The Hurt Locker is a movie about a team of soldiers in Iraq who disarm Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs. The movie took a while to drift from Opening Day to Tallahassee, so I had a lot of time to read rave reviews of the movie in the NYT and Wall Street Journal. I was really looking forward to seeing this flick but left profoundly disappointed on a number of levels.
Mark Boal, the screenwriter, evidently spent a few weeks with a bomb squad in Iraq in 2004 as a journalist and decided to turn the experience into a movie. Neither he, nor Kathryn Bigelow, the Director, knew much about the Army nor what it was like to spend a long tour in Iraq, based on the scenes that were portrayed in the movie.
If you don't care about any of that, then the movie has a lot of tense action sequences and tremendous explosions. They didn't quite meet the action-adventure movie standard, being a little short in car chases and scantily clad females, but the bomb squad trio did engage in plenty of arguing and fighting (mostly with each other).
I understand how difficult it can be to properly depict a different culture like the Army, but Ridley Scott did a fabulous job of it in "Black Hawk Down." Yes, yes, Ridley probably had a lot more money the Kathryn, but it wouldn't have taken much more to address the major errors that I found in the movie. First, and most importantly, our terrible trio spend entirely too much time wandering through Iraqi cities and deserts all by themselves, either in a single Hummer working its way through Iraqi traffic, or driving in spectacular, solitary, splendor across the desert landscape.
At this time and place in the war, nobody loved unless they were in convoys of at least four vehicles. Moving in a single vehicle through urban Iraq was at least as dangerous, if not more so, than disarming bombs. Plus, think about it: what if your Hummer broke down? Believe it or not, this single aspect of the script, repeated in numerous scenes, ruined the movie for me. Other parts of the movie, including the way the Iraqis were depicted, also bothered me.
Jeremy Renner, the actor who played the wild man Sergeant James, who led the team, did a fabulous job. I also enjoyed the performance of Anthony Mackie, who played Sergeant Sanborn, James' assistant. Both men kept me interested in the movie.
"The Hurt Locker" reminded me of the old TV series from the sixties, "Combat." It was a one hour show about an infantry squad in WW II, staring Vic Morrow. It gave me one of my favorites lines in early television ("Checkmate King Two, this is White Rook, over." says Vic Morrow as he calls his platoon leader on the radio). This squad wanders around through Europe, mostly six or eight or ten guys, all by themselves except for the occasional civilian or German soldier who happens along to provide drama for the show.
Don't get me wrong - this kind of thing happened in WW II. But not all the time. Every day. For days and days. In my opinion, Combat was as much like WW II, and The Hurt Locker was as much like Iraq, as MASH was like the Korean War.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
A pistol in my hand
I have never owned a rifle or a pistol. The Army taught me how to use a rifle and a pistol and even lent me one or the other to use occasionally. I never carried a loaded weapon anywhere other than an Army firing range until I got to Iraq.
When I was a young Lieutenant an older officer gave me some advice that stayed with me throughout my career, "You can tell the Army is serious when they give you a flak vest and live ammunition." In March 2003 I was sitting on a cot in a hangar in Kuwait, waiting for the Word to go forward into Iraq, when the company supply sergeant issued me fifty rounds of 9 millimeter ammunition for the pistol I carried in a holster on my hip. I had already received my body armor in Ft Bragg, and it was lying on the cot beside me. As I loaded those rounds into a magazine I thought about the officer's advice and about how right he had been.
For the next 340 days I rarely, if ever, went anywhere without my pistol, usually unloaded. Whenever we went out to visit the local populace I locked the slide to the rear, inserted the magazine and then released the slide so that the spring could slam the slide forward with a distinctive, metallic sound and insert a round into the chamber of the weapon. Often, the metallic sound of my pistol chambering a round was echoed by many soldiers around me as they loaded their own weapons. Later, as Iraq grew more dangerous, I began to carry a rifle with me, so I had two weapons to load and twice as much ammunition to carry.
When we returned to the relative security of our base we unloaded our weapons. The military was very serious about exact procedures for loading and clearing weapons. A sawed off 55 gallon drum, filled with sand, was placed at the entrance to every military post in Iraq for use as a clearing barrel. The idea was to unload your weapon, point into the clearing barrel and then fire. Hopefully there would be no sound and the weapon would be confirmed as unloaded. Sometimes, that was not the case.
