Consequence Management: The Missing Piece in Disaster Response

In the lifecycle of disaster management, the term “consequence management” (CM) refers to actions taken to prepare for, respond to, and recover from adverse events, particularly aftermath, with the goal of minimizing their immediate and long-term impacts on communities and individuals. Itfocuses on responding to and recovering from the effects of an event rather than preventing the event itself.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction emphasizes the importance of understanding risk and investing in resilience to reduce disaster impacts. However, many emergency professionals still overlook the significance of CM, focusing instead on prevention and response. Consequence management, in effect, is often overlooked as crisis management tends to dominate emergency response activities by all stakeholders, at all levels, at all stages, and for all impacts.

Specifics of Consequence Management

In the ideal disaster lifecycle, the first few hours are crucial for key decisions based on minimal and scarce information. As the event’s time span matures, data becomes more abundant while the decision-making process merely manages the response and recovery activities. However, we are not in a perfect world where information is not always available. Key decisions will still be made in the aftermath, even after hours or days and sometimes weeks after a disaster. These decisions have consequences, let alone the disaster’s consequences at hand. CM is mainly needed when response activities are becoming more complex. This could be apparent when response playbooks cannot inform the response activities’ practicality as events unfold. As briefly noted above, consequence management encompasses a broad range of activities beyond conventional emergency management, including:

• Preparedness: Developing plans, conducting training, and establishing protocols to respond effectively to the effects of disasters.
• Mitigation: Implementing strategies to reduce the severity of potential compound disasters to interrupt the domino effect.
• Response: Mobilizing resources and deploying personnel to address immediate needs during an emergency while bracing for other unexpected impacts.
• Recovery: Rebuilding and restoring affected communities while addressing long-term impacts that could be off the radar.

The Underestimation of Consequence Management

CM is less studied and researched than crisis management itself. Human’s second nature as we answer the call of duty is heavily focusing on the short run on providing rapid response, saving lives, controlling the incidents, assessing damage, gathering resources to ameliorate the damage, restoring vital services such as power, sanitation services, water purity, road and bridge usage, and damages to sources of livelihood in the affected area. This is not happening in isolation from other impacts on the communities, environment, and social and economic matters which could result from the consequences of the original event.

What if

Our communities will be better off had we ask questions of this nature:

• What if the shelves for perishable items and other necessities at the grocery store are not replenished in those two days because the caterers’ trucks cannot deliver goods to small towns due to a failure of the central road infrastructure?
• What if the public, as well as ambulances with victims of mass casualty, are rushing to an ER front of house for triage post-disaster while at the same time, the hospital rooms and ICU occupants are being evacuated through back of house to other healthcare facilities, because the very same disaster impacts the hospital itself.
• What if unattended nursery home residents have a utility failure post-hurricane?

Let us expand the pie of questions a little further:

• What if prices of livestock spike due to high demand during recovery from a disaster? Add fuel, cement, steel, and other material prices to rebuild collapsed infrastructure!
• What if cholera breaks out after a catastrophic earthquake because water resources are contaminated? And the list of inquisitive probing questions can go on.

There are several factors contribute to the underestimation of CM significance, including:

1. Focus on Prevention: Many organizations prioritize prevention strategies, assuming effective prevention eliminates the need for CM.
2. Resource Constraints: Limited budgets often lead to underfunding CM initiatives, as funding is allocated to more immediate or visible needs.
3. Cultural Attitudes: A prevailing belief that disasters will not occur or will not have severe consequences can result in complacency regarding CM.
4. Limited Information: When existing technologies of Early Warning Systems (EWS) and network infrastructure are impacted by a disaster, malfunctioning, or limited or delayed deployed capabilities may often paralyze communication between key groups and lead to uncertainty regarding the event’s consequences.
5. Complexity of Implementation: CM’s multifaceted nature can make it challenging to implement effectively, leading to hesitance among professionals.
6. There is a lack of dedicated professionals who can implement far-sightedness or strategic foresight tools to predict what could be the consequences or opportunities following disasters.

Most organizations and government agencies offer little CM training compared to traditional crisis management training, which tends to focus on dealing with the immediate effects of a disaster. However, restoring critical services is insufficient to facilitate long-term recovery. One must realize such activities are essential and necessary, but work remains to be done when responding to the inevitable changes a disaster has brought about.

Attributes of Consequence Management

Disasters come in many shapes and sizes. Some can be linked to human and technology errors or are natural and probably related to environmental and climate fluctuations.

CM has to deal with disasters within the scope defined by The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, of a disaster as follows:

• Small-scale disaster: a type of disaster that only affects local communities and requires assistance beyond the affected community.
• Large-scale disaster: a type of disaster affecting a society which requires national or international assistance.
• Frequent and infrequent disasters: depend on the probability of occurrence and the return period of a given hazard and its impacts. The impact of frequent disasters could be cumulative or become chronic for a community or a society.
• A slow-onset disaster is defined as one that emerges gradually over time. Slow-onset disasters could be associated with, e.g., drought, desertification, sea-level rise, epidemic disease.
• A sudden-onset disaster is one triggered by a hazardous event that emerges quickly or unexpectedly. Sudden-onset disasters could be associated with, e.g., earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flash floods, chemical explosions, or critical infrastructure failures.

Disasters requiring both crisis management and CM, as discussed, naturally vary in terms of cause and impact.

Recommendations

To enhance the effectiveness of consequence management in emergency management, the following is recommended:

• Motivate CM Proactive Mindset Among Resilience Teams: Create an environment that adapts prediction and forward thinking toward short and long-term crisis consequences.
• Designate CM Cell: Assign a team that can apply strategic foresight tools to analyze events, predict possible consequences during complex emergencies, and provide response plans for their possible impacts. This team comprises member experts from different areas and disciplines within emergency operations centers. This team “is cruising at a higher altitude above the emergency response team and can have a wider and broader view to what could be coming through the horizon of the disaster.”
• Integrate CM into Training: Develop training programs that emphasize the importance of CM alongside prevention and response strategies. Include training on strategic foresight tools in these programs.
• Strengthen Community Engagement: Encourage community involvement in preparedness planning to foster resilience and improve evacuation and response capabilities.
• Allocate Resources for CM: Advocate for dedicated funding for CM initiatives to ensure comprehensive disaster management.
• Foster Interagency Collaboration: Improve coordination among agencies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of CM efforts. Consider signing Standby contracts to guarantee the purchase of material at the price of one day before the disaster.
• Leveraging continuity of supply chain through SLAs within BCP is needed and can be tested through alternating demand orders through several suppliers in the shiny days.
• Utilize Frameworks: Leverage established frameworks like the Sendai Framework to guide CM practices and ensure alignment with global standards.
• Engage consequence management mindset as a critical component within community risk planning and reduction during design phases.
• Use technology: Real-time data gathering and communication in the absence of EWS is crucial for situational awareness during CM.

Conclusion

Consequence management is a crucial function of disaster management which requires close attention from professionals. By addressing the factors that contribute to its underestimation and implementing effective strategies, we can improve preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts in the face of future disasters. However, one should note that moving from a crisis to a consequence management mindset can be challenging, as both the former and the latter require substantial resources, time, money, and effort.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hussain Alqahtani

Dr. Hussain Alqahtani is an experienced emergency management professional with more than 10 years of expertise in the tourism, constructions, and transportation industries. Specializing in crisis management, risk assessment, security, and business continuity, Alqahtani is a recognized leader in developing robust emergency response frameworks and plans and ensuring organizational resilience. Alqahtani holds a Ph.D. in conflict and crisis management and is dedicated to sharing knowledge and contributing to the field of crisis management.