The Arkansas pipeline failure incident

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Given the current debate about the really big Keystone pipeline project, this latest incident is causing serious harm in a small community; and the event raises many issues that need to be faced about pipeline safety and the management of spills and accidents. See this news account.

More details will be coming from one of our readers.

What makes this incident unusual is that pipelines are the responsibility of the Dept. of Transportation. So the responsibility for managing this disaster event is with DOT.  Most of the disasters experienced recently in the U.S., and talked about in this blog,  have received disaster declarations and are the responsibility of FEMA. The major exception was the Deep Water Horizon disaster, which was a hazardous material disaster, hence was managed under the National Contingency Plan by the Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA.

News Clips re Hurricane Sandy Aftermath

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The new flood maps, if approved, would add more than 65,000 structures in New York and New Jersey to the 100-year-flood zones—areas that FEMA believes face a 1 percent-a-year change of flooding. Everyone in those zones is required to get flood insurance….

The solution we support would result in a better and more proactive approach and leverage a stronger public-private partnership. This approach would strengthen America’s financial infrastructure by building a privately funded national catastrophe fund.A national catastrophe fund that is part of a comprehensive, integrated program will help address insurance affordability and expand coverage options for all home­own­ers while protecting taxpayers from the seemingly endless need to provide emergency relief.

Please Tell Us What You Like

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The Diva has been contemplating some changes in this blog and she needs your input.  Among the considerations are one or more new blogs linked to this one. That expansion would allow for coverage of more topics and a broader array of emergency management content.

Thanks in advance for your help with this.

“H. Sandy Recovery Improvement Act”- a new analysis by CRS

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I like this report because it fills two major information gaps:

Legislative Analysis:  The  new CRS report ( 31 pp.) is available here: CRS on Sandy

HUD’s Role Post Disaster:  If you share my interest in HUD’s new role in response and recovery, the CRS document provides some helpful background information.

For some details on HUD’s performance after H. Katrina, and some recommendations for its greater involvement in disaster response and recovery,  see this 2009 Senate report: Far From Home: Deficiencies in Federal Housing Assistance After Hurricane Katrina and Rita and Recommendations for Improvement. Special report of the Senate Ad Hoc Subcommitee on Disaster Recovery;Feb. 2009 (290 pages).

Leadership During Recovery- a Kiwi perspective

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The Diva just learned about an interesting paper, written by Ms Elizabeth McNaughton of NZ, with the title Leadership, Wisdom and the Post-Disaster Recovery Process.  This link will take you to the full text of her report (40 pp.) and some biographical information.

She clearly has walked the walk and talked the talk of long-term recovery. Plus she is an excellent writer. I highly recommend this paper.

Those folks down under have quite a unique sense of humor. Here is a sample:

“So leaders in recovery – when your tutu falls off you need to be sure your frilly knickers are enough. We need to plan for times when we are not at our peak, because no one can be at peak performance all the time. So, what are your plan B’s? How prepared are your understudies? And what are your resilience building strategies? Can you access the wisdom; yours and that of others?”

______________________________________________________

McNaughton was the National Recovery Manager at New Zealand Red Cross after the Christchurch Earthquake of 2011,and since then has traveled internationally to research recovery experiences in other countries.

Differentiating the Response to H. Sandy from H. Katrina

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This week I have seen 3 sets of remarks from federal officials that try to make it clear that the response to H. Sandy did not repeat the problems from H.Sandy.

Senate Committee on Homeland Security, March 20. Hurricane Sandy: Getting the Recovery Right and the Value of Mitigation. See testimony by: (1) Sec. Donovan, HUD, and (2) Craig Fugate, FEMA

Also see (3) Sandy Shows How FEMA Has Changed, by Michael Byrne. Federal Coordinating Officer for New York.

Classic FEMA Documents Available from FAS

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Thanks to the efforts of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) and to Bill Cumming, a nice collection of about 60 classic documents related to FEMA is stored on the FAS website. The direct URL is here.

A note about a recent addition to that list, at the bottom.  Bill Cumming asked the FAS to add the report titled Coping With Catastrophe; Building an Emergency Management System to Meet People’s Needs in Natural and Manmade Disasters, done by research team assembled by the National Academy of Public Administration in 1992-3. He and I recently reviewed and discussed this 20 year old report, which probably remains the only major assessment done of FEMA during its 25 years of existence as an independent agency. The report is a good example of the value of engaging professional public administrators when dealing with a “wicked” problem, as recommended in the previous posting on this blog.  It’s insights and recommendations were used for many years and some are still current.

