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.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Monday, January 03, 2011
The Survivor Directed Response
The paradigm is shifting in emergency response and emergency managers must incorporate this shift in their plans and operational procedures. I call this change the Survivor Directed Response. In a speech last April I heard Craig Fugate, the FEMA Administrator, counsel us to stop treating the public as a liability and start relying on them as an asset. I think the public will go beyond the asset/liability category to actually directing the actions that we will take during the response.
How can this be? In previous disasters media reports have forced emergency managers to take actions they had not planned or anticipated. As an emergency manager, we know that we are in big trouble when our disaster is the lead story on all the cable networks. Our problems intensify when our disaster is not only the lead story on television, but occupies most of the airtime. The final confirmation of the catastrophic nature of our calamity is the report that Anderson Cooper or Katie Couric has arrived in the impact area to tell the nation and the world how well our response is progressing.
Anderson Cooper: Well, Sir, can you tell me how things have been going here at Ground Zero of the disaster?
Member of the Public: Things are going terribly. I don't know who's directing this response, but they should all be taken out and shot.
Anderson Cooper: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Things don't sound quite as good out here in the disaster area as they try to make it seem in the far off Capital City.
The power of social media means that the public doesn't need Anderson Cooper to help them voice their concerns. In the Snow-calypse of 2010 the Mayor of Newark was directing his Public Works response based on input from his Twitter feed. Essentially, the individuals in the jurisdiction most affected by the disaster were directing the response. Hopefully, His Honor wasn't issuing orders directly to snow plow drivers.
In catastrophic planning there is nothing with a greater potential for a survivor directed response than mass care, the provision of food and shelter. FEMA's new State Mass Care Coordinator's Course (coming soon to a venue near you) and the draft Mass Care and Emergency Assistance Capability Level Guidance begin to address this issue.
In 2007 and 2008 Florida incorporated elements of a survivor directed response into our catastrophic mass care plan, although I didn't call it that at the time. The whole state was involved in catastrophic planning under a FEMA sponsored project called Hurricane Ono. The scenario used to develop the plan was suitably horrible: a category 5 hurricane striking Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
Facing the grim realities of 6.5 million people packed at the end of a peninsula between a swamp and an ocean, we offered the survivors three choices for shelter. The first choice was to take a tent, cook stove, food and water and camp on the survivor's property with the reptiles and the insects. The second choice was to stay at the overcrowded, noisy, smelly public shelters in the impact area. The third choice was to board a waiting bus and travel to the land of air conditioning and flush toilets.
A lot of people, including Craig, who was the State Director at the time, fought me on providing resources for the third choice. The message of New Orleans was fresh in every one's mind, that if the people left, then they would never come back. My argument was that we couldn't feed and shelter that many people under those conditions. Some of them had to leave.
"You can't force them to leave," many shouted back at me.
"I'm not forcing anyone to do anything," I replied. "They're going to be demanding to leave."
Anderson Cooper will be right there, amplifying their demands. The survivors will be telling us on Facebook and Twitter that they are ready to go, and where to come to pick them up. I just hope that when the time comes, that we are listening.
Craig Fugate also advised us to "plan for what is hard." The hard part in all this is figuring out what the survivors will do before they even know it themselves. How many will take the tent and the cook stove? How many will stay in the shelter? How many will get on the bus?
I need to figure this out several days in advance because I need to know how many buses to order so that they will arrive when they are needed. When the people decide that they are ready to leave they will expect the buses to be there. After all, they are directing the response.
How can this be? In previous disasters media reports have forced emergency managers to take actions they had not planned or anticipated. As an emergency manager, we know that we are in big trouble when our disaster is the lead story on all the cable networks. Our problems intensify when our disaster is not only the lead story on television, but occupies most of the airtime. The final confirmation of the catastrophic nature of our calamity is the report that Anderson Cooper or Katie Couric has arrived in the impact area to tell the nation and the world how well our response is progressing.
Anderson Cooper: Well, Sir, can you tell me how things have been going here at Ground Zero of the disaster?
Member of the Public: Things are going terribly. I don't know who's directing this response, but they should all be taken out and shot.
