Analysis and evalution of the Abruzzo emergency management

On 25 June 2010 the Civil Protection Department established a working group in order to analyze and evaluate the management of the earthquake emergency in Abruzzo between 6 April 2009 and 31 January 2010.

Tthe composition of the group and its objectives were defined by decree of the Head of Department, once the handing over with the Commissioner for reconstruction and the assisting of the new technical mission structure were concluded. The decree established also the end of activities on 31 December 2010, later prolonged to 30 June 2011, with the 28 March decree.

The objective of the initiative was to analyze the model adopted by the Department for the coordination of the National Civil Protection Service in managing the Abruzzo emergency. Each activity, carried out by an elaborate group of organizations, structures and people, in fact, needs a shared evaluation and verification of results. For this reason, the Department collected experiences from its own employees, volunteers, operators of Regions, Provinces, Municipalities, operating structures, professional orders and companies. Among the tools, a consultation on this website that ended on 31 December 2010.

Last October, the working group presented the first results of the analysis that counted 9 thematic areas, and, for each of them, of project to overcome criticalities. In particular, the thematic areas are: regulations activity and operating management, management of victims and wounded people, donations, reception areas and hotels, creations of settlements and temporary structures, Contact center and Public Relations Office, stability Checks, relations with local boards, other administrations and citizens, Command and Control system. Some projects of the above areas are already operating, other are planned but have not yet started, some others need to be defined.

 

The Working Group - established to analyze and evaluate the management of Abruzzo earthquake emergency - is coordinated by the Head of the Civil Protection Department and divided into two Units:

  • an addressing and coordination Unit, composed by the director of the Emergency Office, the Director of the Seismic and Volcanic Risk, by a representative of the National Fire Department, by one of the Armed Forces and by one of the Civil Protection System of Regions and Autonomous Provinces;
  • a synthesis Unit, coordinated by the Manager of the Service for the diffusion of civil protection awareness.

The group may request the involvement in the activities of representatives of territorial institutions, referees of voluntary work organizations, of committees and citizens' associations, of public and private boards and administrations that participated in the emergency management. Moreover, it may avail itself of the collaboration of universities and Italian research institutes that are qualified to analyze and summarize its activties.

The working group's methodology has listed from July 2010:

  • internal meetings;
  • compilation of a summarizing file by each function of Di.coma.C about their activities in  Abruzzo, any criticality, adopted solutions and proposals on the operating procedures to adopt;
  • meetings with each responsibile of the Civil Protection Department's activities;
  • meetings extended to representatives of boards and administrations;
  • an on-line questionnaire to collect suggestions from whoever took part in the Abruzzo emergency.

Who contributed to the different phases of the Abruzzo work collected information, useful indications and suggestions, ranging from people's rescue to the set-up of reception areas, from the safety measures of the territory to the safety checks, to the safeguard of the cultural heritage to the creation and management of lodgings of the Case project, Map, and Musp.

At the end of 2010, the online consultation on the Abruzzo earthquake emergency ended. The questionnaire collected information on activities and experiences from whom worked in Abruzzo from  6 April 2009 to 31 January 2010 and registered proposals to improved the reported criticalities.Among the participants: volunteers, operators of Regions, Provinces, Municipalities, operating structures, professional orders and companies.
 

The following are among the launched projects:

Communication in ordinary and emergency situations. The pilot experience of the citizen's help desk in  L’Aquila was the landmark for projectin a civil protection Contact Center. The project, in fact, provides for the transfer, at national level, of the model tested in Abruzzo.

The Contact Center of Civil Protection will manage on an IT platform ordinary, emergency and service communication. Also through a dedicated tool free number, it will collect reports and requests from citizens and will provide them with clarifications and information. The toll free number will be operating from early June and will be active Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; during the remaing hours, a voice mail will be operating.

Emergency health organization. The Abruzzo debriefing highlighted the need of improving the organization of health rescue.

For this reason, the Civil Protection Department has projected and already shared with the Technical Group of Regions/Public Administration Health Emergency procedure to send Msr – Moduli sanitari regionali - Regional health modules, already tested during Terex simulation exercise. The objective is to equip each regional mobile column with an health component composed by qualified personnel.

In order to guarantee health assistance after the first aid, pitched health centres were projected to substitute temporarily territorial health structures damaged by disasters, that include local health staff and equipment.

Moreover, in order to make the modules composition homogenous, Italy is currently adjusting its sanitary modules to the standards picked out by the European Commission for European civil protection modules. Among the five registered health structures in Europe, three are Italian: “the field hospital” of the National Alpine Association and the  “Pma with surgery unit” of the Emergency Surgery Group of  Pisa and of the Region of Marche.

Management of reception areas. The project is based on a  “shared” method that listed the involvement, from the very first phases, of the Municipality of L’Aquila and the other municipalities hit by the earthquake, of regions and national volutary work organizations working in the fields. It has the objective of defining common procedures and indications for organizing a reception area.

The first phase ended with the organization of a workshop, that collected experiences and proposals in the “Carta de L’Aquila” , a document divided in four thematic areas: planning, setting-up, ordinary managing and closing a reception area. From the document, common procedures for managing a reception area will be picked out, and later diffused with training courses to the structures of the National Civil Protection Service