Community emergency planning: false assumptions and inappropriate analogies.

At foot of title: Initial version presented at the Workshop on Safety Control and Risk Management, sponsored by the Swedish Rescue Services and World Bank, Karlstad, Sweden, November 1989

Bibliography: leaves 28-29

Community emergency planning had its roots in military analogies, which viewed emergencies as extensions of "enemy attack" scenarios. Such thinking was embedded in early structural arrangements and was generalised as the appropriate normative model for all emergencies. This model viewed emergencies as conditions of social chaos which could be rectified by command and control. This paper argues that such a view is inadequate based on a knowledge of behaviour in emergencies, and that the model is dysfunctional for planning. A more adequate model is presented, based on conditions of continuity, coordination and cooperation. This problem solving model, based on research rather than military analogies, provides a more adequate set of assumptions as the basis for planning. However, legislative and technolgical "improvements" often make emergency planning more rigid and increasingly inadequate