Measuring Preparedness – new report

Posted on June 30, 2012 by recoverydiva

Although this report focuses on FEMA’s homeland security grants, some of it may be of general interest. The new report (138 pp.) is titled Improving the National Preparedness System: Developing More Meaningful Grant Performance Measures. It was prepared by the National Academy for Public Administration, June 2012.

Overview
The U.S. Congress asked an expert panel of the NAPA to assist the FEMA Administrator in studying, developing, and implementing quantifiable performance measures to assess the effectiveness of homeland security preparedness grants. The Academy Panel focused the scope of this study on the State Homeland Security Grant Program (SHSGP) and Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), as these are the two largest of FEMA’s homeland security grant programs.

Key Findings

The Panel found that measuring the outcomes of these grants poses two challenges:
(1) the preparedness system’s greatest strength—conducting efforts in an integrated fashion that blends resources from multiple sources—is also its greatest weakness from a performance measurement standpoint; and (2) the federal government has not developed measurable standards for preparedness capabilities to guide the performance of the states and urban areas receiving these grants.

The Panel recommended a set of measures that collectively begin to address the effectiveness of the two grant programs.This measures have three parts:

Part 1: Effective and Targeted Grant Investments – These measures examine the elements that are needed to make sure that grant investments are targeted to priorities and effectively carried out.

Part 2: Context Measures – While not performance measures per se, these provide meaningful context to help understand and improve the execution of the grant programs.

Part 3: Collaboration Measures – This part discusses measures the Panel recommends that FEMA should assess preparedness collaborations to capture an important facet of grant performance.

In addition to the recommendations for performance measures, the Panel offers several recommendations to FEMA that will strengthen the performance of these grants. These include pairing quantitative with qualitative measures, starting the grant cycle earlier, communicating performance results more broadly, institutionalizing the nationwide plan review, and assessing how states and urban areas adapt to the decrease in number of federally funded UASIs and decline in funding.

To me the three types of measure seem predictable. The last paragraph mentions the all-important larger context considerations.

Colorado Wildfires – Lessons Known are Not Lessons Learned

Posted on June 29, 2012 by recoverydiva

From the Christian Science Monitor, June 29, an article titled have Colorado wildfire – Have We learned Any Lessons? – talks about past wildfires and known risks that have a bearing on the current wildfires.

Experts warn public policy must change in wake of wildfires (coloradoindependent.com)
Waldo Canyon’s Fiery Lessons (thedailybeast.com)

Ongoing Problems with FEMA’s Reservist Workforce

Posted on June 28, 2012 by recoverydiva

There have been at least 2 GAO reports in the past year, dealing with problems with the FEMA reservist workforce. The lastest report documenting the problems and issues comes from DHS’s Office of the Inspector General.

Here is the link to the full text ( 20 page) OIG report; June 2012.

Anticipating Seismic Hot Spots – new book

Posted on June 27, 2012 by recoverydiva

From the HSWire, June 27. Mega-quake hotspots around the world

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed hundreds of thousands and destroyed large sections of the capital, Port au Prince; the clock is ticking on many earthquake faults throughout the world, and a comprehensive new book points to places around the world that could face the fate of Port au Prince

“We are not yet to the point where we can predict earthquakes,” said Yeats, a professor emeritus in Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “What we can do is tell you where some of the most dangerous faults lie – and where those coincide with crowded cities, few building codes, and a lack of social services, you have a time bomb.

“The lesson there is that you never know which one is going to nail you,” Yeats said, “but it pays to be prepared.”

Infrastructure and Recovery- Sandia Labs Research

Posted on June 26, 2012 by recoverydiva

A recent posting on HSWire was titled: Disaster recovery- Finding the best ways to protect infrastructure, recover from disasters; 25 June 2012. I have to admit, I am not clear about what the Lab has to offer, but here is a short account and you can go directly to their website for more information.

Researchers at Sandia National Lab bring the quantitative methods they have developed to the analysis of disasters and how best to recover from them; the researchers look at interdependencies among systems and supply chains, the resilience of various systems, how infrastructure systems fail, cascading effects, and how results might differ if a series of disasters hits instead of just one; the Sandia researchers say they can better quantify the results of such resiliency studies by taking a mathematically rigorous approach to objective assessments

Disaster Risk Reduction – new journal

Posted on June 25, 2012 by recoverydiva

From Market Watch, some details about a new journal: Elsevier Launches New Journal: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

The direct line is here; for the time being access to the journal is free. Figuring out how to do the download is not as clear as it could be.

Once Again – Failure to Adequately Assess Risks Has Dire Consequences

Posted on June 24, 2012 by recoverydiva

Human Error Triggers Rise in Catastrophe Cost. Article in CFO.com, June 19. The economic losses from natural disasters and other extreme events have dramatically increased in each of the past three decades. But industry and governments still fail to protect against catastrophic risks.

Economic and insured losses against natural disasters, technological accidents, and terrorism have risen every decade since the 1980s, says Munich Re. The international insurer estimates that economic losses from natural catastrophes hit $1.6 trillion in the 2001 to 2011 period. The Japan earthquake of 2011 alone caused an economic loss of $210 billion (along with insured losses of $35 billion to $40 billion).

Why? The escalating costs of disaster are more about flaws in human behavior and risk management than bad luck, say two business-school professors in a recently released paper, “Managing Catastrophic Risk.” Howard C. Kunreuther of the Wharton School for Risk Management and Geoffrey M. Heal, a finance and economics professor at Columbia Business School, say the overarching reason for the high costs of catastrophe is that companies and individuals are “locating in harm’s way while not taking appropriate protective measures.” In particular, they are failing to guard against low-probability, high-consequence events.

A copy of the full paper ( 20 pp.) can be found here.

Major Cuts in Canadian EM Resources

Posted on June 22, 2012 by recoverydiva

From Canada.com, June 22: Stakeholders cry foul as feds cut funding for emergency preparedness

Looks like some serious butting cutting in Canada has gone way past the fat and into the quick. It is a sad day indeed when education and training are cut from the Canadian budget. I sure hope the EM folks get to come to the U.S. and compensate for that shortsighted action.

Among the cuts in the omnibus budget bill, the government quietly cancelled the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP) established in 1980 and ceased operations at the Canadian Emergency Management College which has offered training to emergency responders since 1954. The cuts were billed as a deficit reduction measure.

How is this for reasoning:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ press secretary Julie Carmichael further noted “the original objectives of this program — namely to enhance local emergency preparedness and response capacity — have been met.”

Unbelievable! No need for EM education and training to continue, since we did that. Might as well abolish public schools, if that line of thinking prevails!

FL Governor Wants to Rate County EM Agencies

Posted on June 22, 2012 by recoverydiva

The ranking plan has its pros and cons. See Florida emergency operations officials object to planned statewide ratings proposed by Gov. Scott. (Palm Beach Post, June 19.) According to the article:

After backing away from a controversial ranking of Florida’s elections’ supervisors, Gov. Rick Scott is now preparing to grade the state’s 67 county emergency management offices.

Many of the county officials, however, are balking at Scott’s latest and performance measure. They’re concerned about the timing of the exercise, coming in the midst of hurricane season and set to be released two weeks before the Aug. 14 primary election.

Recovery Diva

Long-Term Recovery from Disasters