NDIA/USMC 2006 War Game Humanitarian Relief / Disaster Assistance

Read-Aheads

1. IntroductionThis read-ahead on Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Assistance is taken from the recent Emerald Express seminar and the Homeland Defense section of the Joint Urban Warrior Wargame. The results of these Wargames / Seminars will be briefed and reviewed at the NDIA 2006 Wargame.

2. Key Terms

Catastrophic Incident: “Any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. All catastrophic events are Incidents of National Significance.”1

Civil-Support: “Defense support of civil authorities, often referred to as civil support, is DoD support, including federal military forces, the Department’s career civilian and contractor personnel, and DoD agency and component assets, for domestic emergencies and for designated law enforcement and other activities. The Department of Defense provides defense support of civil authorities when directed to do so by the President or Secretary of Defense.”2

Emergency: “any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States.”3

Homeland Defense: “...is the protection of US sovereignty, territory, domestic population, and critical defense infrastructure against external threats and aggression, or other threats as directed by the President. The Department of Defense is responsible for homeland defense.”4

Homeland Security: “Homeland Security is a concerted national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur.”5

Incident: “An occurrence or event, natural or human-caused, that requires an emergency response to protect life or property. Incidents can, for example, include major disasters, emergencies, terrorist attacks, terrorist threats, wildland and urban fires, floods, hazardous materials spills, nuclear accidents, aircraft accidents, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes,

1 National Response Plan, December 2004, 63. 2 Department of Defense, Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, June 2005, 5. 3 The Stafford Act as quoted in the National Response Plan 4 Department of Defense, Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, June 2005, 5.5 Office of Homeland Security, National Strategy for Homeland Security

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tropical storms, war-related disasters, public health and medical emergencies, and other occurrences requiring an emergency response.”6

Incident Command System (ICS): “A standardized on-scene emergency management construct specifically designed to provide for the adoption of an integrated organizational structure that reflects the complexity and demands of single or multiple incidents, without being hindered by jurisdictional boundaries. ICS is the combination of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating with a common organizational structure, designed to aid in the management of resources during incidents. ICS is used for all kinds of emergencies and is applicable to small as well as large and complex incidents. ICS is used by various jurisdictions and functional agencies, both public and private, or organized field-level incident management operations.” 7

Incident of National Significance: based upon one or more of the following criteria:(1) a federal department or agency acting under its own authority has requested the

assistance of the Secretary of Homeland Security(2) the resources of state and local authorities are overwhelmed and federal assistance

has been requested by the appropriate state and local authorities(3) more than one federal department or agency has become substantially involved in

responding to an incident(4) the Secretary of Homeland Security has been directed to assume responsibility for

managing a domestic incident by the President.8

Major Disaster: “any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought) or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the United States, which the President determines causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under the Stafford Act to supplement the efforts and available resources of states, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating damage, loss, hardship, or suffering.”9

National Incident Management System (NIMS): A system mandated by HSPD-5 that provides a consistent, nationwide approach for Federal, State, local, and tribal governments; the private sector; and NGOs to work effectively and efficiently together to prepare for, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity. To provide for interoperability and compatibility among Federal, State, local, and tribal capabilities, the NIMS includes a core set of concepts, principles, and terminology. HSPD-5 identifies these as the ICS; multi-agency coordination systems; training; identification and management of resources (including systems for classifying types of resources); qualification and certification; and the collection, tracking, and reporting of incident information and incident resources.”10

Unified Command: An application of ICS used when there is more than one agency with incident jurisdiction or when incidents cross political jurisdictions. Agencies work together

6 National Response Plan, December 2004, 667 National Response Plan, December 2004, 66-678 HSPD-5 as cited in the National Response Plan9 The Stafford Act as cited in the National Response Plan10 National Response Plan, December 2004, 69-70

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through the designated members of the Unified Command to establish their designated Incident Commanders at a single ICP and to establish a common set of objectives and strategies and a single Incident Action Plan.

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3. Emerald Express 06-1 Take-Aways

What follows below are excerpts of notes taken from the Emerald Express 06-1 Workshop, held on 14-15 February by the US Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and US Joint Forces Command. That event focused on Hurricane Katrina disaster response and recovery operations as well as recent humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) operations outside the continental United States.

