Eight years ago, Arizona voters narrowly approved a referendum that established a public and private partnership to fund a multi-use sports stadium. The intent was to keep the Arizona Cardinals professional football team from moving, attract major college bowl games and lure the Super Bowl.

By 2003, Glendale, Ariz., had been selected as the home of the new stadium. A year later, and two years before construction was completed, Glendale landed the 2008 Super Bowl. It will be an economic boon for the city and surrounding region. But having as many as 150,000 additional visitors pour in for an internationally known event puts a lot of pressure on first responders.

Almost immediately after the 2008 Super Bowl was awarded, Glendale Fire Chief Mark Burdick began preparing for this world-stage event by dedicating a planning team. The team members, along with their normal daily duties, would design and deliver a comprehensive fire service plan for all Super Bowl XLII-related events.

The Super Bowl is much more than a game; it includes numerous NFL-sanctioned and other events that will span the Phoenix area. Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Scottsdale, Surprise and the Gila River Indian Community will host sanctioned events. Numerous other Arizona communities will host sponsored events. These communities bear the ultimate burden of providing comprehensive fire and emergency management services during their events, but very few local communities can bear this burden alone.

Regional support for Super Bowl XLII is critical and Glendale is a founding member of the Phoenix metropolitan area automatic aid system. This system includes 24 cities, towns and unincorporated areas that offer enormous resources to its members through a borderless automatic dispatch of fire service personnel and equipment depending on the incident type and size.

Planning emergency response at a Super Bowl begins with considering the integration of numerous partners. The level of coordination and integration by county, state and federal agencies into the local plan creates a condition where escalation of response to incidents occurs in an unorthodox way due to the increased availability of resources on site. Super Bowl event management occurs between a Type 2 and Type 1 incident model.

Super Bowl XLII is largely supported by local public safety agencies. Still, the Federal Bureau of Investigations will coordinate with local agencies to make sure intelligence information is shared and the local plan meets federal priorities. The highest designation a planned event can achieve is a National Special Security Event. When the secretary of Homeland Security designates an event an NSSE, the Secret Service becomes the lead agency for the design and implementation of the operational security plan. The Secret Service has developed a core strategy to carry out its security operations, which relies heavily on its established partnerships with law enforcement and public safety officials at the local, state and federal levels. However, to date, Super Bowl XLII has not been designated an NSSE.

It is often forgotten that public safety efforts include public health, public works, transportation and environmental agencies. Additionally, NFL contractors act as liaisons with local fire departments to assure fire suppression, prevention, emergency medical and special operations (hazardous materials and technical rescue) response planning. The planning and execution of Super Bowl XLII will ultimately include more than 150 local, regional, state, federal and private contracting agencies.

The relationship aspect of the planning process cannot be overstated. Simply put, a union between partners who don't get along is not likely to produce impressive offspring. All partners in the planning process for Super Bowl XLII have brought a mutual respect and desire to work together. No stakeholder, whether self determined or identified, has been excluded from the planning process.

Three key multidisciplined and multiagency committees were established early in the planning process. The public safety committee at large is a statewide committee that invites all stakeholders to communicate their concerns regarding the plan's design and implementation directly to the plan's architects. The executive steering committee is comprised of the executive leaders such as fire chiefs, police chiefs and department directors. Lead agency planners make up the third committee and are the architects of the individual operational plans for law enforcement, fire and EMS, and emergency management. An additional vital player is an NFL liaison. This person is the conduit between the three committees and the NFL and must be highly respected and well known among the agencies.

Arizona appointed a planning committee coordinator to serve as the facilitator of the planning process and to pump information and resource connectivity to all the regions. The Arizona Super Bowl host committee's vice president of operations participates daily in the plan's design and logistical support. Both the NFL liaison and the host committee representatives must be integrated into the local planner's efforts. It is important to maintain a positive, cooperative and trusting relationship throughout the process in order for it to be effective.

The planning process for Super Bowl XLII was based on regionally accepted and well-established standard operating procedures, with an eye to scalability. These SOPs rely on the proven and reliable framework used every day in the Phoenix metropolitan area and have very few special procedures or response techniques designed specifically for event management. This ensures simplified and predictable response to calls during the event. The response to Super Bowl-related events is not the time to try out untested methods.

The Phoenix metropolitan area and Glendale have embraced the National Incident Management System. NIMS is an incident-based command structure, and that must be considered when designing an event-management system. There are clear differences between events and incidents, and management methodologies must anticipate the transition of a local event to a much larger regionally or nationally significant incident. That transition should be integrated in a unified effort that accounts for NIMS structure. Law enforcement and fire service planners have fully integrated each other's plans into a singular public safety response plan. It is imperative that all response disciplines are incorporated into one command and control structure.

Early in the planning process, basic ICS structure included the standard sections of operations, planning, logistics, and finance and administration. Within this design, intelligence, public information, NFL liaison, and safety disciplines are vital contributors to the incident commander's management of the event. Further design modifications of this event structure have included guest services and an advanced team. These task forces report directly to operations, but will have access to all areas of service delivery.

The guest services task force was established to assist visiting public safety personnel from local agencies and future Super Bowl cities to ensure these representatives can learn from the event while not posing unnecessary challenges to those responding to calls.

