Communications and planning key to ensure safety at events, Abu Dhabi conference told

Visiting experts said the UAE is improving in security as they briefed local officials on best practices.

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ABU DHABI // Continuous communication and good planning are key to ensure the security of any event, whether a marathon or a fire, experts have said.

The UAE is improving in security and local experts were briefed on best practices during the occurrence of such events.

“We must strike a balance between ensuring the safety of people and making an event successful,” said Cindy Shain, associate director of the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville in the US. “Law enforcement and security planners must balance these two. Since 9/11, special events have changed in the way agencies plan them because we realised that terrorists can strike anywhere.”

She said some of the guiding principles include anticipating unplanned activities and spur-of-the-moment parties.

“You have to make sure that when you’re drawing all these tremendous resources to your event, you still have to continue the fire, emergency and police services to the rest of your jurisdiction,” she said. “We bring many agencies together and we forget that we have to handle the regular security of our communities.”

Ms Shain said pre-event planning should involve setting up the communications and command post.

“In every event, it’s always communications that seem to have the biggest problems that we always need some sort of betterment,” she said. “We have to look at consequence management and execution plan. Joint training with new technologies and tactics is also key.”

Edward Connors, the president of the Institute for Law and Justice in the US said communications capacity during the Boston Marathon bombings and some natural disasters became overloaded.

“So don’t wait for that moment, but test for it to see how you’re going to handle it,” he said. “The biggest threat we have today in the US is not a terrorist attack from the outside but the inside. It’s people living in the country, with no criminal record and not connected to any outside criminal organisation.”

But experts said the UAE is on the learning curve, and has greatly improved security during emergencies.

"Based on the last couple of years, the UAE has really improved its fire-safety standards because of tragic incidents that have happened," said Hani Kobty, technical manager at Telectron, a leading fire and security company in the UAE.

“They’ve realised, through the help of international consultants and experts, that fire protection is very important for all residential and commercial buildings. They have really raised the bar and, now, the standards are more focused on the west, and this has created an immediate impact by reducing the number of fires and incidents.”

He said the process takes time.

“This is because you have to educate the people first and then you have to implement it, so it starts with the Ministry of Interior and the Civil Defence, which set the standards, and then they educate people like us, contractors and builders, so that everyone can follow these regulations.”

Dr Peter Wagner, a member of the Computer Simulation Centre of Fire Statistics at the International Technical Committee for Fire Prevention and Extinguishing, agreed.

“The main part is education of the population,” he said. “The top causes for fires worldwide are smoking, cooking and the use of candles.”

He said: “We should learn the lessons from single large fires, summarise all the experiences we collect on national and international fire statistics, identify hazards and build fire codes and master plans for cities.”

Maj Gen Vincenzo Coppola, commander for mobile units in the Italian Carabinieri Corps in Treviso, said security and education were some of the pillars that every country should build their development on.

John deHooge, fire chief in Ottawa, added that there was a need to plan for responses to hazards of all types.