Advantages of "Emergency Preparedness" under the ISM Code:
Preventing an accident or a hazard from taking place is the most important part of any shipboard safety program. However, once a hazardous situation develops, a well-trained crew is the best defense in bringing the situation under control. Given the inherent complexity in dealing with diverse emergency situations, it is essential that robust procedures are incorporated into the Safety Management System (SMS) manual for a comprehensive training and drill regime. This ensures that both the crew on board and relevant company personnel ashore are able to respond to emergency situations in a timely and effective manner. This proactive approach significantly eliminates exposure to claims arising from incidents.
Duties of the Company:
For each type of emergency situation envisaged, there should be a corresponding contingency plan to respond effectively. The formation of the emergency team to deal with any particular situation, and the allocation of duties to individual ship's staff, may be laid down in the SMS or in a muster list prepared by the Master.
The ISM Code requires that the safety management objectives of the Company should "Establish safeguards against all identified risks". While there is no official exhaustive list of risks, the following are some of the more common examples of emergency situations that a company must be prepared for:
- Collision
- Man overboard
- Structural failure
- Serious accident
- Grounding
- Injury/Death
- Flooding of a hold/forepeak/aftpeak
- Heavy weather
- Fire
- Oil spillage
- Machinery breakdown
- Cargo shifting
- Abandon ship
- Piracy/Terrorism
The ISM Code requires that the SMS developed by the Company includes "defined duties, levels of authority & lines of communication between & amongst shore & shipboard personnel". It is imperative that ships and the shore-based company are able to communicate with each other at all times. The company must ensure that the SMS includes contact details of the "Designated Person Ashore (DPA)" as well as alternative responsible shore personnel, including their after-office-hours telephone numbers. Such contact details must be reviewed and updated whenever there is a change in shore-side personnel.
The ISM Code requires that the Company should establish "Procedures by which the ship's personnel receive relevant information on the safety management system in a working language or languages understood by them". It is essential that the ship's personnel make effective use of the relevant information that will prepare them to deal with emergency situations. To this end, the company should encourage all personnel to familiarize themselves with these procedures by making the SMS documentation readily available and accessible to the personnel, and by regularly holding briefings on board as well as ashore.