These excerpts, grouped thematically, are not intended to provide a comprehensive summary of the event, but rather to highlight some facts, observations, and discussion points relevant to the JUW HLS/HLD Seminar. They are not necessarily representative of the views of the JUW sponsors. For additional information on Emerald Express 06-1, please refer to the US Marine Corps Warfighting Lab website at: http://www.wargaming.quantico.usmc.mil/.

Command & Control / Incident Management

The Incident Command System evolved from efforts of fire departments across the country to coordinate their operations across small, medium, and large scales of disasters. The Incident Command System is what the National Incident Management System (NIMS) is built around and is now the mandated domestic-incident-response system for both DHS and the DoD. NIMS also includes the Multi-Agency Coordination System (MACS) and the Public Information System.

The first principle of Incident Command is that there is only ever one incident commander on the ground and operations are always conducted at the lowest tactical level. “Area Command” is a coordinating function, supporting multiple command posts with differing operations, resources and priorities. It does not have an operations center. “Unified Command” is a new addition and substitutes a committee or a coalition for the single Incident Commander.

In HA/DR operations, while there are a lot of commanders out front doing stuff, there needs to be an effort to keep the staffs informed so they can backstop commanders with plans.

In Hurricane Katrina, the military was new to this type of mission. Task organization was unclear and very changeable. Commanders did not utilize staff or keep their subordinates sufficiently informed. Moreover, there were too many Joint Task Force (JTF) headquarters and poor integration with FEMA.

The “keep-it-simple, stupid” rule should be maintained for ground organization and efforts. Web-based communications, centralized information management, and cell phones are a must. Public affairs, information operations, and staff judge advocates (i.e., military lawyers) are critical enablers. There is also a need for centralized logistics and request for assistance (RFA) processes.

The Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is the right size with the right capability balance for HA/DR operations. If the Marine Corps is to be tasked similarly in the future, it

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needs a designated General Officer with a small staff as well as continuous assessment capabilities and permanently-assigned liaison teams. [Note: The need for better assessment training and some standardization of reporting is a continuing theme, as is the need for a coordination center that can fuse assessments into a coherent picture of requirements and capabilities.]

Logistics/“Push-Pull”

The current process for getting DoD assets deployed for national consequence management is very long, taking 21 steps. The multiple different methods of requesting National Guard support also contributed to problems during Katrina.

Planners need to think ahead about enablers for distribution. Simply pushing assets to pre-staged areas is not enough. It is really only about 40% of the solution.

In the tsunami relief operation, US forces never got a proper “needs” assessment. We “pushed” everything. We would ask “what do you need” and the answer was always “give us everything you got.” Initial operations required “push” and it was very effective in the early stages. Was it inefficient? Yes? Was there a backlog? Yes. But it was necessary. USAID developed the first “pull” requirement on the 26th of January, after a full month of “push”.

The military was deployed to the Katrina region with a “general purpose toolbox” which caused some consternation, but was hard to avoid due to the initial lack of a defined mission. Not all units remained in their area of operations; if they had unique capabilities, they could be used elsewhere. Requirements never come perfect, you have got to dig around for what is really needed. It is also important to distinguish between the push/pull flow for logistics (which provides additional supplies) and the push/pull flow for units (which creates additional demands).

Medical Response

Most medical infrastructure is local and appropriate for the environment on a day-to-day basis. Military support should only provide what the disaster took away [in the context of foreign HA/DR operations]. The assessment of what the disaster destroyed of the local infrastructure should drive the medical operation, not an idealized view of what would be nice for the community to have. The precision in matching what a situation needs with the resources provided is vital to fulfilling this mission.

Epidemics do not occur spontaneously. Dead bodies do not generate outbreaks merely because they are dead, it is the living bodies that capture and generate disease. The key to preventing disease is improving (or reconstructing) sanitation and public health education.

Disasters are not equal opportunity killers. They always strike vulnerable groups the hardest. These are the poor, the old, the disabled, women & children, etc...

The importance of “pull” to the appropriate matching of medical response and aid to local needs is a theme that recurs after every major US humanitarian intervention. By bringing

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in state-of-the-art equipment that can’t be replicated under normal local conditions after US military personnel depart, we stand the chance of undermining local authorities. This much less true for domestic disasters, but the point remains that introducing “foreign” medical capabilities into an area can have secondary effects well beyond medical response.

