The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 11: 221–239, 2008

ISSN 1088-7156 print / 1550-3461 online

DOI: 10.1080/10887150802371740

Effectively Planning for and Managing

1550-3461
1088-7156
HPMJ
The Psychologist-Manager Journal
Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2, August 2008: pp.1–18

Major Disasters
John C. Cavanaugh
Planning and
Cavanaugh et Managing
al. Major Disasters

The University of West Florida

Michael G. Gelles
Deloitte and Touche

Gilbert Reyes
Fielding Graduate University

Cathleen L. Civiello
National Security Agency

Mary Zahner
CMA, St. Louis, Missouri

The impact of recent major disasters has driven home the need for psychologist
managers to incorporate disaster planning and planning for continuity of opera-
tions into their organizations’ strategic planning. As a result, the Society of Psy-
chologists in Management (SPIM) has included key sessions on this topic on the
agendas of their annual conferences. This article summarizes a session from the
2007 conference that included a keynote talk by John Cavanaugh, PhD, based on
an article previously published in this journal (Cavanaugh, 2006) and his subse-
quent additional disaster preparation and response experience. The session also
included a panel discussion that explored applying and adapting lessons learned
from hurricane disasters to other types of disaster situations. Gilbert Reyes, PhD,
was invited to participate on this panel because of his renowned expertise in
international disaster planning and response. His four volume book on interna-
tional disaster psychology (Reyes & Jacobs, 2005) provides a thorough discus-
sion of this topic. Michael Gelles, PsyD, ABPP, was invited to participate on the
panel because of the clarity with which he and a coauthor described preparing

Correspondence should be sent to Cathleen L. Civiello, PO Box 2, Simpsonville, MD 21150.

222 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

for and dealing with an organizational threat (Turner & Gelles, 2003) and
because of his expertise in planning for and responding to terrorist events. Cath-
leen Civiello, PhD, ABPP, facilitated the panel because she, along with Drs.
Gelles and Reyes, had presented an indepth institute on disaster and continuity
of operations planning at the 2006 SPIM conference. Mary Zahner, PhD, played
a significant role in identifying the critical lessons for psychologist managers
included in this article.

HURRICANE DISASTERS

Dr. John Cavanaugh has faced six hurricanes at various times in his career. On
September 16, 2004, Hurricane Ivan with wind gusts of 180 mph smashed into
Pensacola, Florida. Dr. Cavanaugh and his wife Christine spent the night at a
friend’s house in a closet, unsure of the damage to his own home, the community,
or the university. When he arrived at the main campus of the University of West
Florida the next afternoon, he discovered that 110 of 116 classrooms were dam-
aged or destroyed and 95% of the campus buildings sustained various levels of
damage. Due to the destruction, the campus was closed for three weeks. There
were no cell phones available (because the towers did not have generator
backup), no potable water through the public water system for days, no sewage
treatment for five days, and little local phone or Internet service. During and
shortly after the storm, the university had the only radio station broadcasting
(WUWF) in the community. Local media also used the facilities to make reports
and disseminate information.
It is not just the leader who creates a successful recovery after a disaster, it is
everyone. But no matter how much an organization and leader prepare, things
happen. Every leader will face a crisis. It is not a matter of if, but when. The
worst kinds of disasters are those that threaten the existence of the organization.
Some disasters give warnings, and some do not. The leader is responsible for
basic planning, response, and recovery processes. And, the leader will be second-
guessed in the end.
When faced with crises or disasters, there are five things that matter most:
People: All plans, decisions, and action must be based on keeping people safe.
Remember the needs hierarchy and act to provide for people’s basic needs imme-
diately before and after the event. For example, Dr. Cavanaugh shut down the
university on the Monday before the hurricane hit on Thursday. This allowed
people to take care of their homes and families before taking care of the univer-
sity. One of the first things Dr. Cavanaugh did after the hurricane was to ascer-
tain whether or not the emergency personnel were safe. On the first day the
campus was reopened, he gathered all employees together and urged them to
wander around and talk to each other, to share their experiences.
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 223