Anderson Cooper: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Things don't sound quite as good out here in the disaster area as they try to make it seem in the far off Capital City.
The power of social media means that the public doesn't need Anderson Cooper to help them voice their concerns. In the Snow-calypse of 2010 the Mayor of Newark was directing his Public Works response based on input from his Twitter feed. Essentially, the individuals in the jurisdiction most affected by the disaster were directing the response. Hopefully, His Honor wasn't issuing orders directly to snow plow drivers.
In catastrophic planning there is nothing with a greater potential for a survivor directed response than mass care, the provision of food and shelter. FEMA's new State Mass Care Coordinator's Course (coming soon to a venue near you) and the draft Mass Care and Emergency Assistance Capability Level Guidance begin to address this issue.
In 2007 and 2008 Florida incorporated elements of a survivor directed response into our catastrophic mass care plan, although I didn't call it that at the time. The whole state was involved in catastrophic planning under a FEMA sponsored project called Hurricane Ono. The scenario used to develop the plan was suitably horrible: a category 5 hurricane striking Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
Facing the grim realities of 6.5 million people packed at the end of a peninsula between a swamp and an ocean, we offered the survivors three choices for shelter. The first choice was to take a tent, cook stove, food and water and camp on the survivor's property with the reptiles and the insects. The second choice was to stay at the overcrowded, noisy, smelly public shelters in the impact area. The third choice was to board a waiting bus and travel to the land of air conditioning and flush toilets.
A lot of people, including Craig, who was the State Director at the time, fought me on providing resources for the third choice. The message of New Orleans was fresh in every one's mind, that if the people left, then they would never come back. My argument was that we couldn't feed and shelter that many people under those conditions. Some of them had to leave.
"You can't force them to leave," many shouted back at me.
"I'm not forcing anyone to do anything," I replied. "They're going to be demanding to leave."
Anderson Cooper will be right there, amplifying their demands. The survivors will be telling us on Facebook and Twitter that they are ready to go, and where to come to pick them up. I just hope that when the time comes, that we are listening.
Craig Fugate also advised us to "plan for what is hard." The hard part in all this is figuring out what the survivors will do before they even know it themselves. How many will take the tent and the cook stove? How many will stay in the shelter? How many will get on the bus?
I need to figure this out several days in advance because I need to know how many buses to order so that they will arrive when they are needed. When the people decide that they are ready to leave they will expect the buses to be there. After all, they are directing the response.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
"Messages from Babylon" available from iBooks
In an effort to maintain my edge in the changing world of book publishing I arranged to have my war memoir "Messages from Babylon" converted to iBooks format and made available in Apple's bookstore. I have seen it on my iPad and it looks pretty good.
The big difference is that all the pictures are in color instead of black & white, and I added additional photographs from my vast archive of Iraq pictures. Another addition from the print edition is I added a list of acronyms at the front of the big to assist the poor reader in navigating the CPA, KBR, MSR thicket.
The print edition of Messages is still available online or I can sell you an autographed copy if you are really that interested. I didn't publish this book to make money, because I haven't, but I at least try to cover my costs.
I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Think of all the servicemen and women overseas during the holidays: some in harm's way. I've been there, and now I can't ever forget them.
The big difference is that all the pictures are in color instead of black & white, and I added additional photographs from my vast archive of Iraq pictures. Another addition from the print edition is I added a list of acronyms at the front of the big to assist the poor reader in navigating the CPA, KBR, MSR thicket.
The print edition of Messages is still available online or I can sell you an autographed copy if you are really that interested. I didn't publish this book to make money, because I haven't, but I at least try to cover my costs.
I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Think of all the servicemen and women overseas during the holidays: some in harm's way. I've been there, and now I can't ever forget them.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
A national mass care strategy
Last month FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate and American Red Cross President Gail McGovern signed a Memorandum of Agreement between the two organizations. The MOA provides a framework for the planning and conduct of feeding and sheltering of survivors in the event of a disaster.
In addition to the American Red Cross, Craig wisely invited representatives from other faith based and voluntary agencies involved in disasters to the signing ceremony. Craig charged them all to come up with a new national mass care strategy. Craig didn't consult with me about whether we needed a new national mass care strategy, but if he had, I would have said yes.
