Again a bit off topic, but I was impressed by this personal effort to help the world deal with its problems. In reading the news of the day I came across a reference to the Nicholas Berggruen Institute – founded by the billionaire who thinks the heart of our current international crises is poor governance.
I am not equipped to speak to the global situation, but emergency management and homeland security in the U.S. would surely benefit from improved governance.
For those of you who share my interest in the history of disasters and emergency management in the U.S., I recommend this new journal article: US Presidents and Their Role in Emergency Management and Disaster Policy, 1950-2009, by Naim Kapucu, et al.
This 34 page article is available as a free download, once you login.
NOTE: As you will see from the comment made today by Bill Cumming, the authors did not get all of their dates and facts correct. Generally I defer to Bill on such matters.
Also, I am working on a second edition of the text Emergency Management; the American Experience, 1900-2010, due out in 2012. That book will contain carefully fact-checked details on the history of emergency management for the past 110 years.
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Who Is in Charge of What During Major Catastrophes Still Unanswered . National Defense Magazine, November 2011.
When a natural or manmade disaster strikes the United States, which federal agency is in charge of the response? The answer is all of them and none of them, former Commandant of the Coast Guard retired Adm. Thad Allen suggested recently.
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5, released in 2003, said that the Department of Homeland Security secretary takes command of a non-defense related catastrophe. A presidential policy directive released in April this year reiterated this.
“Tell that to [Health and Human Services] in a pandemic,” Allen said at the National Defense Industrial Association homeland security conference. Since his retirement in 2010, Allen has emerged as a leading voice in the disaster response community.
This posting is a bit off topic today, but I thought it was worth sharing. In the current issue of Emergency Management Magazine, see the article titled: Breaking the cycle of preparing for the last disaster. Interview with GAO’s Willian Jenkins. Oct. 10.
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Lawmakers Urge Change in Disaster Law; Shreveport times, Oct. 7.
It does appear that some lessons were learned post-Katrina and a new piece of pending Congressional legislation identifies them and would like to institutionalize them. Some excerpts from the article:
Two Gulf Coast senators say the federal government’s system for helping communities recover from disasters is rife with failures and missed opportunities and badly needs cost-saving reforms. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi introduced a bill recently that would change how the government provides some aid to state and local governments, victims and nonprofit groups after a disaster.
The legislation would amend current law to better track how disaster aid is used, streamline regulations and eliminate incentives to use expensive contractors over local government workers. It also aims to improve contract oversight and the application process for disaster aid.
It also would create a new “catastrophic” category for the most severe disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, and would also press local governments to set up pre-disasterplans and adopt and enforce statewide building codes.
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In the current issue of Emergency Management Magazine, Oct. 3, 2011, there is an article titled How Emergency Management Is Changing, for the Better. The author interviewed a number of prominent women emergency managers and traces the history of their involvement. Note the Diva got interviewed for this article too, though she is mainly a researcher.
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The Sunday NY Times (Oct. 2) has an article about the slow, incompetent recovery in TX from Hurricane Ike – -which occurred 3 years ago!
Titled Extending the Miseries from the Storm, the article focuses on the slow process of providing housing aid, stemming in large measure from delays rather than assistance provided by state agencies. Some details from the article:
Delays are inevitable whenever a natural disaster causes widespread damage to homes and businesses. But housing advocates and local officials said a series of missteps by state leaders created an extraordinary backup in getting projects financed and approved, stalling work on thousands of homes.
State officials repeatedly changed the rules and guidelines that cities and counties had to follow after the local agencies had already processed applications, forcing residents to redo their applications and the cities and counties to reprocess them.
The state’s attempt to develop a new formula for allocating the second round of money to local jurisdictions caused a delay of months. The formula would have distributed money based on weather conditions instead of actual damage, was criticized by housing advocates as steering money away from minority areas and was ultimately rejected by federal housing officials.
In addition, those federal officials expressed concerns about the two state agencies that had overseen the program — the Department of Housing and Community Affairs and the Department of Rural Affairs. In a June report, federal officials found that the state housing agency had not developed written procedures for processing the applications it received from local jurisdictions. The report also found that the rural affairs agency had spent more money on administrative expenses than on actual work projects, spending 98 percent of its administrative money from the first round — $12.3 million — but only 17 percent of the money designated for projects.
“It’s taken us all an inordinate amount of time to get where we are, but we are now building houses and repairing houses,” said David Turkel, the director of the Harris County Community Services Department, which has completed 76 of 395 houses. “Had our department been dealing directly with HUD like we do on millions and millions of dollars every year, and not had to go through this state housing agency up in Austin, we would have been finished and have had all the homes repaired and built two years ago.”
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In an opinion piece in a NZ paper, the authors suggests that it is not possible to rebuild the Central Business District in Christchurch, NZ. The issues he raises should be pertinent to other communities facing rebuilding decisions.
CBD can’t be rebuilt – Bob Jones. Some of the essential information is as follows:
Prior to the earthquakes, Christchurch’s CBD retail heart was already in trouble, with empty shops abounding, while those remaining lived off the office workers, now gone. This was a direct consequence of the construction of large suburban shopping centres, which killed off the CBD as a retail location, just as has occurred in many other cities throughout the Western World. Examples in New Zealand include Lower Hutt and now, increasingly, Hamilton.
It would be possible to build a new, smaller Christchurch CBD with high-rise office buildings to support a smaller retail base, if the office buildings were confined to a tight area. But while that is physically possible, it is absolutely not financially feasible for several reasons.
Community Economic Recovery Guidebook: Safeguarding your Economy from Disaster. A 20 page handbook, recently issued by the State of Wisconsin. Sept. 25.
A useful addition to the thin collection of recovery guidance available. It is written in a clear style and offers many practical suggestions.
Thanks Wisconsin!
Big News: FEMA just issued the final version of the National Disaster Recovery Framework. It is not easy to find on their website, but here is the direct link. Note that the document is 116 pages long.
I have not yet had time to read it carefully, but I am sharing it right away. Hopefully this document will fill a void.
I invite your comments. But send questions, praise, or criticisms to FEMA!
Recovery Diva 