Emergency Management Response to Deepwater Horizon
Abstract
This paper will focus on non-law enforcement responders
and their work in the aftermath after the explosion and oil spillage resulting
from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Details of the roles within a structured
command and an outline of crisis response objectives will be discussed. The
paper will also explain how leadership worked through the crisis event focusing
on decision-making strategies and challenges faced by leaders.
Over an 87-day period, four million barrels of oil spilled
into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion
on April 20, 2010. In the aftereffects, reaction efforts were essential to aid
in cleaning up, investigating, and resolving issues related to equipment
failure that eminently caused the oil rig to explode, killing eleven people.
The Jones Act states that all goods in U.S. waters must be
transported by U.S. ships, making it difficult for other countries at the time
of the explosion and oil spillage to offer assistance (Klooster, 2010).
Initially, the Netherlands offered to send sweeping arms to clear up spilled
oil; however, a month later, albeit too late, Washington finally requested the
Dutch send the sweeping arms. To get to U.S. waters, the arms were flown into
Texas on 747’s and then placed on ships in Louisiana ports, ten days later.
Klooster (2010) further adds that each pair of sweeping arms can clear 20,000
tons of oil daily.
Structured Command Roles
Federal response to oil spills is conducted under the
National Contingency Plan, under which the National Response Team, a group of
16 agencies is responsible for interagency preparedness and response for oil
and hazardous releases. Due to the spill being in coastal waters, the Coast
Guard responded as the leadership of National Incident Command (NIC). At the pinnacle
of the response, the labor force totaled more than 47,000 men and women, 42,000
response and clean up workers employed by BP and its contractors, 1600 National
Guard members, 2400 federal employees and several thousand volunteers (Michaels
& Howard, 2012).
Many federal, state, and local agencies, along with the
states of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Texas were involved in clean up
efforts. Stephanie Young, Federal on-scene Coordinator of the spill states that
in the ensuing months, thousands of Coast Guard active duty reserves and
volunteer personnel responded to the largest introduction for a national
emergency in U.S. history (Young, 2015).
Long before the oil reached shorelines, OSHA assisted with
Unified Command in conducting job hazard analyses for tasks workers would be
performing and identified protections required. Throughout the process, 150
OSHA professionals were involved in protecting workers with 25 to 40 of them
assigned full-time in the oil clean-up process (Michaels & Howard, 2012).
When OSHA identified safety and health hazards, Unified Command was notified.
Crisis Response Objectives
Protecting volunteers and workers, from the onset of the
response effort, Unified Command was concerned about health effects from
inhalation and skin exposure to varying chemicals and solvents. Six objectives
of crisis response involved:
1. Source
control activities; 32 counties were affected by contamination
2. Off-Shore
activities; exposure monitoring data
3. Shore
clean-up activities
4. Decontamination
activities; supplying workers with respiratory protection
5. Wildlife
cleaning
6. Waste
stream management activities
Effective planning significantly impacted the success of
safety and health protections during the response. Workers were able to set up production
areas, employ restrictions and safe work practices long before oil spillage
reached shorelines. Cooperative efforts were highly advantageous in terms of
gaining situational awareness, response efforts, and ensuring that safety and
health issues were identified and effectively addressed (Michaels & Howard,
2012).
Leadership Strategies and Challenges
Stephanie Young (2015) states that in her leadership role it
was imperative to maintain a capable, suitably sized active duty and reserve
workforce with leadership and experience to meet daily operational needs. Now,
as Commandant, Young (2015) always asks herself repeatedly about maintaining
readiness at all times.
Leaders faced challenges working throughout the Deepwater
Horizon incident. Decision making involved participants across several
locations and sundry companies making this process challenging. Most decision
making was based on misunderstandings of risks; therefore, decision making was thought-provoking
for leaders as varying parties such as engineers, technicians, and managers
were not together, worked varying shifts, belonged to dissimilar administrations,
held various proficiency and superiority (Reader & O’Connor, 2015).
One major challenge was teamwork. Leadership lacked
communication between members on the rig and with onshore support team members.
Communication for operational decisionmakers on the drilling rig was difficult
and meant decisions left operators at risk for a calamity. Other recognized obstacles
for leadership involved technical and risky decision making. Onboard the
Deepwater Horizon oil rig the responsibility for decision making rested with
the Captain; however, as Reader & O’Connor (2015) further explain crew
members were uncertain as to who was at the helm due to missing transfer
procedures.
Conclusion
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster presented leaders in
decisionmaking challenges but with the implementation of strategies in
response objectives were able to successfully come to a successful means of
recovery efforts through collaborative teamwork via several non-law enforcement
agencies. With structured command efforts, and clean up crews of various teams,
the disaster clean up was the effort of effective leadership and
decision-making challenges that brought about positive results.
References
Klooster, E. (2010). Dutch consul slams US foot
dragging on oil spill. Radio Netherlands Worldwide. Retrieved from
web.archive.org/web/20101702/21619/http://www.rnw.nl/english/articles/dutch-consul-slams-us-foot-dragging-oil-spill/
Michaels, D. &
Howard, J. (2012). Review of
the OSHA-NIOSH response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill: Protecting the
health and safety of cleanup workers. PLOS: Current Disasters. 4(1). Retrieved
from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=4b2da1fd-0542-43db-a75e-7d285963921a%40pdc-v-sessmgr04&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXNoaWImc2l0ZT1lZHMtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=24678440&db=mdcYoung,
S. (2015). What Deepwater Horizon taught us about being always ready. Coast
Guard Compass. Retrieved from
coastguard.dodlive.mil/2015/04/what-deepwater-horizon-taught-us-about-being-always-ready/
Reader, T.W.,
& O’Connor, P. (2014). The Deepwater Horizon explosion: Non-technical
skills, safety culture, and system complexity. Journal of Risk Research.
17(3). 405-424. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=37926b02-5cdb-4cbd-959d-3e352161a711%40pdc-v-sessmgr02
Young, S. (2015).
What Deepwater Horizon taught us about being always ready. Coast Guard Compass.
Retrieved from
coastguard.dodlive.mil/2015/04/what-deepwater-horizon-taught-us-about-being-always-ready/
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