A young, Air Force Lieutenant remembered the part about taking the round out of the chamber but forgot the part about removing the magazine. Fortunately, he remembered the part about aiming into the clearing barrel before pulling the trigger. The sound of a gun shot is always unwelcome in a combat zone, especially inside the perimeter. The Lieutenant, horrified at his mistake, compounded it by repeating the error. He hastily pulled the slide of the pistol back, removing the round from the chamber. But without removing the magazine all he did was add another live round to the chamber. Once again he pointed the pistol into the clearing barrel and once again he buried another round in the sand. The Lieutenant was saved from further embarrassment by an Army sergeant who took the pistol from his hand and removed the magazine.
I understand that the Air Force is a suitable substitute for military service. The senior sergeant at my location gave the Lieutenant his pistol back, with one bullet. We took to calling him Barney Fife.
I never fired my weapon in Iraq except on a practice range. A few times I felt compelled to draw my pistol, but I never pointed it at anyone. On several occasions I got out of my vehicle and with a drawn weapon led my convoy of vehicles through a crowd of people. I can still see the faces of the Iraqis as they saw me, pistol drawn and pointed at the ground. I could see a barely perceptible shudder run through the crowd as pressed back away from me, reacting to the man with the gun in his hand.
Fortunately, I carried no terrible memories home with me from Iraq. Yet, to this day, like a tiny film in my head running on a loop, I will be walking innocently and alone across a parking lot, and then I will feel the pistol in my hand, and sense the fear of the Iraqis around me. The feeling that comes over me is always the same, like I have suddenly been possessed with a great and terrible power.
I have not had a pistol in my hand, loaded or otherwise, since February 28, 2004, when I returned to Kuwait from Iraq. I gave my pistol back to the Army and never saw it again. Sometimes, during those chance moments, I can still feel it in my hand again. I actually look at my hand to see if it is there. It never is.
When I was a young Lieutenant an older officer gave me some advice that stayed with me throughout my career, "You can tell the Army is serious when they give you a flak vest and live ammunition." In March 2003 I was sitting on a cot in a hangar in Kuwait, waiting for the Word to go forward into Iraq, when the company supply sergeant issued me fifty rounds of 9 millimeter ammunition for the pistol I carried in a holster on my hip. I had already received my body armor in Ft Bragg, and it was lying on the cot beside me. As I loaded those rounds into a magazine I thought about the officer's advice and about how right he had been.
For the next 340 days I rarely, if ever, went anywhere without my pistol, usually unloaded. Whenever we went out to visit the local populace I locked the slide to the rear, inserted the magazine and then released the slide so that the spring could slam the slide forward with a distinctive, metallic sound and insert a round into the chamber of the weapon. Often, the metallic sound of my pistol chambering a round was echoed by many soldiers around me as they loaded their own weapons. Later, as Iraq grew more dangerous, I began to carry a rifle with me, so I had two weapons to load and twice as much ammunition to carry.
When we returned to the relative security of our base we unloaded our weapons. The military was very serious about exact procedures for loading and clearing weapons. A sawed off 55 gallon drum, filled with sand, was placed at the entrance to every military post in Iraq for use as a clearing barrel. The idea was to unload your weapon, point into the clearing barrel and then fire. Hopefully there would be no sound and the weapon would be confirmed as unloaded. Sometimes, that was not the case.
A young, Air Force Lieutenant remembered the part about taking the round out of the chamber but forgot the part about removing the magazine. Fortunately, he remembered the part about aiming into the clearing barrel before pulling the trigger. The sound of a gun shot is always unwelcome in a combat zone, especially inside the perimeter. The Lieutenant, horrified at his mistake, compounded it by repeating the error. He hastily pulled the slide of the pistol back, removing the round from the chamber. But without removing the magazine all he did was add another live round to the chamber. Once again he pointed the pistol into the clearing barrel and once again he buried another round in the sand. The Lieutenant was saved from further embarrassment by an Army sergeant who took the pistol from his hand and removed the magazine.
I understand that the Air Force is a suitable substitute for military service. The senior sergeant at my location gave the Lieutenant his pistol back, with one bullet. We took to calling him Barney Fife.