Experience: Know your own experience and reactions in crises and disasters.
Additionally, know your team’s collective experience. Consult with others who
have been through disasters and use their expertise to improve your plans. Do
table-top simulations to identify potential problems and use the experience to
improve the plan.
Planning: Comprehensive planning is essential. Every key person in the
organization needs to know the key elements of the continuity of the operations plan.
A very important aspect is to plan for a disaster beyond your wildest, worst-case
nightmare scenario. Reality can be even worse. In the case of Hurricane Ivan,
some of the issues the university overlooked were: satellite phones for use when
all other communications links were down, long term shelter needs for interna-
tional students, and the total lack of community infrastructure.
Decisiveness: In any crisis it is absolutely essential that you be decisive, clear,
and consistent in your message. Leave no doubt about the seriousness of the situ-
ation. Always err on the side of safety. Be present when your team needs you. Do
not be afraid to lead.
Execution: When a crisis occurs, unequivocally invoke the plan as far in
advance or as quickly as possible. Communicate early and often about the seri-
ousness of the situation and what steps are being taken to address it. Ensure that
people know where to go for information. Establish a command center. Coordi-
nate response and recovery activities. Be appropriately flexible with policies, such
as purchasing limits. Document everything thoroughly. Do not engage in false
economies (e.g., satellite phones versus tower dependent phones).

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

Irrespective of the type of crisis, it is imperative to know what you are preparing
for and to discern some level of accuracy and reality about what is going to happen.
Bring some sense of reality to planning by using case studies and experts to help
guide the plan’s development. Be discerning about the information you have. Do
not just manage the potential of a disaster, but also the potential of a threat of
disaster or threat of attack. Managing the risk associated with a threat or disaster
is often more important than managing the crisis.
There are the issues of time and speed in disasters. What really challenges us
in disasters is the pace of both the information flow and the speed with which
decisions need to be made.
Every crisis is obviously a stressful event for the people who are directly
affected by it. But these events also create stressful conditions for those who are
indirectly affected as a function of their physical proximity to the crisis, and
especially due to their personal or professional relationships with the most criti-
cally impacted people. This conceptual distinction is not always so neatly held,
224 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

so it must also be noted that some people are both directly affected by a crisis and
also perform private or professional roles (e.g., emergency response personnel)
for the benefit of others that necessarily expose them to considerable crisis-
related stress. Individuals working in crisis-affected systems, such as the uni-
versity described above by Dr. Cavanaugh, operate in an interdependent opera-
tional environment and therefore experience a collective uptick in
organizational stress, because the already onerous demands on their perfor-
mance have been magnified by the critical situation. Leaders of such systems
should be keenly aware of these conditions and dedicate considerable effort to
enhancing the collective resilience of their personnel during the most challeng-
ing period of the crisis situation.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL DISASTERS

Domestic disasters and crises are complex humanitarian events in which most, if
not all, of the people affected are citizens or residents of the nation in which the
disaster has occurred. The geographical distribution of a disaster’s physical
impact has a strong influence on its social and political distribution. For example,
while the wildfires in southern California are national news and there are people
around the country who are in some way affected by this disaster, the most
severe effects are contained within the geographical boundaries of a single state
in the larger national landscape. The largest disasters are seldom contained
within a single state or nation, as exemplified by Hurricane Katrina, in which the
most severe effects were distributed across several states and the massive evacu-
ation of the affected populations contributed to a more nationwide footprint for
that disaster. Moreover, given the enormous size of that hurricane, the damage it
inflected was hardly confined just to the national boundaries of the United States.
The most widely distributed disaster in recent history was the December 26,
2004 tsunami that radiated across the Indian Ocean killing about 200,000 peo-
ple in 15 countries and affecting, in a variety of ways, much of the world. Inter-
national disasters that transgress national boundaries are particularly
complicated to manage because they include issues of national sovereignty,
along with the amplified challenges of assisting a range of racially, ethnically,
spiritually, and socially diverse groups with complex historical and political
relationships.
Psychologists are increasingly involved in the international humanitarian
response to disasters in a variety of roles, which might include assessing the
psychosocial impacts of disasters, implementation of prevention and intervention
programs, and the development of strategies for improving the effectiveness of
programs. This requires a sophisticated appreciation of factors that exert influ-
ence on the success of these operations. For instance, there are political and
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 225