Why Is Recovery So Hard To Do? – some observations and suggestions

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Time after time, my blog postings document (and lament) the difficulties that various countries, states (prefectures, provinces), and localities are having working through an effective and efficient recovery. You name the country and the recent disaster event, and it will be on the list of places struggling with recovery.

First a brief account of why we need to do a better job with recovery, soon and worldwide. In short, the costs are too high to go unchecked.  It’s a global necessity that we need get better at recovering from disasters. See this article from HS Wired, March 15: 2012 economic losses from disasters set new record at $138 billion.  The lead paragraph says:

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) reported that for the first time in history, the world has experienced three consecutive years in which annual economic losses have exceeded $100 billion. The losses are the result of an enormous increase in exposure of industrial assets and private property to extreme disaster events. brief account of why we need to do a better job with recovery:

In reviewing some of the recent examples of recovery from major disasters in 3 countries, as covered in this blog, some common concerns can be seen. After reading the Bosner article about Japan, and Ian McLean’s article about Christchurch, and some of my recent posts about the Hurricane Sandy (US), I the nations currently dealing with recovery from major to catastrophic events have several features in common.  I will note just two, because this is a topic that warrants a dissertation or two and not just a blog posting.

Pace: In the first two years of effort, generally recovery is proceeding more slowly than anyone imagined or hoped for.  Typically, neither public officials or citizens are satisfied Some of the problems are lack of knowledge and experience, some are public policy and management  deficiencies, and others have to do with political will.

Organizations– in all cases the organizations in place were not adequate, so new ones had to be created after the disaster occurred.

·       In Japan, they created a national Reconstruction Agency. See earlier postings on this blog for more details.

·       In the Christchurch area, they created a new regional organization – CERA.  Here is the link to the Recovery Strategy developed by CERA.

·      And in the U.S., HUD assumed responsibility at the federal level for recovery and created the Hurricane Sandy Recovery Task Force. The organization, functions, and responsibilities are still being sorted out at the present time.

My concern is that organizational problems, many of which could be anticipated, are preventing effective leadership during  the recovery period.  I think more help is needed from the public administration community on recovery organization and management matters. And I would like to see the executive agencies better utilize the existing talent – researchers, consultants, and practitioners. Several excellent mechanisms exist, such as the National Academy of Public Administration and the National Academy of Science. Think about using them!

And I would like to see more groups like the American Society for Public Administration, NEMA, and IAEM get more pro active and make recommendations to the executive agencies.

Presently,  the spotlight is on the new role of HUD and specifically on the new organization –  the Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. In my view, until the needs of the recovery process are dealt with. making progress with “resilience” is not realistic.

As always, comments and additions are welcome.

 

Japan’s Response to Disaster – One Former FEMA Staffer’s Perspective

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It is not often that a FEMA person can be this candid about a country’s response capabilities; in fact, about the only way to do it is to be retired!  Long-time employee and long-time critic of FEMA, Leo Bosner, wrote this account recently: Can Japan Respond Better to its Next Large Disaster? [Published in japanfocus.org; no date.] In this 10 page article, he lists 10 problem areas and also offers some suggestions to the Japanese government. From his introduction:

Having worked for the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for nearly thirty years, the subject of my fellowship was Japan’s response to a large-scale disaster, and whether it could be improved. Under it, I interviewed individuals who were involved in or were familiar with the response to the March 11, 2011 earthquake/tsunami disaster in eastern Japan and lectured on local-level disaster response planning. * * * I focused on the overall response to the earthquake/ tsunami.

First and foremost, it was clear to me that the Government of Japan simply does not have a comprehensive, realistic plan for responding to large disasters. Rather, the Japan Government’s disaster response plan seems to consist of numerous government agency plans that are unrelated to each other. In many cases these plans failed to address or even acknowledge problems that were occurring in the field. In part, this is because the government lacks trained, experienced disaster response professionals. As a result, the government’s response to the March 11 disaster was poorly managed and coordinated, and many people suffered needlessly. * * *

Note that Bosner also has some harsh words for his former employer and comments on the state of FEMA at the time of Hurricane Katrina. See Bosner’s reply in the Comments section.