Write an Essay In Response to the Case Study

In this case study the
importance of effective administrative communication to decision making and
performance became very clear, only too late. As with too little communication,
too much communication is just as bad and sometimes worse.  The inability
for the public administrators to establish clear lines of communication lead to
the poor decisions that were made that day.  Had there been clear lines of
communication the decision to establish an “Incident Commander” could
have been established much sooner.  Once and “Incident
Commander” is established then the decisions as to where to setup staging
areas for law enforcement, fires, and medical services could have been clearly
established to avoid such congestion in a centralized area.  This could also
establish clearer routes to any other areas that required immediate
response.  When an incident, of this magnitude, happen everyone should
know who is in charge.  When Rahne arrived on scene and saw the confusion
and disorganization he said that he finally started screaming “Who’s in
charge? Who’s in charge?” But nobody would say. Probably because nobody
knew who was in charge.  Another area of communication that lead to poor
performance was the fact that the communication devices being used were incompatible. 
Even though Jeff Co representatives had attended training by FEMA it appears
that they left it at that.  Had they applied the training of FEMA with
NIMS they would have been better prepared.  They would have identified
that they basically had a new school that had been turned into a
war-zone.  The SWAT commanders would have had better floor plans of the
new additions and where former classrooms, cafeteria, and science departments
had been relocated which possibly could have saved time.  Instead they had
to rely on a student’s sketch of the school and only one team had that.

Over all I think that the
communication in this case study was ineffective.  When you have to send
information through more than one person the information tends to loose those
intimate details.  As was stated by Steve Davis, the public information
officer for the JeffCo Sheriff’s Office”Radios and cell phones and
everything were absolutely useless”, and furthermore he stated that
“they were so overwhelmed with the amount of traffic on the air”.