BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

located and finally a local commander function to cooperate with the Coast Guard
and the Fire Brigade. This solution has, in my opinion, geographical and meteorolo-
gical reasons. (The Shetland Islands are remote and it was a terrible weather which
made transports impossible). I think, that some changes would have been necessary
if the accident had lasted for a lenghty time. We can, however, nevertheless recogni-
ze the principal functions also in this case.
In a third incident “The Aegean Sea” we can also find at least parts of the principal
structure, with a “Joint Response Center” (CECOP) and two OSC-functions, (Com-
mission Technical), one for recovery and one for lightering of the tanker, and one
subcommission for beaches (playas).
5. Organisation and duties of a response center
In some of the examples above, we have seen what functions could be (in my
opinion: has to be) found in a response center. The Swedish model (Appendix 9)
is quite simple because the responsibilities, assignement and the legal commission
are very clearcut. The Response Commander of the Coast Guard has the full
responsibility for a response operation at sea and he has also sufficient commission
to take possession of what is needed and available also from outside the Coast
Guard.
Of course, he has to cooperate with local authorities regarding beach-protection etc,
but all resources at sea are under his command and he has the supreme responsi-
bility for them to be are used in the best way. He is supported by a staff divided into
four main functions
- Operation
- Technical
- Personnel and
- Environmental, insurance or other specialists (if needed).
The assignments of the different parts of the staff are presented in Appendix 10 and
11. The corresponding organogram and duties for a U.S. Response Commander’s
Staff are presented in Appendex 12.
With those examples I have tried to highlight what a response staff should do and
how they should be organized. Of course, there is much to say about how they
should do their job e.g. regarding decisionmaking, management, staff work routines
and so on, but that is outside the scope of this lecture.
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