Parts I, II and III of the Preparing For Disaster series were posted on previous Sundays.
For an excellent example of a web site than can help you and your family prepare for disaster, see MN's codeReady. The site will help you create a custom emergency plan based on the number of family members, including pets.
The trouble with the complex federal disaster response (known as the National Response Framework), discussed in parts I and II of this series, is that it hasn't been implemented so no one really knows how it will work. And, like most government plans, there's just about no involvement from ordinary citizens outlined in the plan (that's not unique to this plan). Developed by the feds with (some) input from others, it was reviewed in congressional hearings on September 11, 2007.
The Bush administration's new federal disaster-response plan drew harsh criticism yesterday from state and local officials only a day after it was unveiled, prompting fresh calls by House Democrats to make the Federal Emergency Management Agency a stand-alone Cabinet-level agency.
In one of only three House hearings held yesterday, all scheduled to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, state and local emergency managers said the new plan offers insufficient detail for guiding the actions of officials in charge of handling specific incidents and leaves unclear the chain of command, from the president to workers on the scene...
But yesterday, Robert C. Bohlmann, emergency manager for York County in Maine and spokesman for the International Association of Emergency Managers, warned at the hearing about a "major disconnect" between that legislation and the new National Response Framework (NRF), which states that the secretary of homeland security is in charge of managing domestic incidents.
Testifying before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee, Bohlmann said the framework -- streamlined to about 78 pages from its predecessor, the 427-page National Response Plan -- lacks substance.
"The draft NRF that we have reviewed appears to be more like a public relations document rather than a response plan or framework," Bohlmann said. Earlier this summer, state and local officials had complained that the Department of Homeland Security ignored the input they gave to FEMA and commandeered the drafting process.
Criticism includes the complexity of the various scenarios.
Tim Manning, director of homeland security and emergency management for New Mexico and spokesman for the National Emergency Management Association, whose members include his counterparts in the 49 other states, said he "could not object more vociferously" to the framework's concept that separate operational and strategic plans will be developed for 15 federally designated disaster scenarios.
"When you scale up to the level we're talking about, to have very duplicative plans with 30 variations will be disastrous," Manning said.
Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) said it may be time for Congress to revisit the issue of separating FEMA from the DHS. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who chaired the hearing, asked congressional investigators to review state and local officials' criticism.
Touching on Manning's criticism, we saw in Part II that some disasters simply aren't covered by the ESF scenarios (such as food distribution problems because of a flu pandemic). As to whether FEMA should be separate, it certainly did not function well as part of DHS. At the same time, FEMA's role is designed to be limited. it is supposed to wait to be called in by local disaster managers and to help coordinate rather than be the source of manpower and equipment (staff and stuff) supplied by others. However, FEMA itself recognizes that may not be enough and is starting to draw up plans of its own.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is quietly drawing up plans for a handful of disasters: devastating earthquakes beneath San Francisco and St. Louis and catastrophic storms in South Florida and Hawaii, FEMA's chief said Thursday.
In a departure from its traditional expectation that states develop such responses, the agency is forming "base plans" for responding to specific calamities, FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.
FEMA officials expect to finish plans for a massive Bay Area quake by the end of the year and are at work on another response blueprint for a large quake on the New Madrid fault, which runs from southern Illinois to northeastern Arkansas and lurks beneath St. Louis, Paulison said.
FEMA also is preparing for a Category 5 hurricane in the Miami area and has nearly completed response guidelines for a failure of the 143-mile dike around Lake Okeechobee, northwest of Miami, he said. About 45,000 people live in flood-prone areas around the lake.
Also, the agency recently began assembling response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Hawaii, Paulison said.
Waiting is not a recipe for success.
FEMA has adopted a more aggressive stance toward disasters since Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Southeast in 2005. Paulison called it a "culture change" at FEMA.
Paulison, who did not mention a base plan for the New Orleans area, said the old model of waiting for states to plead for federal help was a recipe for "sequential failure."
"We've got to go in as partners. We've got to stand side by side," he said.
"We're going to move in early, we're not going to wait for the state to ask for things before we start moving them, we're going to anticipate what the needs are, and then when they ask for them, we're going to be there," he said. "The worst that can happen is they don't need them."
The trouble here, of course, is that there are state-Fed fault lines to consider and plan for, and most importantly from not just a pandemic but from an all-hazards POV, there has been very little drilling and practicing of everyone's roles so that when times are rough, response is smooth, especially when more than DHS is involved. From the GAO, examining pandemic response (lead agency is HHS but a key role played by DHS):
The Strategy and Plan do not specify how the leadership roles and responsibilities will work in addressing the unique characteristics of an influenza pandemic, which could occur simultaneously in multiple locations and over a long period. A pandemic could extend well beyond health and medical boundaries, affecting critical infrastructure, the movement of goods and services across the nation and the globe, and economic and security considerations. Although the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Secretary is to lead the public health and medical response and the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Secretary is to lead overall nonmedical support and response actions, the Plan does not clearly address these simultaneous responsibilities or how these roles are to work together, particularly over an extended period and at multiple locations across the country. In addition, the Secretary of DHS has designated a national Principal Federal Official (PFO) to facilitate pandemic coordination as well as five regional PFOs and five regional Federal Coordinating Officers. Most of these leadership roles and responsibilities have not been tested under pandemic scenarios, leaving it unclear how they will work.
For that reason, states, localities, and entities from businesses to schools to local governments need to develop their own "continuity of operations plans" (COOP) to decide whether and how to keep going, and not depend on the Feds for help. It's especially important that the state equivalent of DHS and HHS practice joint operations, and unified command, especially when it comes to communications.
Once again, we'll use a possible pandemic as an example, and look at school function. Since the local schools are an integral part of community mitigation (dismissing school students while assessing the building's capabilities for food, shelter, or possibly as an alternate hospital care facility), there is an extensive amount of school planning going on. And, because colleges are different than schools (some percentage of students can't be dismissed, especially from overseas), college plans might look different than grade school plans.
Local entities such as the state Departments of Education would be expected to work closely with state Departments of Health to determine whether and when grade schools would close (likely a call that would be made by the Governors). However, colleges within a state would likely be much more independent, and the diversity of student bodies would also possibly lead to different COOP plans ( the commuter community college may close, the academic university with students from abroad might not be able to dismiss students so easily). These are used to illustrate some of the diverse issues that would crop up. Add research labs and their own requirements, and you can see how it would be difficult, if not impossible, to organize a comprehensive response at the Federal level, or even the state level, to such diverse local needs.
If school dismissal is decided at the Governor's level, with input from HHS, then regional coordination as well as state coordination between Education, Homeland Security and Health Departments are crucial. Are we practicing? Are we ready? Are local entities in the loop? Do we have communications plans so that the state speaks with one voice? Too often, the response when there's no consensus is to say nothing at all. In the face of disaster, that just won't do. And, also too often, the voice of stakeholders (the ordinary public) has not been heard.
In the end, the disaster response envisioned by the National Response Framework is complex, untested and unpracticed (at least as of this writing), but does at least standardize and define roles and terms much better than the last iteration did. Because of significant criticism, the comment period for the draft plan has been extended until October 22. Whatever the final product, it won't change the fact that disaster preparation begins at home, with the individual and family unit taking some responsibility for COOP plans of its own. And that is the subject of another post.