Lessons Learned: 603 Pandora Fire - EOC activation & Business - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Lessons Learned: 603 Pandora Fire - EOC activation & Business Continuity

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

05:18hrs on May 6th, 2019 report of a structure fire at 603 Pandora Ave

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

RPAS Calle lled in in at 0600hrs

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

EOC - What worked well

• Knowledge sharing & coordination
• Senior management support & staff knowledge and skills
• Single point of contact for better continuity
• Great experience to practice EOC roles during a relatively small-scale event
• Prioritization of tasks
• Provided opportunity to look at event holistically and take all factors into

consideration while focussing on BCEMS response goals (Heritage buildings vs life safety)

• Kept mayor and council informed
• Regular media briefings

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

EOC - Challenges & lessons learned

• Air Quality monitoring – staff and public health and safety concerns
• Business owners and tenants – consistent messaging
• Media contacting multiple staff
• Hand over to VicPD – invoicing, media, scene command
• Internet outage, phones, Shaw cable
• Considerations for capacity for larger prolonged 24*7 events
• Staff training – role clarity
• Structural engineer from Stan-tech availability
• Water management – flow issues
• Fortis – gas off for the block (cooking & heating)

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

“Businesses and public buildings within that area, including Mountain Equipment Co-op and city hall, are closed. The MEC building is directly across from the Government Street wall of the former Plaza Hotel. City hall is also concerned for its employees about the quality of the air in that location.”

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

Business Continuity - What worked well

• BCP’s are in place and staff referred to them, followed them, and have since

updated them!

• IT has an active work from home practice so all staff can work from home at

anytime, so the IT department was able to send everyone home except front line essential staff (Chief Information Officer, helpdesk staff and one network admin stayed in the IT office)

• Actively communicated with Directors and Senior Managers about available

workspaces in the IT office to accommodate city staff and for loaner spare laptops

• Office 365 enables us to work from any location.
• Council was able to use the CRD building for COTW and Council meetings
• Approx. 10 loaner laptops were used– SharePoint sign out document
• Accommodated 20+ essential staff within the organization for Business

Continuity (payroll, facilities, engineering, Accounts Payable, Revenue staff, and many others including HR and GIS)

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

Business Continuity – Challenges & lessons learned

• If IT office was unavailable and IT spare equipment was not accessible,

we would have had trouble accommodating essential city services

• The evacuation happened on a pay week and our payroll staff were in a

critical time sensitive portion of the process

• We were able to accommodate payroll in IT quickly because IT wasn’t

affected by the evacuation

• The City has various remote locations including Parks and Public Works

so we could have accommodated payroll staff elsewhere but would require much more resourcing

• The public service centre and development centre was closed for three

days and that impacted front counter interactions

• We haven’t operated all functions of the public service centre or

development centre out of an alternate location like Crystal Pool, Save

• n Foods Memorial Arena or VCC
• We need to practise and ensure most over the counter services can be

performed from alternate locations

603 Pandora Fire Lessons Learned

Questions?