STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

148 Technological crises and the actors involvedmilitary exercises) in order to get our bureaucrats accustomed to crisissituations and to teamwork. In addition to the special operations staffs, youneed to bring in volunteer executives from the administrations and preparethem to make this shift from a standard situation to an exceptional one,primarily by keeping them carefully informed of the work, the plans, and thesuccesses and failures of civil defense or emergency management operationsand exercises.Third: Paying attention to mass psychology, to informing and alerting thepopulation, and to relations with the media is absolutely crucial as soon asyou realize you are dealing with a major-hazard phenomenon. This shouldn'tcreate any sort of obstacles of principle for the officials involved, and evenless a source of paralysis. Instead, it should be an inevitable aspect, whichshould therefore be incorporated into the emergency framework for takingcontrol of a situation.Fourth: On a related point, local and regional leaders have to get used to adifferent conception of how to command and coordinate operations. Majorhazards, at least those related to human activity, force us to analyze scientificor technical issues. Mastering them will bring technology and specialties intoplay that all involve scientific and technical advice and cooperation.The Rhône-Alpes region recently instituted an expert committee, soon tobe extended to the Southeast military defense zone, that is charged withcarrying out this issue analysis and acting as an advisory body to thegoverning authorities. This institution will, I think, constitute a new andimportant element in performing and even designing administrative actionwith regard to major hazards. It will be an indispensable part of our relationswith public opinion in those circumstances.