philosophical issues that draw into question the very assumptions involved in
coupling the “therapeutic” enterprise to the less questionable aspects of humani-
tarian interventions. Critics attribute the emphasis on trauma and other psychosocial
issues to a set of peculiarly Western expectations that are incongruent with the
beliefs and values of non-Western peoples.
In order for international humanitarian relief programs to be implemented suc-
cessfully, effective collaboration among culturally diverse groups of people must
take place. Perhaps the most distinct intercultural partnership is that which forms
between the populations indigenous to the disaster-affected areas and the relief
agencies that are foreign to those regions. International humanitarian agencies
employ expatriate staff (ex-pats) from around the world, so there is also a great
deal of cultural diversity among their personnel. However, it is an undeniable
reality of the hierarchical structure of these agencies that most of the managerial
staff are of European or North American origin, while middle and lower level
personnel comprise a more diverse assembly representing the less wealthy
nations. Providing culturally appropriate psychosocial support under these condi-
tions requires considerable skill and flexibility at every level, since the people
with the most useful cultural knowledge and insight are often not those who
decide policies and practices. Development of approaches that could be applied
in any event and context is perhaps a desirable goal, but an unlikely one given the
diversity of situations, values, cultures, and customs. Nevertheless, there are sim-
ilarities across events that allow for construction of flexibly structured templates
based on tested principles of good psychosocial practices.
A basic necessity for any humanitarian relief operation is to assess the needs
and resources of the affected populations, and in this regard psychosocial
programs are not substantively different. Supplies and services based entirely on
typical assumptions are unlikely to accurately match the types, levels, and char-
acteristics of what is truly required in a specific context. Moreover, this profile of
needs and resources is a moving target and must be persistently assessed and
modified to remain pertinent. Among the many options for efficiently matching
needs and services and making them available and useful to those who are most
likely to benefit, the preference has shifted strongly toward community-based
models, both for assessments and for intervention designs. Consequently,
psychosocial planners and implementing personnel are less concerned with “clinical”
training and skills because of the growing importance of methods associated with
community psychology. The roles of ex-pat personnel are also increasingly
educational in nature, with direct human services often being reserved for local
staff, who are more likely to have the requisite language skills and cultural
knowledge to work effectively within the communities where needs are greatest.
The internationally preferred model for community-based psychosocial sup-
port is often called psychological first aid (PFA), because it is more comparable
to nonmedical care for injuries than it is to expert professional treatment. It relies
226 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

on a set of common sense principles for managing extreme stress and its simplest
components can be adeptly practiced without substantial training or education. In
situations where the mental health needs of people are greater than those for
which psychological first aid is adequate, referral to more expert providers is part
of the protocol.
The following is a list with brief descriptions of the most common and essen-
tial principles and practices of PFA:
Protection: Disasters, wars, and other catastrophic events have the potential
for deadly or injurious consequences and must be taken very seriously. The
effects of extreme stress can impair the ability of survivors to exercise good
judgment, resulting in circumstances that could lead to further losses or inju-
ries. Therefore, the first and foremost principle of PFA is damage control.
This is consistent with medical first aid, in which the primary objective is to
stabilize the survivor’s condition to prevent it from becoming worse. Accom-
plishing this objective may require the PFA provider to temporarily take a
very directive stance in order to gain the survivor’s attention and understand-
ing of the need to get to a safer place. Despondent or uncooperative survivors
can endanger themselves and place anyone who intervenes to protect them at
risk of harm as well. Thus, it is imperative that PFA providers endeavor to
protect survivors from further harm without engaging in foolhardy heroics,
which have no place in humanitarian operations. PFA must wait until physi-
cal safety and security, both for survivors and for practitioners, have been
established.
Social support: PFA describes a strategy for helping people affected by disasters
to cope with their immediate reactions to extreme stress without further avoidable
harm. People are often able to endure great hardships without major assistance,
but that does not mean they do not benefit from social support when it is given in
a manner that does not worsen their existing stress. These acts of generosity and
compassion are staples of human kindness and can be provided without need of
mental health training. People trained to provide PFA need to be well informed
about the disaster operations and the resources available to survivors, so that they
are able to provide accurate and timely informational support. Practitioners of
PFA also need the interpersonal skills that are crucial to being an effective
provider of emotional support. These include providing a calming, comforting,
and confident presence, listening at least as much as talking, and offering unre-
served compassion without judging whether a person is deserving of such. Psy-
chological first-aiders are seldom in a position to directly offer material support
and may even be in need of such assistance themselves (e.g., local, spontaneous
volunteers). Nevertheless, humanitarian organizations and relief agencies may
provide material items to PFA providers for dissemination, thus affording them
an opportunity to blend various types of social support into one well-integrated
intervention.
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 227