The advanced team task force is comprised of Glendale representatives from fire operations, fire marshal's office, police, building safety and code enforcement departments. This team is directly tied to the host committee and the NFL and will respond to pop up events that always accompany Super Bowls. These events can be as small as neighborhood block parties of 100 to 200 persons to sponsored or promoted gatherings of several hundred to thousands of participants. The team will ensure that all events within Glendale meet all the requirements of city code and public safety concerns. The task force will have the ability to “permit on site” if required and mandate minimal police, fire and EMS resources to the event planners. The goal will be to work with the pop-up event leaders to find a way for all parties involved to win. Ultimately, the advance team will have the authority to disallow any unscheduled or nonpermitted events in Glendale.

The lifeblood and absolute foundation of any event or incident plan is the logistics section or branch. As with all Super Bowl XLII planning, Glendale's logistical services division will coordinate the local logistical plan with the entire region to ensure seamless delivery of fire service resources for all events. Super Bowl XLII will require a robust method of assuring communications, staging and deployment, facilities, and personnel support.

Communications during the Super Bowl will be interoperable in virtually all levels of command. In the areas where technology cannot support the common frequency, physical incorporation of public safety partner radios and frequencies will occur. The Glendale Fire Department will employ a common communications plan that is regionally connected and includes event ICP-based communications centers, or tactical radio operators, established solely for the use of tactical and support resources assigned to the events to manage incident communications. Key to the unified communication plan will be a common spoken language. This will avoid conflicting or confusing radio transmissions.

The logistics branch will support more than 350 fire service providers and more than 1,000 public safety personnel. Due to the restricted site layout, alternative methods of delivering food, water and provisions to the many duty locations within the Super Bowl area of operations have been established. The use of utility ATVs, carts, cached equipment pods and Segways are part of GFD's logistical plan.

Again, the Super Bowl is not the time to try out technology without the logistical resources, knowledge, skill and ability to support the new process. Establishing a logical and functional plan is key to being able to predict its satisfactory execution. At the beginning of the planning process we simply asked what are we trying to do? What are our vulnerabilities? What are our physical and financial resources?

Fire prevention and suppression and all-hazards response are substantial areas of the plan and for security's sake will not be detailed.

EMS is at the core of what Glendale is doing. GFD will use specially designed medical response carts to deploy ALS personnel and to treat and transport patients within the stadium complex. Two paramedics and one EMT will staff these carts. Additional carts will be dedicated to the playing field and will be staffed with two paramedics each. Medical response carts will be positioned near parking areas before and after the game and at strategic locations within the stadium and surrounding areas during game. The carts can transport patients to the nearest first-aid room or ambulance if needed.

Walking response teams will be positioned throughout the stadium complex to provide equal distribution of responders to all regions of the stadium. Each walking response team will be BLS equipped.

The field response teams will be ALS equipped and will carry an oversized spinal board for player use. They will be under the direction of the team physicians and team trainers operating within the paramedic's scope of practice while on the field or in the locker rooms treating players. The paramedic's ultimate medical control will remain with their assigned base hospital medical control.

Comfort stations will be associated with first-aid locations where possible and will incorporate the objectives of the American Red Cross and GFD's EMS division.

If GFD is requested to provide dignitary medical care, this assignment will be coordinated with the Glendale Police Department. A tactical operations unit and standard trained medics will be used as needed and requested through law enforcement security procedures.

The Glendale Fire Department has received Metropolitan Medical Response System and Urban Area Security Initiative grants and has participated in the regional domestic preparedness planning and response effort since 1999. In the event of a major incident that produces a numerous patients, the fire department will implement a well-established mass-casualty incident plan that is anchored in regional response methodologies and is directly integrated into state and federal response systems. The pre-positioning of MCI assets within an all-hazards approach has been a component of GFD's plan.

A critical element of the planning has been the emotional and political reality of managing a local event with international impacts. To say that the Super Bowl is much more than a game seems a huge understatement. The art of diplomacy and tact is absolutely requisite to balance local city management, elected officials and citizen expectations against the regional, national and international considerations that exist. The typical attendee on game day is usually someone who is associated with some well-connected person or corporation. This requires a heightened sense of political savvy when working events. The Glendale Fire Department follows a simple philosophy that challenges each member to leave each customer with a sense of relief that they encountered us.

In the end it will take a comprehensive and NIMS-compliant method of event management that can transition to large-scale incident management. For as much structure that is required in this planning process, there is an equal degree of flexibility needed for this living thing. As we move toward Feb. 3, we will continue to identify gaps and work the planning process together.

Part two of this series will appear in the March issue and will detail the execution of the plan and the lessons learned.

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Asst. Chief Tom Shannon has been in Emergency Services for over 26 years and with the Glendale (Ariz.) Fire Department for the last 19. He has served in fire operations, special operations and emergency management divisions. As an assistant chief, he has overseen life-safety service, administrative services, and preparedness and planning divisions. He leads the planning team for Super Bowl XLII.

Lay of the Land

Protecting one of the largest sporting events in the United States is no easy matter. Here are some of what first responders will be up against.

University of Phoenix Stadium covers 1.7 million square feet, which is more than 25 acres. On normal days, it seats 63,400 but will expand to 73,000 for the Super Bowl. The National Football League estimates that 150,000 visitors will go to the Phoenix area, most staying from Jan. 30 until Feb. 4. Jan. 26, will be the first day of the NFL Experience, a theme-park event held at the stadium.

The parking lot has 14,000 space and an additional 12,000 spaces in an adjacent lot. The stadium has a retractable roof and three main entrances.