Public Affairs/“Words Matter”

Public Affairs is not so much a question of achieving measurable positive effects, but avoiding inevitable and powerful negative effects resulting from a communications vacuum and those who will take advantage of it.

Always be aware that the media’s job is to get the information and news first, not to be the most accurate.

An effective communications strategy was missing in the national response to Katrina. The public should have been viewed as a partner in any information campaign. Problems included: the lack of a Joint Information Center, the emergency alert system was not used, no credible public spokesperson was appointed at the national level, and after landfall, state and federal officials did not have any on-the-ground sources for information on the extent of the catastrophe, and thus, the media was allowed to set the tone.

In some instances, notably the Pakistan earthquake and the tsunami relief operations, the deliberate de-militarization of some organizational terms helped to emphasize the humanitarian nature of the effort. For example, for the tsunami the Joint Task Force was renamed the “Combined Support Force” and the Civil-Military Operation Center (CMOC) the Combined Coordination Center.

Civil-Military Coordination

The CMOC/coordination center function, while sometimes inefficient, is an absolutely necessary component of HA/DR operations.

For HA/DR operations, there is a need to have liaison officers (LNOs) at local Emergency Operations Centers, which are often chaotic and disorganized. LNOs can help bring discipline and planning guidance, while leaving the locals in charge.

According to the Stafford Act, Title 10 personnel can operate on private/public land when doing emergency work essential to preserve life and property.

In the Katrina aftermath, pairing National Guard and Title 10 units was an overall force multiplier. It might also be a way of tackling “grey missions” where Title 10 authorities and legality is dubious. The same goes for pairing them with local officials. However, there are often unexpected difficulties, both organizational and technical. For example, the National Guard used commercial internets and could not access .mil sites to gain information.

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In the view of one Emerald Express presenter, the US Coast Guard might be ideally situated to act at the intersection of military and civilian response, avoiding Posse Comitatus issues.

Civil Affairs Groups were critical units in the Marine Corps’ Katrina response. More are needed, and not all should necessarily be located in the reserves. The demand is such that artillery regiments are being trained for this currently.

Multiple Emerald Express attendees commented that the Marine Corps should put together a handbook for domestic HA/DR, and that it should specifically address interagency cooperation.

The essential criteria for transitioning from military to civilian leadership of relief operations are hard to pin down. It is more an art than a science and there are no easy metrics. However a good objective is “to get off the stage while the audience is still clapping.”

In the view of one Emerald Express presenter, the transition from in-extremis relief to long-term recover should begin almost immediately. The military should make the identification of the agencies that will relieve them of emergency relief functions an early priority. The conditions under which that transition will be made should be mutually agreed upon upfront, whenever possible.

Public/Private/NGO Coordination

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and private volunteer organizations (PVOs) do not have command and control structures or capabilities comparable to the military; it is important to keep this in mind when coordinating with them. Pre-coordination of business practices with NGOs is thus, very desirable. [Note: The recommendation for coordinating business practices with relevant NGOs prior to operations corresponds almost precisely to a finding of the Emerald Express ’95 report.]

Corporate and private donations, especially in-kind and “cast-offs” can create large logistical demands of their own, as well as requiring coordination with the official military and civilian response efforts.

The American Red Cross was chartered by Congress in 1906 and is an integral part of the National Response Plan. Its responsibilities are shared with FEMA. While it conducts many of the same missions as the International Committee of the Red Cross it is also, by statute, required to provide disaster services, bio-medical services, international services, services to the armed forces, and health and safety services in the US.

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4. Preparatory Reading

The following are some recent articles in the Washington Post related to hurricane disaster relief and lessons learned. The views expressed in these articles are not necessarily endorsed by the JUW HLS/HLD Seminar sponsors.

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Katrina Report Spreads BlameHomeland Security, Chertoff Singled Out

By Spencer S. HsuWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, February 12, 2006; A01

Hurricane Katrina exposed the U.S. government's failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as leaders from President Bush down disregarded ample warnings of the threat to New Orleans and did not execute emergency plans or share information that would have saved lives, according to a blistering report by House investigators.