Arousal reduction: Disasters and other life-threatening events stimulate fear

and other self-protective emotions that arouse the nervous system in preparation to
survive an attack. The resulting effects on a person’s thinking abilities and emo-
tional functioning are certainly understandable and necessary in the short run, but
they are debilitating and potentially disabling in the long run. Effective PFA criti-
cally depends on the ability to soothe and reduce this arousal so that the survivor is
able both to function at a higher level and to rest or even sleep. In addition to
immediate or looming threats to survival, loss or separation from loved ones also
activates nervous system arousal. The obvious and optimal solution in such events
is to assist people in finding their missing loved ones, and whenever possible this
is an important function of PFA. However, this is often impossible, and instead
the PFA provider can seek to help the survivor to locate and unite with others who
have been or will become part of their evolving social support network.
Assisted coping: Coping is anything that people do to improve their situation
or avoid losses in the face of adversity. This requires having a goal or objective
and a plan for achieving a desirable outcome. Under the catastrophic stress of a
disaster, even people who normally cope quite well will find it hard to function in
a deliberate and systematic fashion. Assisting people with the coping process is a
part of PFA that requires practitioners to adopt a balanced stance between help-
ing people and empowering them to help themselves. Survivors should always be
treated with respect and encouragement for their resilience, competence, and
dignity. Providers of PFA are in a position to provide only modest temporary
assistance, so it is important not to foster dependency or undermine the confi-
dence survivors have in their own coping abilities. Assisted coping is focused on
helping the survivor to find the best available solution that doesn’t make the situ-
ation worse in some way.
Advocacy: People in distress may feel intimidated or unable to gain access to
assistance and resources from powerful entities such as government ministries
and large organizations, and this perception is often accurate. Agencies have
policies that structure their activities, and these can sometimes work to the disad-
vantage of people with legitimate needs. Practitioners of PFA may have access
and influence within these agencies greater than that which is wielded by survi-
vors. Therefore, PFA includes advocating for the needs of survivors who might
otherwise not receive the services they need and deserve.
Routing and referral: Disaster survivors vary in their levels of impairment and
in the types of problems with which they need assistance. It is necessary for the
practitioner to quickly recognize when the limitations of PFA have been reached
and know how to route the survivor to an appropriate service or resource (some-
times called triage). Routing means directing survivors toward a service or
resource that they need more than PFA at the moment, whereas referral means
arranging to transfer survivors to a more expert provider, based on a decision that
they need something more extensive than PFA.
228 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

Community mobilization: A basic principle of PFA is that it must be imple-

mented in a manner that involves the affected community in its own recovery
process. In recognition of the fact that the journey toward recovery is a long one
for most and will require support of many kinds, PFA is meant to provide not
only immediate short-term assistance, but also to empower the building of stron-
ger and more durable capacities for psychological support in the affected com-
munities. Working with communities requires skills in identifying and allying
with key resource persons, such as community leaders with sufficient influence,
to help mobilize people toward achieving collectively desired objectives. If such
an endeavor is to succeed, then communities must define their own needs and
objectives and become powerfully committed to achieving them. This aspect is
sometimes referred to as “buy-in,” meaning that those involved feel fully
invested in the success of their mission. Buy-in is necessary if the process is to
weather the predictable ups and downs that are certain to follow.
Cultural sensitivity: Psychological trauma, disaster mental health, and PFA are
all concepts rooted in Western social movements and thus reflect values and ide-
als that should not be assumed to be universal. Nevertheless, people of goodwill
have long proven helpful to each other and have done so by finding common
ground upon which to build bridges spanning their differences. What must always
be avoided for joint efforts to succeed is any sense of dominance or inferiority on
the part of anyone involved in an intercultural partnership. An essential practice
for ensuring a proper fit between generic PFA and any given cultural milieu is the
enlistment of local people as translational agents. That is, the role of the ex-pat
PFA operative is mainly to facilitate the adaptation of the basic psychological
support model by members of the cultural groups who intend to adopt it.
Supervision: Even experienced providers of PFA will encounter situations that
strain their individual abilities and resourcefulness. Those with much less experience
may feel timid or anxious about approaching people and providing PFA and are
likely to encounter conditions for which they feel unprepared. A good solution
for all concerned is for more experienced and confident PFA practitioners to
provide supervisory support to others who might benefit from their experience.
Good supervisors do not adopt a stance of authority or superiority, but rather
provide gentle and respectful support and consultation. They must also convey to
those they supervise a sense of being gladly available, flexible in their expecta-
tions, and that there is no need for concern that the supervisor will look down on
them for requesting help.
Helping the helper: The stresses and strains of working with distressed and
devastated human beings take a toll on those who provide PFA. Humanitarian ser-
vice activities tend to attract very sensitive and idealistic people as practitioners.
These are people who can readily feel compassion and identify with the experi-
ence of people facing extreme adversity, and so they are well suited to this work
in a special way. However, they may also be particularly vulnerable to the negative
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 229