I never fired my weapon in Iraq except on a practice range. A few times I felt compelled to draw my pistol, but I never pointed it at anyone. On several occasions I got out of my vehicle and with a drawn weapon led my convoy of vehicles through a crowd of people. I can still see the faces of the Iraqis as they saw me, pistol drawn and pointed at the ground. I could see a barely perceptible shudder run through the crowd as pressed back away from me, reacting to the man with the gun in his hand.
Fortunately, I carried no terrible memories home with me from Iraq. Yet, to this day, like a tiny film in my head running on a loop, I will be walking innocently and alone across a parking lot, and then I will feel the pistol in my hand, and sense the fear of the Iraqis around me. The feeling that comes over me is always the same, like I have suddenly been possessed with a great and terrible power.
I have not had a pistol in my hand, loaded or otherwise, since February 28, 2004, when I returned to Kuwait from Iraq. I gave my pistol back to the Army and never saw it again. Sometimes, during those chance moments, I can still feel it in my hand again. I actually look at my hand to see if it is there. It never is.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Debra Harrison sentenced to 30 months in prison
I first met Debra Harrison in November 2002 in Norristown, PA where I was working with the 358th Civil Affairs Brigade to get them ready to go to Iraq. In March 2003 we deployed together with the unit to Kuwait, and then on to Iraq in April. A non-combat injury kept Debra in Kuwait for most of the summer, so I didn't get to see her very much.
In September 2003 General Sanchez decided that all Reservists were going to stay the full 365 days in Iraq, instead of heading home early like some of us were hoping. Our original mission with the Marines had ended (the Marines were sent home) and some of us assumed, incorrectly, that we were going to go home, too. Instead, the unit was split between Tikrit, Kuwait, Baghdad, southern Iraq and Al-Hilla, where we had been living the past five months.
I was assigned to Hilla with the mission to be the civil affairs liaison from the Baghdad Headquarters to the Multi-National Division in south central Iraq. To perform this critical function for the war effort I was given Major Debra Harrison, Lieutenant Tamara Montgomery, Lieutenant Alicia Galvany and Specialist Mike Green. Not much of an Army, but deemed adequate for the mission by our Commander, Colonel Rob Stall.
The five of us stayed in Al-Hilla from October 1, 2003 to February 28, 2004. Debra and Tamara volunteered to remain in Iraq so they returned to Hilal in March. Tamara's stay was short, as she was wounded in an ambush in Baghdad in April and medically evacuated home.
Sometime in the first three months of 2004 Debra Harrison became involved in a criminal enterprise operating in the Coalition Provisional Authority Headquarters there in Al Hilla. The conspirators, all of whom I knew very well, one of whom was the Chief of Staff and four of whom were field grade Army Reserve officer, were taking bribes from an American contractor in exchange for funneling lucrative projects to the contractor's company.
They weren't very good criminals, or Army officers for that matter, since they left a treasure trove of evidence for investigators in the CPA email system. Debra got a new car and three hundred thousand dollars in cash which she poured into improvements in her house. She was recently sentenced in federal court to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $366,000 in restitution.
I haven't seen or talked to Debra since she said good-bye to me in Kuwait in March 2003 and then caught a ride with Tamara back to Hilla and Iraq. I was contacted by the lawyers, both prosecution and defense, about the case but I didn't have any information about whether Debra was guilty or innocent. The buds of the conspiracy sprouted when I was there but most of the criminal activity happened after I left.
I keep coming back to this sordid episode in my posts as new developments occur, vainly looking for a moral to the story. I am sure that emotions often cloud my vision of what happened. I am curious what rationalizations or self delusions went through Debra's and the other defendants minds as they rubbed their hands together and plotted to betray me and everyone else who served there during that period for something as base and meaningless as money.
I am sure that they, their family and friends have eloquent and long winded excuses for the actions that they took. The comments that Debra's family has posted to my blog are good examples of this. I never took sides for or against Debra in this episode until she was convicted by a court of law, even though I read the indictment and knew that she was in all probability guilty. All the prosecutors had to do was to read her emails.
Two more of the conspirators have yet to be sentenced, Colonel Curtis Whiteford and Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Wheeler. The final chapters of this story have yet to be written.
