Disaster Feeding in New York City during Sandy

Hurricane (or, if you prefer, Post Tropical Cyclone) Sandy had a major, but not catastrophic, affect on New York City. Of the four hazards from a hurricane (surge, wind, inland flooding & tornadoes), surge was the principle source of the damage to the city. There was not the extensive inland roof damage from winds that happened in, for example, Wilma. Six months afterward, when I flew into Ft. Lauderdale, I was greeted by a sea of patched, blue roofs. I tried to explain to some New Yorkers that the wind damage was minimal but they protested and showed me their cell phone photos of destroyed, ocean side homes. I had seen such images before, in pictures and in person. What I was unable to convey to them , or they couldn’t understand, was that when a storm delivers surge, wind, inland flooding & tornadoes to a spot, there are no pictures of wrecked houses. There is only, like I saw in Bay St Louis after Katrina, the empty, concrete slabs where the houses had once been.

The City of New York, under the strict supervision of the Mayor’s Office, applied the considerable resources at their disposal to the task of feeding the survivors of the disaster. After tasking the National Guard to deliver shelf stable meals and bottled water to Points of Distribution, the City contracted for catered hot meals to be delivered to fixed feeding sites in the affected area. They also hired a number of the abundant food trucks to perform mobile feeding. These actions were paid for from the Mayor’s Fund, a stash of donated dollars available for use at the Mayor’s discretion.

The American Red Cross and the Southern Baptist Convention contributed considerable resources to the establishment of a mass care feeding infrastructure in the five Boroughs of the City and on Long Island. Three Baptist Field Kitchens were positioned in the City (Staten Island, Brooklyn & Queens) and one on Long Island. In mid-November there were approximately 120 Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) assigned to distribute the production of the 4 Field Kitchens and any additional catered meals.

The Food Banks in NYC, with their associated food pantries and soup kitchens, shoulder the burden of feeding the needy every day during blue skies. With the advent of the disaster their burdens were increased.  The truckloads of donations increased significantly after the disaster, which is a good thing. Receiving, sorting and distributing the additional donations was an additional burden on already exhausted staff, which is a bad thing.

Finally, ad hoc groups of people sprang into existence to take care of unmet feeding needs. The Food Banks and the Red Cross tried to assist these groups with varying success.

When I arrived in NYC in  the middle of November 2012, almost 2 weeks after the impact of the storm, very little of this feeding activity was coordinated. There were, in the words of a friend of mine, “multiple, parallel, non-converging" feeding efforts under way in the City (although parallel is, by definition, 2 straight lines that do not intersect, I add the term “non-converging” for those of you who never read Euclid). After speaking at the recently completed National Hurricane Conference to a number of individuals in the mass care community who served in NYC during Sandy, I arrived at several conclusions that I would like to share with you.

The reasons for the lack of coordination are primarily cultural and institutional. I will deal with the institutional first.

NYC is a hard place to live in on a good day and I imagine is a very difficult place to manage. The successful elected officials and managers in the City succeeded because of the particular way that they solved problems. I am not going to attach adjectives or moral judgments to their problem solving processes. Long ago the 5 Boroughs of the City decided that the best way to manage the City was with a powerful Mayor. Broward County, Florida, with a population of about 2 million persons, has 31 municipalities and a county government without an equivalent, powerful central executive. The problem solving processes in NYC and Broward County are different but satisfactory to a majority of the populations in each jurisdiction. When a Big Disaster Strikes the City the elected officials and managers address this problem the same way that they have been successful addressing Big City problems in the past.

The Whole of Community concept that FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate developed in Florida and brought to the nation emphasizes communication, collaboration and cooperation in the disaster response so that all of the resources in the community are brought together in a Unified Effort. The Unity of Command brought about by a powerful Chief Executive comes at the expense of a Unity of Effort. The fact that the disaster was not catastrophic meant that Unity of Command was sufficient for a successful response. A Unity of Command, that is, augmented by the remarkable and enormous resources at the disposal of the City Government and the admirable hardiness of the New York City survivors.

Another reason for the lack of coordination in the City during the Sandy response was the clash between the Culture of the New Yorkers and the (Southern, Midwestern, take your pick) cultures of the Femites and mass care volunteers who poured into the City during the response. The things that we did and said angered and worried the New Yorkers. How could they have confidence that we would perform when we had that kind of attitude? The things the New Yorkers did and said shocked and offended us. I remember thinking: I volunteered my time and energy to come here and help. Why are they treating me this way?

This was not a good environment for communication, collaboration and coordination.

I don’t believe that NYC is going to change the way that they handle disasters. They have been hit by 2 storms in successive years and they believe that their responses were successful. Why should they change?