A strategy lays out a plan or method for achieving a specific goal or result. In my mind, I can think of no more important national mass care goal that being able to feed and shelter the survivors of a catastrophic event. I say this because I can think of a number of very plausible disasters (a number of which are in my home state of Florida) where the nation would have a difficult time feeding and sheltering the citizens impacted by the disaster.
The problem is not with the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention or any of the other faith based or voluntary agencies that get involved with mass care during a disaster. These organizations are supported by the donations of the American people and these donations are able to sustain a disaster feeding and sheltering capability that works in most disasters.
But what about those disasters where the national resources of the faith based and voluntary community are brought to bear on a single catastrophic disaster, and those resources aren't enough? What happens then?
The resources of the state and federal governments would have to augment the resources of the voluntary community. Unfortunately, because we don't have to do that very often, we aren't very good at it. Figuring out what is needed, ordering it, and then getting it to the right place at the right time is not easy. I had to do just that in 2004 during Hurricanes Charley, Francis, Ivan and Jeanne, and I can vouch for the difficulty of the task.
Even though no one had ever trained me how to coordinate mass care at the state level, I had four hurricanes in six weeks to figure out how to do it. I did a lot better on the fourth hurricane than I did on the first one.
A new national mass care strategy needs to focus on increasing mass care capability at the state level. To do this we must train state mass care coordinators to perform their role in a catastrophic event. This role involves performing an important series of steps should a big event strike their state: define the scale of the disaster, estimate the state mass care requirements for that size disaster, determine the mass care resources that the voluntary agencies are able to provide, and request the resources needed to meet any shortfalls from other states or the federal government.
Right now, few state mass care coordinators exist that can perform that role. FEMA is preparing a course to teach state mass care coordinators how to perform these tasks. The course will be completed by the end of this year and presented to select state mass care coordinators at the beginning of next year.
A new national mass care strategy must include as a goal the training of state mass care coordinators in all the FEMA Regions. Once they are trained, we need to plan and conduct exercises that allow these coordinators to practice their new skills in realistic situations.
If this is done, they won't have to learn their jobs on the fly in the midst of their first big disaster, like I did. Furthermore, they will be trained and ready to deploy to assist other states when an big event occurs. The state of Florida, for one, will sure be able to use them.
In addition to the American Red Cross, Craig wisely invited representatives from other faith based and voluntary agencies involved in disasters to the signing ceremony. Craig charged them all to come up with a new national mass care strategy. Craig didn't consult with me about whether we needed a new national mass care strategy, but if he had, I would have said yes.
A strategy lays out a plan or method for achieving a specific goal or result. In my mind, I can think of no more important national mass care goal that being able to feed and shelter the survivors of a catastrophic event. I say this because I can think of a number of very plausible disasters (a number of which are in my home state of Florida) where the nation would have a difficult time feeding and sheltering the citizens impacted by the disaster.
The problem is not with the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention or any of the other faith based or voluntary agencies that get involved with mass care during a disaster. These organizations are supported by the donations of the American people and these donations are able to sustain a disaster feeding and sheltering capability that works in most disasters.
But what about those disasters where the national resources of the faith based and voluntary community are brought to bear on a single catastrophic disaster, and those resources aren't enough? What happens then?
The resources of the state and federal governments would have to augment the resources of the voluntary community. Unfortunately, because we don't have to do that very often, we aren't very good at it. Figuring out what is needed, ordering it, and then getting it to the right place at the right time is not easy. I had to do just that in 2004 during Hurricanes Charley, Francis, Ivan and Jeanne, and I can vouch for the difficulty of the task.
Even though no one had ever trained me how to coordinate mass care at the state level, I had four hurricanes in six weeks to figure out how to do it. I did a lot better on the fourth hurricane than I did on the first one.
A new national mass care strategy needs to focus on increasing mass care capability at the state level. To do this we must train state mass care coordinators to perform their role in a catastrophic event. This role involves performing an important series of steps should a big event strike their state: define the scale of the disaster, estimate the state mass care requirements for that size disaster, determine the mass care resources that the voluntary agencies are able to provide, and request the resources needed to meet any shortfalls from other states or the federal government.
