Although much has been said about development of formal, written crisis management procedures for public entities and private businesses--especially in light of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001--a show of hands at a seminar here revealed that only two out of 30 public-sector risk managers had an emergency manual in writing.

"If you don't have a manual, start thinking about where you need to go and how to develop it," said Rogert J. Krall, director of risk control services with Trident, the public-entity segment of Argonaut Group--a specialty underwriter based in Chicago.

Mr. Krall--presenting a session on "Terrorism: Public Building Protection" at the Public Risk Management Association annual conference here last month--advised public-sector risk managers to consider whether their sewer plants, parks and recreation centers, highway departments, and other sensitive or highly populated areas are well protected in case of a crisis.

"How about City Halls? During the day there's a lot of activity--you've got police officers and public officials in and out," he noted. "But what kind of police presence do we have? How protected and how safe are we, really?"

He said risk managers of public entities should take actions to reduce risks and review their capabilities in a crisis.

"Can you effectively guard yourself and really protect yourself while still providing the police patrol the citizens expect? Can you do all of this with the same manpower that you've got within your police departments?" he challenged.

This can't be accomplished, he warned, without a solid, written plan of action detailing who does what in an emergency.

He said risk managers need to identify their priorities, and whether they can be accomplished without additional manpower.

"Can you get away with installing more closed-circuit TV cameras or with more lighting?" he asked. "Can you reduce exposure by putting in traffic-control devices or barricades? How do you reduce risk without a lot of manpower, and how do you make things easier?"

Marilyn Rivers, risk and safety manager with the City of Sarasota Springs, N.Y., who was present at the seminar, told National Underwriter that because of homeland security protocols required of county and local government organizations, most entities have some type of contingency plan in place.

She noted, however, that some public-safety organizations don't realize how valuable the risk manager can be. Risk managers "have the knowledge and where-with-all to get all those emergency expenses from their insurance carriers, and they have the bank accounts--they know where the money is," she said.

She added that risk managers have an added value because they are not politically motivated and "strive to find solutions for everyone and not just a faction of the entity."

Risk managers also have access to the insurance carriers covering public entities, "which are phenomenal partners in any emergency situation," she said, asserting that insurer expertise and services are often underutilized.

If so, this oversight can leave gaps in emergency plans--for example, if public-sector risk managers are left out of early planning phases by para-military organizations, such as police and sheriff departments and the National Guard, she added.

Her own municipality is a case-in-point, she noted, because its emergency plan originally was written without the input of risk management. The situation changed, however, after "two severe weather issues," when she earned the respect of emergency response groups, she said.

Ms. Rivers described the situation: "I was wearing a pair of red rubber boots and I was in a dress, and I was hooking up a three-phase emergency generator," she said, recalling that she had "scoured the county" to find the generator, which was needed because no plans had been made for City Hall--only the police station was covered in the event of a power failure.

Because risk managers are often "so taxed" with day-to-day duties, she said they can miss opportunities to get involved on long-term disaster mitigation planning in "the way they need to, in order to earn trust with police and other departments."

Mr. Krall also stressed communications between risk managers and factions of state, federal and local government. "You need to contact the sheriff or police chief," he said. "Work with them and find out what they know--they may not be telling you everything."

For example, he asked: "Do you know if your sheriff or police chief is involved with the FBI and gets regular announcements? If they don't communicate with the feds, they won't know what's going on, both overseas and here."

In dealing with another communications area--the media--he advised risk managers to "develop boiler-plate press releases. You want to be able to talk to the press and control what goes out." When dealing with a disaster, he said risk managers need to know what steps the government entity will take and communicate that to the press--and, thus, to the public--so everyone knows how their government will respond in a crisis.

He said another area to be considered is accountability, "so that when you get to the end of an incident, you can debrief how things occurred and who was responsible."

Mr. Krall said security measures should include two-way radios, panic buttons, motion detectors and closed-circuit television cameras--both inside and outside of public buildings.

Great Britain has more closed-circuit TV cameras on their streets and highways than any other country in the world, he noted. "They've solved street crimes by using the cameras and following where the perpetrators went," he said--with the same systems able to monitor and identify those involved in a terrorist attack

Closed-circuit TV cameras can also help entities monitor the perimeters of a high-profile target site, and at the same time save on staffing expenses, he said.

Mr. Krall also recommended that entities implement "no-fly" zones over areas seen as potential targets, before an incident occurs.

"You want to be able to move in either military helicopters, state police helicopters, your own helicopters or [medical evacuation] helicopters," he explained. "But if that area is not identified as an FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] no-fly zone, you're going to have the press all over you, flying around."

Special Reports /

Few Public-Sector Risk Managers Have Final Emergency Response Plan In Place

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