In September 2003 General Sanchez decided that all Reservists were going to stay the full 365 days in Iraq, instead of heading home early like some of us were hoping. Our original mission with the Marines had ended (the Marines were sent home) and some of us assumed, incorrectly, that we were going to go home, too. Instead, the unit was split between Tikrit, Kuwait, Baghdad, southern Iraq and Al-Hilla, where we had been living the past five months.
I was assigned to Hilla with the mission to be the civil affairs liaison from the Baghdad Headquarters to the Multi-National Division in south central Iraq. To perform this critical function for the war effort I was given Major Debra Harrison, Lieutenant Tamara Montgomery, Lieutenant Alicia Galvany and Specialist Mike Green. Not much of an Army, but deemed adequate for the mission by our Commander, Colonel Rob Stall.
The five of us stayed in Al-Hilla from October 1, 2003 to February 28, 2004. Debra and Tamara volunteered to remain in Iraq so they returned to Hilal in March. Tamara's stay was short, as she was wounded in an ambush in Baghdad in April and medically evacuated home.
Sometime in the first three months of 2004 Debra Harrison became involved in a criminal enterprise operating in the Coalition Provisional Authority Headquarters there in Al Hilla. The conspirators, all of whom I knew very well, one of whom was the Chief of Staff and four of whom were field grade Army Reserve officer, were taking bribes from an American contractor in exchange for funneling lucrative projects to the contractor's company.
They weren't very good criminals, or Army officers for that matter, since they left a treasure trove of evidence for investigators in the CPA email system. Debra got a new car and three hundred thousand dollars in cash which she poured into improvements in her house. She was recently sentenced in federal court to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $366,000 in restitution.
I haven't seen or talked to Debra since she said good-bye to me in Kuwait in March 2003 and then caught a ride with Tamara back to Hilla and Iraq. I was contacted by the lawyers, both prosecution and defense, about the case but I didn't have any information about whether Debra was guilty or innocent. The buds of the conspiracy sprouted when I was there but most of the criminal activity happened after I left.
I keep coming back to this sordid episode in my posts as new developments occur, vainly looking for a moral to the story. I am sure that emotions often cloud my vision of what happened. I am curious what rationalizations or self delusions went through Debra's and the other defendants minds as they rubbed their hands together and plotted to betray me and everyone else who served there during that period for something as base and meaningless as money.
I am sure that they, their family and friends have eloquent and long winded excuses for the actions that they took. The comments that Debra's family has posted to my blog are good examples of this. I never took sides for or against Debra in this episode until she was convicted by a court of law, even though I read the indictment and knew that she was in all probability guilty. All the prosecutors had to do was to read her emails.
Two more of the conspirators have yet to be sentenced, Colonel Curtis Whiteford and Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Wheeler. The final chapters of this story have yet to be written.
Friday, May 15, 2009
2009 Governor's Hurricane Conference
The 2009 Governor's Hurricane Conference ended today, Friday, May 15, 2009. I flew to Ft Lauderdale from Tallahassee for the Conference on Wednesday and returned today. The depressed economy and equally depressed tax receipts cut down on the number of exhibitors by about a third and by the number of attendees by about half. I usually come for the entire week but this year I cut it short.
Nevertheless I found the Conference to be very educational and useful. I enjoy hearing from the counties and the very real emergency management problems that they have to deal with. Lee County gave a very good presentation on the flooding they endured from Tropical Storm Fay, and the 500 migrant workers and their families that they had to shelter for over seven weeks. Their response to the situation was a textbook operational displaying all the right cooperation and coordination that so often does not happen.
The big news for the week, and much discussed at the Conference, was Craig Fugate's confirmation as the FEMA Administrator and Ruben Almaguer's appointment as the Interim Director of Emergency Management for the state. In the General Session on Wednesday afternoon Joe Becker, Vice-President for the American Red Cross, said the Washington, D.C. was about to experience Hurricane Craig. I said, and still believe, that Craig is going to change FEMA or get fired.
I met an interesting gentleman, Keith Loeb, who was a former Special Forces Master Sergeant. He had owned a company that established kitchen sites in disasters, primarily for responders and firefighters. I discovered that Keith helped established the base camp for 1,000 persons in Hancock County, Mississippi in September 2005 after the impact of Hurricane Katrina.
"I stayed in that base camp," I told him.
We both marveled that we had spent that much time there and didn't remember seeing each other. To be honest, it was three and a half years ago and there were a lot of people there.