Right now, few state mass care coordinators exist that can perform that role. FEMA is preparing a course to teach state mass care coordinators how to perform these tasks. The course will be completed by the end of this year and presented to select state mass care coordinators at the beginning of next year.
A new national mass care strategy must include as a goal the training of state mass care coordinators in all the FEMA Regions. Once they are trained, we need to plan and conduct exercises that allow these coordinators to practice their new skills in realistic situations.
If this is done, they won't have to learn their jobs on the fly in the midst of their first big disaster, like I did. Furthermore, they will be trained and ready to deploy to assist other states when an big event occurs. The state of Florida, for one, will sure be able to use them.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Comparing "The Hurt Locker" to "The Green Zone"
I finally saw the movie "The Green Zone" (TGZ) on DVD a few weeks ago and could not help but compare and contrast the film with "The Hurt Locker," (THL) which I watched in the theater when it was released last year. I don't write many movie reviews, but the "The Hurt Locker" had such an effect on me that I wrote a review, which you can read here.
THL was nominated for nine Oscars and won six, including Best Picture and Best Director. The movie was well done and well acted but, as I stated in my review, was not an accurate representation of what it was like to be in Iraq. I'm not just talking about minor details. There were major errors in the representation of the soldiers and the war and this ruined the movie for me.
TGZ didn't get any Oscars and didn't make enough money to cover the expensive production costs of recreating the Iraq war in 2003. Yet, that expensive recreation made the movie for me. If you want to know what it looked like, down to the most minor detail, in the Green Zone during the first year of the war, then you should watch this movie.
The Green Zone was a collection of Saddam's palatial buildings along the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad. Inside these buildings were the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Combined, Joint Task Force 7, the political and military nerve centers of the Coalition's efforts in Iraq. The perimeter of the Green Zone was fortified with blast walls, barbed wire, sandbags, Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting vehicles and sweating, irritable and nervous American soldiers.
The rest of Baghdad (and Iraq, for that matter) was the Red Zone, known in previous wars by such names as Indian Country and No Man's Land. Personally, I breathed a sigh of relief whenever I passed the checkpoint and entered this oasis in a surrounding desert of violence. Below is a picture of me, Bede Strong and a CPA employee who's name I don't recall in the Green Zone in front of a giant bust of Saddam Hussein. This bust was one of several that were removed from atop the central Palace in the Green Zone. This picture was taken December 7, 2003 (my daughter Lindsey's birthday).
Paul Greengrass, the Director of TGZ, also directed two of the Bourne movies, as well as "Flight 93." As a fan of all those movies, and of Matt Damon, who played a Chief Warrant Officer in TGZ, I was expecting a thrilling action-adventure flick. I wasn't disappointed. Reviewers said that all the wonderful things (acting, script, cast, direction) that go into making a good movie weren't as good in TGZ as in THL.
But the Green Zone carried me back to Iraq. The Hurt Locker didn't.
THL was nominated for nine Oscars and won six, including Best Picture and Best Director. The movie was well done and well acted but, as I stated in my review, was not an accurate representation of what it was like to be in Iraq. I'm not just talking about minor details. There were major errors in the representation of the soldiers and the war and this ruined the movie for me.
TGZ didn't get any Oscars and didn't make enough money to cover the expensive production costs of recreating the Iraq war in 2003. Yet, that expensive recreation made the movie for me. If you want to know what it looked like, down to the most minor detail, in the Green Zone during the first year of the war, then you should watch this movie.
The Green Zone was a collection of Saddam's palatial buildings along the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad. Inside these buildings were the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Combined, Joint Task Force 7, the political and military nerve centers of the Coalition's efforts in Iraq. The perimeter of the Green Zone was fortified with blast walls, barbed wire, sandbags, Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting vehicles and sweating, irritable and nervous American soldiers.
