparation: prior to the meeting.
• Emergency response systems at hotel and convention center, with key phone extensions and general guidelines.
• Staff responsibilities: location of control room, steps in recording the emergency Association management?s responsibilities: steps to take, identification, assignments and responsibilities for each of the teams.
• Fire, evacuation/relocation, earthquake, medical emergencies, power outage, bomb threat, social disturbances, building/portable structure collapse, flood, toxic/chemical emergencies: actions and procedures for each, along with injury safety techniques and guidelines for reporting.
• Phone tree (being added at time of critique)

Note: Association provides a child care center for the two largest meetings, and safety of these children is a great concern. Several pages of the plan, not able to be transmitted electronically for the critique, are specific to the city where the meeting takes place, and cover area maps, FBI telephone numbers, etc.

Address the Contingencies

Think a management team doesn't need to practice? Think again Two very good points stand out in this document: First, it lists the nine members of the Response Team with the general responsibilities of each; and second, it details 13 risk assessment categories. However, it is more a planning document than a plan.

As a planning document, it provides both risk assessment and contingency planning considerations, filling almost six of the eight pages. That's good, but - It omits reminders of the specific information that staff and officers will need when a major emergency occurs. Without some basic improvements to the plan, a major disruptive event could easily escalate from a manageable emergency into a crisis for the association. Here are some reasons and recommendations for basic improvements:

• Rename the Response Team. A better term would be Incident or Emergency Management Team.

Response usually designates a venue's hands-on personnel at the scene of action, those who rescue, treat casualties, control traffic, and alleviate physical damage. Those are not functions the association's team has on its plate.

• Add to the risk assessment categories, including bomb threat, device found, and hazardous/biological materials.

Why add these? They are very different from the categories already there, requiring different information, coordination, and management priorities. In addition, they have become more frequent incidents - unfortunately. Remember how Legionnaire's Disease got named?

• Include and reiterate in planning and training that preparations are for when, not if, such an incident or emergency occurs.

Only the least aware or most cynical manager would assume a disruptive event won't happen. Also, senior management?s attitude is quickly perceived and adopted by subordinates. Planning to manage major emergencies can be taken seriously, with subordinates becoming involved, or it can be seen as unimportant drudgery. Senior managers who lead staff to the latter approach risk a CLA ("career-limiting activity").

• Specify how the association's Management ("Response") Team will be notified to assemble, and then test the method, plus at least one alternate method.

Why is reliance on a facility's internal communications or alarm systems a bad idea? Because of human factors, they seldom work as anticipated. And they were not designed to quickly alert and brief the team.

Specify Key Points

• Make the team's assembly point very specific and communication-ready. Also specify a physically separate alternate. Both should have excellent communications beyond cell phones and ways to categorize and display critical information.

Communications capability that does not rely on cell phones is needed because experiences in recent disasters show us that they sometimes don't work.

• Describe how staff will keep the association?s board of governors informed. This is essential because the members expect the board to have correct information and to keep everyone else informed. Not keeping the board in the loop is another example of a CLA.
  
• Make sure the board of governors knows how it will be kept informed, and have them accept two critical roles: (1) to provide linkage between attending association members and the team, and (2) to provide policy to the team when existing policy is overtaken by events.

If staff doesn't keep the elected policy group ("Board") occupied during a major emergency, board members will try to micro-manage staff, with attendant additional turmoil. Also, a board-approved policy on emergency/crisis management will help the executive director sleep better after budgeting for emergency/crisis planning.

Use the facility's evacuation diagrams, coordinate with the community?s emergency response planners, pick an assembly area well clear of danger (including emergency response routes), and make sure everyone attending knows how to evacuate, assemble, and be counted.

Although the associations document notes that both the facility's and community's evacuation procedures must be attached, these procedures are seldom sufficiently comprehensive, regularly updated, or adequately rehearsed, and rarely include visitors viewpoints. Don?t base the safety of members, staff, speakers, other invited guests, and their families on those alone.

Relying on others' plans and capabilities isn?t sensible because: (1) the responsibility for the annual meeting's continuity is with the association?s staff, (2) most communities have only generalized plans ? lacking details only the association's staff can know, (3) most hotel staffs have a 50 percent turnover about every eight months, and (4) most convention center floor people are hired for the event. Doubt they're up to speed on emergency procedures!

One painless way to make sure that all attendees can be responsible for their own safety is to include the association's emergency instructions in the meeting?s check-in materials. Then, as each day's sessions begin, remind attendees about the key points. For example, in evacuations people almost always try to leave the way they came in. Pointing out the closest way out and alternative ways out is quick, well received, and life-saving.

• Make checklists for the nine individual team members, prioritize these, and add the names and contact methods for the people they must contact. Pass this information out as pocket cards during the required plan review.

Making these checklists should not be hard. Use the first iteration as a generic template, and insert new names and numbers while planning the next annual assembly.

• Make a flow chart of how a major emergency will progress. Rehearse the Emergency/Crisis Management Team. Require that each participant turn in a "Lessons Learned" list. Use these to improve the plan (in this case, to create one).

Think a Management Team doesn?t need to practice? Remember, this is a knowledge and skills set that is not used during normal business. Remember, too, the old joke about the lost violinist in New York who asked a passerby how to get to Carnegie Hall? The answer: "Practice, practice, practice!" In addition, whoever put the required annual review in this plan deserves a pat on the back!

This association has created a good planning document. What it needs now is a plan.

John Laye, FBCI, CMC, consults, speaks, and writes about contingency management. He is a member of the Business Continuity Institute, Association of Professional Emergency Planners, and Business Recovery Managers Association. Contact (925 or 510) 631-0400, or johnlaye@aol.com.

About Association #3

Professional association
Membership: 6,100 Annual meeting/exhibition: 3,200 attendees, 145 exhibiting companies/300 exhibitor staff, more than 300 speakers, 55 workshops,1,400 peak room nights.

Meetings per year: annual meeting/ technical exhibition, 8 specialized workshops, 15 committee meetings, and 3 board meetings.

Association is involved with medical care.

• General Outline: list of possible incidents or disasters, identification of attachments (hotel/facility and city procedures for notification, fire, evacuation).
• Chart of response team (name, title) and responsibilities. Plan modifications for each event depending on location and high-risk factors for specific geographic areas.
• Key risk assessment considerations: health and safety, facility, facility staff, meeting/event, destination venue, legal, third-party transportation suppliers, food and beverage, staff, attendees, insurance, financial, intangible risks.
• Risk assessment and contingency planning checklists: hotels, safety of guest rooms, labor situation, emergency routes, fire safety measures, food handling procedures, security, weather and Acts of God, injuries/death of attendees, local resources.
• Contingency planning: liability, scenarios, communication, rehearsing.