We also discovered that we were both in the Baton Rouge Emergency Operations Center last September during Hurricane Gustav. We didn't remember seeing each other there either. Maybe we're both not very observant people.
I do remember that he is a very big man and that I wouldn't want to get into an a heated argument with him.
Nevertheless I found the Conference to be very educational and useful. I enjoy hearing from the counties and the very real emergency management problems that they have to deal with. Lee County gave a very good presentation on the flooding they endured from Tropical Storm Fay, and the 500 migrant workers and their families that they had to shelter for over seven weeks. Their response to the situation was a textbook operational displaying all the right cooperation and coordination that so often does not happen.
The big news for the week, and much discussed at the Conference, was Craig Fugate's confirmation as the FEMA Administrator and Ruben Almaguer's appointment as the Interim Director of Emergency Management for the state. In the General Session on Wednesday afternoon Joe Becker, Vice-President for the American Red Cross, said the Washington, D.C. was about to experience Hurricane Craig. I said, and still believe, that Craig is going to change FEMA or get fired.
I met an interesting gentleman, Keith Loeb, who was a former Special Forces Master Sergeant. He had owned a company that established kitchen sites in disasters, primarily for responders and firefighters. I discovered that Keith helped established the base camp for 1,000 persons in Hancock County, Mississippi in September 2005 after the impact of Hurricane Katrina.
"I stayed in that base camp," I told him.
We both marveled that we had spent that much time there and didn't remember seeing each other. To be honest, it was three and a half years ago and there were a lot of people there.
We also discovered that we were both in the Baton Rouge Emergency Operations Center last September during Hurricane Gustav. We didn't remember seeing each other there either. Maybe we're both not very observant people.
I do remember that he is a very big man and that I wouldn't want to get into an a heated argument with him.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The five stages of catastrophic planning
It's called scenario based catastrophic planning. Pick a suitably awful disaster and write a plan to meet that specific disaster. What everyone learns from the planning process and the disaster plan developed by that process will be useful in all future disasters. After two years of work on our catastrophic plan I can say that scenario based planning works.
As a result of the lessons learned from Katrina FEMA began funding catastrophic planning with specified state and local jurisdictions. There was a hurricane plan for Hawaii, two earthquake plans for California (one North and one South), the New Madrid Earthquake plan for Missouri, Arkanasas, Tennessee and surrounding states and a hurricane plan for Florida. I think that this is the best money that FEMA has spent in the last two years.
The scenario for Florida is particularly horrific: a Category 5 hurricane that hits Broward County (Ft Lauderdale) head on, devastates much of Dade and Palm Beach counties, then crosses the state and exits Tampa Bay as a Category 2 storm. The consequences are much worse than anything we experienced in Katrina.
Working on this project has been the equivalent of studying for a graduate degree in emergency management. The project was organized into workgroups: debris, search & rescue, medical, animal issues, education, community stabilization, disaster housing, environmental protection, law enforcement, fuel, health & welfare, host communities, infrastructure, logistics, public information, volunteers & donations. I was made chairman of the mass care feeding and sheltering workgroup, along with my good friend from FEMA Region IV, John Daly.
Many of the problems that we addressed were interrelated with the other workgroups, requiring us to rapidly become familiar with the basics of each discipline. Many of the problems that we dealt with had never been encountered before in the United States, or if they had been encountered then on a much smaller scale.
Over the course of the two years we had to absorb new members to the workgroups. The learning curve for new members was steep. The consequences document, which explained the impact of this single storm on the state, was one hundred pages long. The complexity and scale of the problems required us to invent new ways of doing business in emergency management. It has been a very interesting and exciting ride.
As the new members join or are introduced to the project I have observed that they pass through five very well defined stages. The first stage is disbelief. The catastrophe is so big that they can't conceive of a solution. "We can't do this," they say.
In the second stage they challenge the assumptions. To generate a one hundred page consequence document for an imaginary hurricane, certain assumptions must be made (the hurricane was real, and passed along the identical track in 1926, only a lot fewer people lived there than do now). In this stage the newbies start reading the fine print of the consequences document and declaring that the assumptions are wrong. One group of federales, when told the scale of the response required, responded that the scenario needed to be changed. Comments in this stage are along the lines of, "That can't be 1.8 million people, it most likely is 1.1 million." The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter if it is 1.8 or 1.1 million, that's still a lot of people. Some people wallowed in this stage for month, arguing over angels dancing on the head of the pin.
