Intégrons la culture de gestion de crise en milieu naturel notamment à la lumière de l'expérience des tempêtes de 1999

Abstract

Many crisis situations are caused by natural phenomena or affect natural environments. When such events occur, public authorities tend to be in the line of fire which has destabilising effect that makes the usual modes of operation both unsuitable and ineffectual. Furthermore, inasmuch as unexpected climatic events are expected to be both more severe and occur more often, the responsible organisations would gain from preparing themselves and adopting a crisis management doctrine. This does not consist in defining solutions prior to their occurrence but rather to be equipped to better confront and solve a crisis. Feedback from experience is the essential raw material for shaping and then adapting or fine-tuning a crisis management scheme that incorporates appropriate principles. The lessons learned from the 1999 storms in particular and feedback from staff were used by the ONF to design and adopt a crisis management scheme in cooperation with partners consisting in three phases: 1) A permanent surveillance system. 2) Deployment of the scheme in the event of a crisis. 3) An event marking the end of the crisis followed by feedback system. A number of considerations and a method are suggested for managing crises in natural environments.