BE PREPARED. BE READY. DISASTER PLANNING AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT.

I think it's important we talk about disaster planning and emergency management coordination. It is important to know how a disaster is defined, because that is how we react and how we are deployed. A disaster, by definition, is a serious disruption of your community, and it's when you exceed all the capacity and resources that your community has, or is allowed to have, in coping with the situation.

That’s how we define it, and it's how we are deployed, and it's how we react whenever the time comes. We've all seen or been through disasters and you know it is chaos at the time.

how are we deployed?

When something happens, there's a lot of adrenaline. There's a lot of people in charge, or that’s the way it may look, but truly it's what we plan for. To be able to rehearse and go through different situations. There are several different levels of jurisdiction for a disaster event, depending on the severity and the resources available.
Disasters can range from extreme weather events, commercial transportation wreckage, and mass shootings to—as we’ve seen recently—pandemic devastation.
When a disaster strikes, how are we deployed? Who decides where we go and what resources are available? Most of that information is compiled with what is called an Emergency Management Coordinator. An Emergency Management Coordinator is someone in your community – on a state and local level – who is the first get a complete analysis of the disaster or the event, and who is then responsible for appropriating different resources to that event that are necessary.

Each type of event has a different need. With a mass shooting, you're in a rescue and triage situation. There's a lot of different things that we train for, depending on what the event is. We were recently in hurricane season, so we in Texas and other coastal areas can understand and know the devastation of a hurricane, and we have trained and gone through several different hurricanes in our area.

Big, catastrophic events, such as the Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11, are handled at the federal level. Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams (DMORT) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) work together to take charge of those situations.
I'm chairperson of the Texas Disaster Team, which is affiliated very strongly with our Texas Funeral Directors Association. That is a very strong bond that we have together. It's where all of our volunteers’ training is done, together through that organization. Other states have very similar organizations that are part of their state funeral director association. So, if you’re not a part of your state association, I would encourage you to get involved, because they play an important role in coordinating resources.
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Our association is affiliated with the state of Texas, and we are contracted by the state for all of its mortuary assets. So, all mortuary assets go through our association that we manage for them, so when any type of deployment comes in our area in the state of Texas, our funeral directors are the frontline resources available that go out.

how we help

Let me give you a few of the incidents in our area that we have been a part of. Our team was the lead agency in for the West Fertilizer explosion back in 2013. We were the lead agency that took care of 13 of the 15 bodies that were killed. It was a small town, so we came in not only as search and rescue and transportation, but we also have a funeral director element of our team that came in and assisted the funeral home.

Recently, we faced the pandemic. Our team was deployed to the Texas Valley in 2020. We spent three months there. We took over full mortuary operations for the Texas Valley, including the intake and transportation of bodies. We handled over 1,300 deaths there in two months. It was a 24-hour operation there.

Our team, some of whom are here in the room today, were also very active in the Uvalde school shooting. We went into Uvalde and we assisted taking care of that situation. So, we have been a part of a lot of different disasters.
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As a funeral director, cemeterian, cremationist, you are on the front lines, and your resources are valuable to emergency management coordinators. So, if you are not currently part of emergency planning in your area, I encourage you to do so. You're the expert. You know, on the front line almost all disasters, you're dealing with death, you're dealing with transportation of bodies, you're dealing with temporary morgue holding facilities, so I encourage you to get involved with that.

be prepared

Three things I want to leave you with, because when disaster strikes, it's too late to plan, so be prepared.

1. Know what resources you have. Take inventory of what you have, and know for different types of events that are happening, you're going to need different resources, so know what you have.
2. Then, communicate that to the emergency management coordinators, your local county officials. They need to know what you have. When you're in a smaller, rural area, it's even more important to know that.
3. Be willing to volunteer, be willing to help when the time comes again. You are the expert. You are the person that knows how to move decedents, storage of decedents.

Be prepared. Be ready.
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Before I got involved in this, and then after seeing on the other side, I know our importance, our value to the county and state officials when a disaster hits. Because it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We all know that, and we see it daily on the news. So, be part of the response and get involved to be able to help when the time comes.

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This post excerpted from the panel presentation Regulate, Recruit, and React: A Quick Take on Current Issues at CANA's 105th Cremation Innovation Convention in Washington, DC in August 2023.  

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​W. Scott Smith is the CEO and President of All Texas Cremation Heritage Crematory. Coming from a long line of funeral professionals, Scott is very involved in every aspect of the funeral industry. He was appointed by Governor Abbott in 2014 to serve on the Texas Funeral Service Commission. He currently serves as Vice Chair of Texas Disaster Response Team and has been involved and immediately responded to the needs after the West Texas plant explosion, as well as the Oklahoma City bombing. Scott had the distinct honor to be chosen by the state of Texas to handle the cremation of the first Ebola death in the United States that occurred in North Texas. He has spoken throughout Texas and worldwide to help better plan for the unknown.