The third stage is resignation. Exhausted from fighting the assumptions, they stare at the numbers and shake their heads. They know that they have to write a plan but they are clueless. The common refrain at this stage is, "I have no idea how we're going to do this."
In the fourth stage they awaken from their lethargy and with a burst of energy focus on the small and extraneous. They are going to reach the big solution by developing a bunch of little ones. Or they want to bite off a small bit of the problem and solve that. An example of the kind of thinking that arises at this stage is, "Let's make sure every survivor has a toothbrush!" We can spend many an hour chasing our tail on that one!
Actual productive planning doesn't arrive until the fifth stage. "I've got a good idea!" The best work happens when we have a room full of people operating at the fifth stage. For the willing, moving through the five stages can take a matter of days. For the unwilling, the process can last months.
Unfortunately, we weren't always operating on all cylinders, with everyone working optimally at stage five. Frequently, we would have a room full of people operating in all five stages. It those situations we would get questions like:
"Did you think of...?"
"What about..."
"You really should try..."
We would sit there and nod our heads. Yes, we thought of that. Yes, we tried that. Yes, what you are saying is correct but it's not the solution - there is no silver bullet.
Yet, after two years we have gone where no emergency managers have gone before. We have written a plan. I know that we have a pretty good mass care feeding and sheltering plan. The first week of June the state of Florida will be holding a hurricane exercise to test this catastrophic plan. FEMA will be there in abundance. I believe that in my my area, feeding and sheltering, this will be the largest and most complex exercise ever conducted in the nation.
When I get the chance, I'll tell you how it turns out.
As a result of the lessons learned from Katrina FEMA began funding catastrophic planning with specified state and local jurisdictions. There was a hurricane plan for Hawaii, two earthquake plans for California (one North and one South), the New Madrid Earthquake plan for Missouri, Arkanasas, Tennessee and surrounding states and a hurricane plan for Florida. I think that this is the best money that FEMA has spent in the last two years.
The scenario for Florida is particularly horrific: a Category 5 hurricane that hits Broward County (Ft Lauderdale) head on, devastates much of Dade and Palm Beach counties, then crosses the state and exits Tampa Bay as a Category 2 storm. The consequences are much worse than anything we experienced in Katrina.
Working on this project has been the equivalent of studying for a graduate degree in emergency management. The project was organized into workgroups: debris, search & rescue, medical, animal issues, education, community stabilization, disaster housing, environmental protection, law enforcement, fuel, health & welfare, host communities, infrastructure, logistics, public information, volunteers & donations. I was made chairman of the mass care feeding and sheltering workgroup, along with my good friend from FEMA Region IV, John Daly.
Many of the problems that we addressed were interrelated with the other workgroups, requiring us to rapidly become familiar with the basics of each discipline. Many of the problems that we dealt with had never been encountered before in the United States, or if they had been encountered then on a much smaller scale.
Over the course of the two years we had to absorb new members to the workgroups. The learning curve for new members was steep. The consequences document, which explained the impact of this single storm on the state, was one hundred pages long. The complexity and scale of the problems required us to invent new ways of doing business in emergency management. It has been a very interesting and exciting ride.
As the new members join or are introduced to the project I have observed that they pass through five very well defined stages. The first stage is disbelief. The catastrophe is so big that they can't conceive of a solution. "We can't do this," they say.
In the second stage they challenge the assumptions. To generate a one hundred page consequence document for an imaginary hurricane, certain assumptions must be made (the hurricane was real, and passed along the identical track in 1926, only a lot fewer people lived there than do now). In this stage the newbies start reading the fine print of the consequences document and declaring that the assumptions are wrong. One group of federales, when told the scale of the response required, responded that the scenario needed to be changed. Comments in this stage are along the lines of, "That can't be 1.8 million people, it most likely is 1.1 million." The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter if it is 1.8 or 1.1 million, that's still a lot of people. Some people wallowed in this stage for month, arguing over angels dancing on the head of the pin.
The third stage is resignation. Exhausted from fighting the assumptions, they stare at the numbers and shake their heads. They know that they have to write a plan but they are clueless. The common refrain at this stage is, "I have no idea how we're going to do this."