The rest of Baghdad (and Iraq, for that matter) was the Red Zone, known in previous wars by such names as Indian Country and No Man's Land. Personally, I breathed a sigh of relief whenever I passed the checkpoint and entered this oasis in a surrounding desert of violence. Below is a picture of me, Bede Strong and a CPA employee who's name I don't recall in the Green Zone in front of a giant bust of Saddam Hussein. This bust was one of several that were removed from atop the central Palace in the Green Zone. This picture was taken December 7, 2003 (my daughter Lindsey's birthday).
Paul Greengrass, the Director of TGZ, also directed two of the Bourne movies, as well as "Flight 93." As a fan of all those movies, and of Matt Damon, who played a Chief Warrant Officer in TGZ, I was expecting a thrilling action-adventure flick. I wasn't disappointed. Reviewers said that all the wonderful things (acting, script, cast, direction) that go into making a good movie weren't as good in TGZ as in THL.
But the Green Zone carried me back to Iraq. The Hurt Locker didn't.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Situation Report for Mississippi for 9/12/05
Florida Area Command
Stennis Space Center, Ms.
Human Services Report #9
1900 9/12/05
Current Situation
The Human Services Branch inspected every shelter in the affected area to insure that every victim was sleeping on a cot, had a blanket and was receiving hot meals. The inspection identified 18 shelters with 1,801 persons. In the upcoming days, shelters will close and consolidate as the counties move to free up school buildings and get the children back into classrooms.
An eyeball inspection of Harrison and Hancock counties in the last two days reveals an abundant supply of water and ready to eat meals. The Counties are asking for additional MRE’s but are being urged to redistribute within the county. The ARC and TSA are being instructed to distribute the MRE’s in their warehouses using their mobile feeding operations.
The Salvation Army has 6 kitchens and 40 canteens in the coastal counties. Reports from the field are that they have been performing well. TSA fed over 26,000 meals on the 11th.
The ARC needs to improve the ability to supply the shelters and kitchens in the area. This is not from a lack of will or effort. More effective and trained leadership on the ground is needed to channel the tremendous efforts of the volunteers. We are providing to the ARC our kitchen and shelter support assessments so that they can take appropriate actions.
Mark Rohr, a Fairfax County, Va. Battalion Fire Chief has arrived to assume the Human Services Branch Chief duties. The transition and handover is under way and should be completed by noon on Sep 14.
Unmet needs
None.
Future Operations
• Continue assistance to small community of Pearlington in Hancock.
• Work with ARC to assist in achieving better support to kitchens and shelters.
• Deploy USDA commodities to kitchens as they arrive.
• Prepare to end response and transition to Recovery.
• Prepare for and implement demobilization of Florida human resources by Friday, September 16.
Stennis Space Center, Ms.
Human Services Report #9
1900 9/12/05
Current Situation
The Human Services Branch inspected every shelter in the affected area to insure that every victim was sleeping on a cot, had a blanket and was receiving hot meals. The inspection identified 18 shelters with 1,801 persons. In the upcoming days, shelters will close and consolidate as the counties move to free up school buildings and get the children back into classrooms.
An eyeball inspection of Harrison and Hancock counties in the last two days reveals an abundant supply of water and ready to eat meals. The Counties are asking for additional MRE’s but are being urged to redistribute within the county. The ARC and TSA are being instructed to distribute the MRE’s in their warehouses using their mobile feeding operations.
The Salvation Army has 6 kitchens and 40 canteens in the coastal counties. Reports from the field are that they have been performing well. TSA fed over 26,000 meals on the 11th.
The ARC needs to improve the ability to supply the shelters and kitchens in the area. This is not from a lack of will or effort. More effective and trained leadership on the ground is needed to channel the tremendous efforts of the volunteers. We are providing to the ARC our kitchen and shelter support assessments so that they can take appropriate actions.
Mark Rohr, a Fairfax County, Va. Battalion Fire Chief has arrived to assume the Human Services Branch Chief duties. The transition and handover is under way and should be completed by noon on Sep 14.
Unmet needs
None.
Future Operations
• Continue assistance to small community of Pearlington in Hancock.
• Work with ARC to assist in achieving better support to kitchens and shelters.
• Deploy USDA commodities to kitchens as they arrive.
• Prepare to end response and transition to Recovery.
• Prepare for and implement demobilization of Florida human resources by Friday, September 16.
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