effects of intensive and extensive daily exposure to pain and hardship. In recent
years, most humanitarian organizations have come to recognize the need for staff
and volunteers to practice compassionate self-care as a preventive measure
against burnout and other hazards.
Establishing standards and practices: Various relief and humanitarian agencies
have published papers and guidebooks describing what they consider to be the
best practices known at this time for providing psychosocial care for disaster
survivors (Cohen, 2000; Knudsen et al., 1997; Loughry & Ager, 2001; Prewitt
Diaz, Murthy, & Lakshminarayana, 2006; Psychosocial Working Group [PWG],
2004; Simonsen & Reyes, 2003; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
[UNHCR], 2001; Weine et al., 2002; WHO, 2001, 2003, 2005). The cumulative
knowledge and expertise within these volumes form an excellent base from
which to create psychosocial programs and projects that are well suited to serve
the needs of disaster survivors. Among the key activities that tend to be empha-
sized are the identification of highly exposed or otherwise at-risk populations,
assessment of psychosocial needs, identification of existing psychosocial
resources, incorporation of important cultural information for improving the
service model, stress management and counseling techniques, and community
participation. A great deal of space is also dedicated to cautionary statements
designed to discourage certain goals, activities, and perspectives that are likely to
prove ineffective or harmful. Other important issues include services for groups
who have either special needs (e.g., children) or particular risks and mitigating
factors (e.g., people with HIV/AIDS), and the needs of relief personnel working
in difficult situations (IFRC, 2001).
Most recently, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee composed of key UN
and nonUN humanitarian partners authorized a Task Force under the leadership of
psychologists Mark van Ommeren (representing the World Health Organization)
and Michael Wessells (representing Inter-Action, a consortium of humanitarian
assistance agencies), which formulated a consensus set of Guidelines on Mental
Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings. These guidelines
describe a minimum set of 11 responses and explain how to implement each of
them. (See Table 1.) These guidelines were launched at the United Nations on
November 29, 2007 and are now considered to be the most reliable and general-
izable standards available.

TERRORISM-RELATED CONSIDERATIONS

The impact of a terrorist attack has ramifications too extensive to cover in this arti-
cle. The focus here will be to examine the impact of a terrorist attack on key deci-
sion makers, on decision making, and on the allocation of resources in response to
new threats and actions that directly impact organizations and communities.
230
Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings*
A. Common functions
1. Coordination: establish coordination of
intersectoral mental health and psychosocial
support
2. Assessment, monitoring, and evaluation:
conduct assessments of mental health and
psychosocial issues; initiate participatory
systems for monitoring and evaluation
TABLE 1
B. Core mental health and psychosocial supports
5. Community mobilization and support: facilitate
conditions for community mobilization, ownership and
control of emergency response in all sectors; facilitate
community self-help and social support; facilitate
conditions for appropriate communal cultural, spiritual
and religious healing practices; facilitate support for
young children (0–8 years) and their care-givers
6. Health services: include specific psychological and
social considerations in provision of general health
care; provide access to care for people with severe
mental disorders; protect and care for people with
severe mental disorders and other mental and
neurological disabilities living in institutions; learn
about and, where appropriate, collaborate with local,
indigenous and traditional health systems; minimize
harm related to alcohol and other substance use
C. Social considerations in sectors
9. Food security and nutrition:
Include specific social and
psychological considerations
(safe aid for all in dignity,
considering cultural practices
and household roles) in the
provision of food and nutritional
support
10. Shelter and site planning: Include
specific social considerations
(safe, dignified, culturally and
socially appropriate assistance)
in site planning and shelter
provision, in a coordinated
manner
 3. Protection and human rights standards: 7. Education: strengthen access to safe and supportive 11. Water and sanitation: Include
apply a human rights framework through education specific social considerations
mental health and psychosocial support; (safe and culturally appropriate
identify, monitor, prevent and respond to access for all in dignity) in the
protection threats and failures through provision of water and sanitation
social protection; identify, monitor, prevent
and respond to protection threats and abuses
through legal protection
4. Human resources: identify and recruit staff 8. Dissemination of information: provide information to
and engage volunteers who understand local the affected population on the emergency, relief efforts
culture; enforce staff codes of conduct and and their legal rights; provide access to information
ethical guidelines; organize orientation and about positive coping methods
training of aid workers in mental health and
psychosocial support; prevent and manage
problems in mental health and psychosocial
well-being among staff and volunteers

*Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) (2007). IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings. Geneva,
Switzerland: IASC. http://www.who.int/mental_health/emergencies/guidelines_iasc_mental_health_psychosocial_june_2007.pdf