In the fourth stage they awaken from their lethargy and with a burst of energy focus on the small and extraneous. They are going to reach the big solution by developing a bunch of little ones. Or they want to bite off a small bit of the problem and solve that. An example of the kind of thinking that arises at this stage is, "Let's make sure every survivor has a toothbrush!" We can spend many an hour chasing our tail on that one!
Actual productive planning doesn't arrive until the fifth stage. "I've got a good idea!" The best work happens when we have a room full of people operating at the fifth stage. For the willing, moving through the five stages can take a matter of days. For the unwilling, the process can last months.
Unfortunately, we weren't always operating on all cylinders, with everyone working optimally at stage five. Frequently, we would have a room full of people operating in all five stages. It those situations we would get questions like:
"Did you think of...?"
"What about..."
"You really should try..."
We would sit there and nod our heads. Yes, we thought of that. Yes, we tried that. Yes, what you are saying is correct but it's not the solution - there is no silver bullet.
Yet, after two years we have gone where no emergency managers have gone before. We have written a plan. I know that we have a pretty good mass care feeding and sheltering plan. The first week of June the state of Florida will be holding a hurricane exercise to test this catastrophic plan. FEMA will be there in abundance. I believe that in my my area, feeding and sheltering, this will be the largest and most complex exercise ever conducted in the nation.
When I get the chance, I'll tell you how it turns out.
Friday, April 10, 2009
2009 National Hurricane Conference
I spent this week at the 2009 National Hurricane Conference in Austin, Texas, a city that I have never visited before. For some reason there were a lot more Texans at this conference than at previous ones I have attended. This was a good development because Texas has the most recent experience in hurricanes, having weathered a major impact from Ike last year.
Our friends from Louisiana were also in attendance and shared their experiences from their encounter with hurricane Gustav. The consensus from the people I spoke to, federal, state and private sector, is that Louisiana's emergency management prowess is not there yet but that they are much improved. Of particular note was that they managed to evacuate New Orleans in advance of Gustav without major incident.
The two most frequent questions that I received at the conference were : 1) Are you going to Washington with Craig Fugate when he takes over as the new administrator at FEMA? and 2) Who will replace Craig at Florida? My answer to the first question was "No!" and my answer to the second question was "I have no idea."
And I don't. But I heard more rumors about the second question in two days at the conference that I had in a month while in Tallahassee. I will trust in the Governor to make the right choice.
The Femites that I spoke to from around the country are understandably curious and/or concerned about the arrival of a new boss of Craig Fugate's reputation. What I know about Craig from working with and listening to him for ten years is that he is not a micromanager, that FEMA is not a first responder, that the states and localities must do more and develop more capability, and that private citizens must be survivors and not victims after a disaster.
Craig's emphasis on not using the term victim but rather survivor is not some offshoot of political correctness. A victim is someone who is hit by a disaster and then waits for the government to come and save them. A survivor is someone who takes an active role in helping themselves and others. Emergency managers can't do it all. We need some help from the citizenry.
Our friends from Louisiana were also in attendance and shared their experiences from their encounter with hurricane Gustav. The consensus from the people I spoke to, federal, state and private sector, is that Louisiana's emergency management prowess is not there yet but that they are much improved. Of particular note was that they managed to evacuate New Orleans in advance of Gustav without major incident.
The two most frequent questions that I received at the conference were : 1) Are you going to Washington with Craig Fugate when he takes over as the new administrator at FEMA? and 2) Who will replace Craig at Florida? My answer to the first question was "No!" and my answer to the second question was "I have no idea."
And I don't. But I heard more rumors about the second question in two days at the conference that I had in a month while in Tallahassee. I will trust in the Governor to make the right choice.
The Femites that I spoke to from around the country are understandably curious and/or concerned about the arrival of a new boss of Craig Fugate's reputation. What I know about Craig from working with and listening to him for ten years is that he is not a micromanager, that FEMA is not a first responder, that the states and localities must do more and develop more capability, and that private citizens must be survivors and not victims after a disaster.
Craig's emphasis on not using the term victim but rather survivor is not some offshoot of political correctness. A victim is someone who is hit by a disaster and then waits for the government to come and save them. A survivor is someone who takes an active role in helping themselves and others. Emergency managers can't do it all. We need some help from the citizenry.
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