ABSTRACT
The overarching theme of this book has been that planning for large-scale special events is the best possible context to examine all aspects of critical incident management. Whether you will ever be part of the planning of such an event is not as important as what lessons can be learned by using these complex and all-encompassing events as the backdrop for our examination. A large-scale special event such as a Super Bowl, or a presidential election brings all elements associated with homeland security and emergency management together to one table. There is no better context to examine the before, during, and after of a critical incident, or the tactical, operational, and strategic spheres of command than a preplanned event, in which all these factors come into play. A secondary reason for using the large-scale special event as a backdrop is that the lessons from it can be applied to the planning of much smaller events. For example, the writers of this book have applied the principles of large-scale event planning to the planning of smaller events such as United Way and Rotary Club fundraisers. You probably won’t ever need to define a total flight restriction zone for your church’s Thanksgiving Day turkey giveaway event, but the concepts related to crowd control and the need for clearly marked zones will be useful, even for such a small and informal event.