231
232 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

Historically, disasters and attacks have been time limited. Therefore, there has
been reasonably quick closure and the impact has been absorbed, managed, and
mitigated. Threats by anarchists and dictators have resulted in wars which forced
the allocation of many resources. However, these wars, all symmetrical, had a
well defined enemy, a battlefield, and clear, definitive geographic boundaries
where hostilities predictably occurred.
Since the 1970s, most terrorism acts have been directed at State issues. Terrorists
(e.g., Basque Separatists, Red Army, etc.) have used actions and communications
to influence leaders to make decisions about a variety of issues that have typi-
cally reflected local political issues. From hijackings to kidnappings, terrorists
would engage in provocative acts that would get media attention to serve as a
vehicle for their political communications to the world.
Today, the world that we live in is very different. Al Qai’da changed the
common practice of terrorists. Instead of targeting in a particular country over a
specific political issue, Al Qai’da targeted a hemisphere and raised issues regarding
religion and history. The impact of attacks by Al Qai’da around the world, and
the evolution of the decentralized transnational terrorist, have altered the context
in which leaders must deal with potential attacks. More importantly, the attacks
altered the manner in which leaders make decisions in response to terrorist
threats and attacks.
In today’s world where we are actively engaged in a global war on terrorism
(GWOT), the threat remains complex and ambiguous. Although information is
abundant, there are no well established controls for evaluation of the value and
accuracy of the information, nor are there clear metrics for balanced strategic
decisions. In the aftermath of 9/11, it is reasonable to conclude that most leaders
were engaged in a risk avoidant decision-making approach to ensure national
security and public safety. There were limited controls on information and, little,
if any, discernment. Any obtained information that pertained to any communi-
cated threat was often interpreted as a justifiable position to take action and
allocate significant resources. There existed no threshold for action or resource
allocation. The mentality that existed was “not on my watch.” The “ticking time
bomb” approach and perspective (Dershowitz, 2002) prevailed around the country
and the world. Every opportunity to collect or react to information was made in
that context, influenced by the fear that if there was no response and the threat
not managed, the next attack would surely occur.
During that time in our history, resources appeared to be abundant. Billions
flowed to create the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and to augment
intelligence and law enforcement resources. Mission strategies for most govern-
ment agencies were refined and reshaped to focus on the terrorist threat. Pre-
paredness at home, on the job, and in the community to manage another terrorist
attack was frontline news. However, while the public was learning how to deploy
duct tape and stockpile food, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies were
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 233

still struggling to enhance their capability to collect, process, discern, and manage
information. The President issued an Executive Order to enhance information
sharing across government agencies to remedy what was identified as the key
failure in the 9/11 attacks.
As the GWOT progressed, the streams of information about terrorist organiza-
tions, commitment, capability, connections, and intent became overwhelming.
For example, a report quoted Army Brigadier General John Custer, the head of
Intelligence at Central Command, responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan. It identi-
fied the Internet as the critical terrorist tool, especially when used for radicaliza-
tion of Islamic youth, with a vast increase in the number of Internet sites used by
the terrorists—from 450 Web sites to more than 5000 in less than five years (Pelley,
2007). While leaders and law enforcement had begun to become more attentive
to what appeared to be operationally relevant information, it was still difficult to
adequately share and, in most cases, discern, manage, and control information.
In times of crisis people seek direction and structure. There is a natural
tendency and desire to return to a predictable and expected state. In times of crisis,
communities and organizations look to leadership to be prepared, decisive, and
exercise good judgment to protect physical security and safety, as well as psy-
chological stability for the community. Leaders are expected to have access to
critical information and resources that will allow them to make informed and bal-
anced decisions designed to best return to that predictable state.
To assure adequate resources, leaders today need to move from a risk avoidance
to a risk management decision-making style. Risk management demands greater
discernment of information and a move from an environment of information
sharing to one of knowledge management. Leaders will need to execute their
strategic decision-making capability, being mindful not just of the need for secu-
rity and safety, but with the recognition that each decision that is made in
response to information is going to result in an expenditure of money and people.
It is naive and irresponsible to expect the United States to remain in a risk
avoidance stance if we are to remain a viable economic force in the world. Many
terrorist leaders have been outspoken about their wishes to bring down the U.S.
economy and, perhaps, grandiose in terms of impacting the stock market or even
shutting down the Internet. The adversary has to do very little to force leadership
to execute strategic decisions that result in massive expenditures. In recognizing
the many successes we have had in winning the GWOT, we must look beyond
the established security perimeter and focus on how information management
and discernment are critical economic variables.
The solution is to open a dialogue on the impact of attacks and major events
on the manner in which leaders make strategic decisions. Focus should be on the
level of preparedness in place, the threshold that is set to trigger execution, and
the degree to which information is assessed or discerned prior to making that
decision. By understanding the process and some of the dynamics associated
234 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

with decision-making in the aftermath of disasters and in responding to threats of

disaster, we can begin to look at solutions that ensure decisions are made more
reliably and with discerned information, thus reducing the costs associated with
massive resource allocation in response to terrorist threats.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR LEADERS