They should change because Unity of Command will be overwhelmed in a catastrophic event. Whole of Community was adopted and implemented because Unity of Effort is the best way to respond in a catastrophic event. The City of New York can figure that out now or they can have that conclusion forced on them days or even weeks into a catastrophic event. It’s their choice.

A National Mass Care Exercise - Hurricane Gispert

The draft of the new "National Mass Care Strategy" recommends that the nation conduct "an annual national Mass Care System exercise that focuses on state-to-federal coordination systems and integrating staff from key federal, NGO, faith based organizations and the private sector into an effective Mass Care Multi-Agency coordination system." The state of Florida  will conduct just such an exercise in conjunction with the annual State Hurricane Exercise in Tallahassee May 21-24, 2012.

Over 70 persons (50 of which are traveling to the site from out-of-town) from 29 different federal, state, NGO and private sector organizations representing the nation's Whole of Community will participate in the exercise as player, evaluator or controller. The focus of the exercise will be on building the state and the nation's capability to deliver Mass Care Services in furtherance of the National Preparedness Goal.

The scenario for the exercise involves the landfall of Hurricane Gispert in the Tampa Bay area as a major storm. Such an impact on a large, urban, coastal community would require a coordinated, national mass care response. The purpose of the exercise is to test the systems, processes and procedures necessary to coordinate a mass care event of this magnitude.

Many of these procedural documents are new, still in draft form, and have never been tested before. They include:
1) "The Acquisition and Employment of Federal Mass Care Resources, A State Template,"
2) "The State of Florida Multi-Agency Feeding Task Force Standard Operating Guide,"
3) "Draft Multi-Agency Sheltering Task Force Guidance Document,"
4) "Household Disaster Feeding Guidance Document."

Three of these documents are draft national templates that will be refined based on participant feedback during and after the exercise. Once refined, the documents will be made available on the National Mass Care Strategy website for use by the national mass care community.

The exercise will have 3 evaluators to ensure that the lessons learned are captured. There will be a daily and a final "hot wash" to ensure that this critical information is captured while still fresh on the participants minds. The results of these efforts will be incorporated into the After Action Report. This document will also be made available to the nation via the Web.

The ambitious nature of this exercise, both in the number of participants and the complexity of the tasks to be performed, guarantees that this endeavor will be challenging for all participants. This is the best way for us to prepare.

FEMA, Catastrophes, and the Whole of Community

During one of the recent Snowmageddon's FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate was severely chastised by a Good Morning America interviewer because he wasn't rushing federal resources to rescue stranded motorists. On the other end of the spectrum are web sites proclaiming that Craig is erecting "FEMA camps" to house citizens who resist federal agents sent to seize their guns (Yes, these sites are there, I saw them).


We have a long way to go on educating the general public about roles and responsibilities in a disaster but after almost two years in charge Craig has finally found the button at FEMA that gets everyone in the organization's attention. He pushed that button and now everyone at FEMA is talking Catastrophes and Whole of Community.


Whole of Community is a concept and a philosophy that goes to the heart of roles and responsibilities in a disaster. Whole of Community means that when a disaster strikes everyone in the community has a role, and everyone must take responsibility for some part of the response and recovery. The more severe the event, i.e. when a disaster becomes a catastrophe, the greater the roles and responsibilities of the individual citizens. In other words, if you are waiting for FEMA to come and pull your car out of a snowdrift, what will be your response when nothing is left of your entire city but rubble and survivors?


The old joke in emergency management says that a disaster is when a tree falls on your neighbor's house, and a catastrophe is when a tree falls on YOUR house. Very few people have experience in catastrophic events. When I was in Hancock County, MS, a few days after Katrina, I ran into someone from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. He had come to Florida in 2004 to help us on the hurricanes and we were in Mississippi returning the favor. I asked him what happened, and he said they had a plan, but the extent of Katrina's damage had overwhelmed it.


I have heard Craig Fugate many times define an emergency as an event where the responders outnumber the survivors and a disaster as where the survivors outnumber the responders. A catastrophe is where the event overwhelms the plan. The only thing worse than a disaster overwhelming your plan is entering a disaster without any plan at all.

How many jurisdictions today have a catastrophic plan? I don't know, but I don't think very many. The state of Florida has an excellent catastrophic plan. I know, I helped write the mass care feeding and sheltering annex to the plan. Hundreds of local, state and federal workers participated in the development of this plan over a period of several years. The process was one of the most educational and informative periods of my emergency management career.

The person who drove us to write Florida's catastrophic plan? Craig Fugate.

And now Craig wants us all, from small town to big city, from sea to shining sea, to start thinking about catastrophes, and how we can get the whole of the community to pitch in and help when one may happen. I am an emergency manager in one of the most high risk states in the Union. I think about catastrophes all the time, and what I have to do to get ready should one suddenly arrive.

But that's just me.