Consider stress in relation to the basic human need to accurately predict the
trajectory of a situation and thereby exercise an acceptable level of control over
the outcome. People are comforted and empowered when they have a secure
sense of knowing where things are going. When disasters strike, things tempo-
rarily spin sharply out of control and people look to leaders for guidance on how
to quickly regain control of the situation and establish a more secure set of condi-
tions. Thus, in emergencies, leaders need to focus on predictability and helping
people to see the direction they are going in and to feel confident that favorable out-
comes will ultimately be achieved. At the same time, it is important to realize that
the effects of a major crisis or disaster can last a very long time, and therefore
leaders need to avoid the appearance of providing false assurances or minimizing
the difficulties ahead.
The following set of leadership qualities and priorities are offered as keys to
successfully guiding organizations through tough situations:
Transparency: People whose fates and decisions are coupled to the welfare of
the organization will experience anxiety about the future and are likely to criti-
cally evaluate decisions made by leaders. While there are understandable reasons
for leaders to control the release of information and to engage in a certain amount
of message management, the appearance of secrecy or deception will predictably
increase stress and dissension and undermine confidence in the leadership. Leaders
can communicate trust and respect for their personnel by helping their people to
clearly understand what is done and why. This in turn should reduce stress,
increase the likelihood that the personnel will invest themselves fully in follow-
ing the leadership, and increase the resilience of the system.
Predictability: A sense of control is the most reliable way of reducing anxiety,
and the ability to predict the consequences of one’s actions is a necessary compo-
nent of exercising control. Organizations require their personnel to surrender a
great deal of personal control and invest that control in the hands of management.
While under favorable conditions this appears to be a relatively simple matter of
collective functioning, under crisis conditions the individual and collective risks are
greater and this can strain the bond of trust between personnel and management if
leaders are perceived to be behaving in an erratic or contradictory fashion. There-
fore, the inspirational value of leadership behavior in crises is enhanced by a pro-
gressive set of predictable actions that follow logically one upon the other.
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 235

Tolerance: The sense of urgency and gravity that accompany crises can lead to
intolerance toward taking risks and making errors. This is at once both under-
standable and unreasonable, because the very nature of a crisis is to upset normal
operations, thus raising both the riskiness of actions and the likelihood of making
mistakes. Systems in crisis will need to take calculated risks, and some of these
will necessitate trial and error learning, which in turn leads to second-guessing
and a tendency to unfairly attribute failure to those who were operating to the
best of their abilities under conditions of instability and often with faulty infor-
mation. Taking a perfectionistic or punitive stance will predictably lead to risk-
aversion and self-protection, which can prove disastrous and demoralizing for the
organization. Therefore, leaders who demonstrate tolerance in the face of trial-
and-error learning and who make the most of what is learned from each action
are more likely to maintain adequate morale among their personnel and will be
better able to minimize the negative consequences of those errors.
Inclusiveness: Leaders grappling with a crisis must muster support from members
of their inner circle and are likely to favor the input of some people more than
that of others. The crisis situation is likely to stimulate considerably more emo-
tional arousal among the leadership than is normal, and this can lead to subjec-
tively using each other for purposes of soothing, in addition to seeking objective
consultation on operational matters. The danger here is that leaders will succumb
to the temptation to favor voices that reduce their anxiety and to insulate them-
selves from or even punish voices that raise uncomfortable concerns. The
hazards that follow from these conditions are often referred to as groupthink
(Janis, 1972) and the echo chamber effect (Kiechel, 1990).To countermand these
threats to decision making, leaders should practice two particular types of inclu-
siveness. The first is to invite and reward voices of dissent and to consider them
as necessary components of well-rounded decision making. The second is to
ensure that all constituencies affected by decisions are given a voice. Leaders can
become prone to listening mainly to others in their inner circle or their counter-
parts in other systems, and this can cause them to unwisely ignore the interests of
other constituencies within their operational system, who will inevitably resent
that their interests were ignored. Members of underrepresented constituencies
will have little investment in the leader’s success and may even contribute to the
failure of the leader’s plans.
Congruity: The surest proof of values is manifest in actions, and leaders in a
crisis can count on being judged by the congruity between the values they
express and the decisions they make. This can be a very difficult balance to
strike because people tend to move toward very idealistic values in a crisis, while
the pragmatics of the situation may often pull for convenient and expedient deci-
sions that are at odds with higher moral values. For example, leaders during a cri-
sis will tend to express platitudes such as, “we are all in this together”
and “human life matters more than anything else.” But in practice the options
236 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

available to leaders in a crisis may be far from ideal, and it is not always wise to
raise expectations above that which can reasonably be expected. Moreover, the
character of a leader in a crisis is carefully scrutinized, and it can be poisonous
for a leader to say things that are incongruous with the actions that are subse-
quently taken.
Justice: In a very basic sense, justice is a pervasive social issue that can be
identified in every social transaction. Under crisis conditions, the sense of injus-
tice that can be experienced may be heightened. In all societies there are
individuals and groups of people who differ in their access to resources and
power, which in turn means that there will be differential consequences, with
some people being more disadvantaged than others. The impact of a crisis
almost certainly includes a reduction in resources and a consequent increase in
the competition for scarce resources. In practice, the welfare of some people is
often subordinated for questionable objectives that can exacerbate a sense of
division between those in power and those of relative disadvantage. Leaders in a
crisis are also responsible for ensuring that people are treated in a fair and equi-
table manner and must realize that they will be judged not only on the pragmatic
merits of their actions, but also on the adherence of their actions to principles of
social justice and due consideration for those who are least able to protect their
own interests.

LESSONS LEARNED AND RECOMMENDATIONS

As psychologist managers begin fully incorporating disaster planning into their

corporate strategy, they should consider the following issues and factors:

• Leadership decision-making is critical to the effectiveness of disaster plan-

ning and response. The factors associated with effectiveness appear to be
fairly consistent across the various scenarios considered in this article.
• The simple fact of a threat and/or disaster will impact decision making.
Apply the literature on stress and decision making, but consider the site,
nature of the potential threat or disaster, the organization, and the culture(s).
• Focus on managing risk, not avoiding risk.
• Research the costs associated with each level of elevated threat. Identify the
nature, number, and availability of resources to be allocated.
• Assure the presence for strategic decision-makers of an information man-
agement framework with internal controls.
• Attend to information and resource sharing initiatives, while moving
toward a knowledge management approach to enhance decision-making.
• Recognize the link between preparedness, information sharing, knowledge
management, decision-making, and resource allocation.
 PLANNING AND MANAGING MAJOR DISASTERS 237

• Develop risk frameworks and matrices, increase discernment, and

prevent manage information overload. A useful tool can be found in
Lee, 2005.
• Develop and implement a continuity of operations plan (COOP), some-
times called a mission assurance plan, with strategies and plans that are
flexible and versatile that reflect a network of resources and reduce
redundancy.
• Develop and implement COOP performance metrics.
• Develop an executive summary that documents resource allocation and
resiliency initiatives.
• Develop networks with the partners who will be important in response.
Include them in planning and response exercises.
• Implement table-top and real time exercises of COOP.
• International considerations:
䊊 Politics, cultures, and controversies cannot be ignored.

䊊 Concerted international efforts are needed.

䊊 International standards of care are needed.

䊊 Rapid assessment of psychosocial needs should be a standard practice.

䊊 Change focus from psychological trauma to a focus on disaster psychol-

ogy: Disaster psychology, while closely connected to traumatology, is

distinct in several ways, including a decidedly normalizing stance toward
shortterm responses to acute stress and a pronounced emphasis on com-
munity-based interventions. In contrast to the clinical therapies typically
applied in cases of posttraumatic stress disorder, the techniques preferred
by disaster psychologists are more akin to crisis intervention and stress
management and emphasize reduction of emotional arousal with brief
support for problem solving and other effective coping strategies.
䊊 Psychosocial issues need better advocacy.

Although some organizations, especially those in high risk industries or locations,

have been including disaster planning in their business strategy for many years,
the 2001 terrorist attacks and the more recent horrific disasters have reinforced
the need for all organizations to attend to this important, but daunting task. There
are many discussions of disaster planning and response failures (for example,
Gheytanchi et al., 2007). This article and the sessions at the SPIM conferences
have attempted to provide a more positive, practical, planning-focused discus-
sion. There are additional relevant resources. Some of the best are associated
with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. There is a good and practical
summary of key steps for corporate disaster planning that can be found at: http://
www.ready.gov/business/index.html . Planning suggestions for other settings can
be found at http://www.ready.gov/.
238 CAVANAUGH ET AL.

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