A draft of the report, to be released publicly Wednesday, includes 90 findings of failures at all levels of government, according to a senior investigation staffer who requested anonymity because the document is not final. Titled "A Failure of Initiative," it is one of three separate reviews by the House, Senate and White House that will in coming weeks dissect the response to the nation's costliest natural disaster.

The 600-plus-page report lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council, according to a 60-page summary of the document obtained by The Washington Post. Regarding Bush, the report found that "earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response" because he alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance.

The report, produced by an 11-member House select committee of Republicans chaired by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), proposes few specific changes. But it is an unusual compendium of criticism by the House GOP, which generally has not been aggressive in its oversight of the administration.

The report portrays Chertoff, who took the helm of the department six months before the storm, as detached from events. It contends he switched on the government's emergency response systems "late, ineffectively or not at all," delaying the flow of federal troops and materiel by as much as three days.

The White House did not fully engage the president or "substantiate, analyze and act on the information at its disposal," failing to confirm the collapse of New Orleans's levee system on Aug. 29, the day of Katrina's landfall, which led to catastrophic flooding of the city of 500,000 people.

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On the ground, Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown, who has since resigned, FEMA field commanders and the U.S. military's commanding general set up rival chains of command. The Coast Guard, which alone rescued nearly half of 75,000 people stranded in New Orleans, flew nine helicopters and two airplanes over the city that first day, but eyewitness reconnaissance did not reach official Washington before midnight.

At the same time, weaknesses identified by Sept. 11 investigators -- poor communications among first responders, a shortage of qualified emergency personnel and lack of training and funding -- doomed a response confronted by overwhelming demands for help.

"If 9/11 was a failure of imagination then Katrina was a failure of initiative. It was a failure of leadership," the report's preface states. "In this instance, blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina's horror."

Chertoff spokesman Russ Knocke said, "every ounce of authority" and "100 percent of everything that could be pre-staged was pre-staged" by the federal government before landfall once the president signed emergency disaster declarations on Aug. 27. Brown had "all authority" to make decisions and requests, and his "willful insubordination . . . was a significant problem" for Chertoff, Knocke said.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush had full confidence in his homeland security team, both appointed and career. "The president was involved from beginning to end," implementing emergency powers before the storm and taking responsibility afterward, Duffy said.

Duffy objected to a leaked draft of an unpublished report, and said the White House is completing its own study. "The president is less interested in yesterday, and more interested with today and tomorrow," he said, "so that we can be better prepared for next time."

The report puts the government response in a larger context and offers a few new details. In months of hearings, House and Senate investigative committees have already revealed the lack of White House awareness of events on the ground, political infighting between federal and state leaders, delays in ordering evacuations and the meltdown of FEMA operations.

The review, launched Sept. 15, suggests that federal funding be used to update state evacuation studies. It proposes making commercial airliners available in an emergency and creating a database to provide a national clearinghouse of shelter data. It also suggests naming a professional disaster adviser to the president, akin to the military's chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Democrats, whose leaders considered the investigation a partisan whitewash and boycotted it, called for Chertoff's removal. Reps. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) and William J. Jefferson (D-La.),who informally participated in the inquiry, renewed calls for an independent commission styled after the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that the investigation, while comprehensive, was rushed, failed to compel the White House to turn over documents and held no administration officials accountable.

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House investigators acknowledge that after reviewing nine hearings, scores of interviews and 500,000 pages of documents, they "will never know" what would have happened had federal, Louisiana and New Orleans officials activated plans and called on the military before the storm, and evacuated the city sooner than Aug. 28. However, the committee found U.S. disaster preparedness -- individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental -- remains dangerously inadequate.

"All the little pigs built houses of straw," it wrote. "Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare."

The report reconstructs a chronology of events over a three-week span from Aug. 22 to Sept. 12. It focuses primarily on failures by Chertoff and the rest of the administration to execute a year-old National Response Plan and set up a related command structure, designed to marshal resources in the critical first 72 hours after a catastrophe.

The report said the single biggest federal failure was not anticipating the consequences of the storm. Disaster planners had rated the flooding of New Orleans as the nation's most feared scenario, testing it under a catastrophic disaster preparedness program in 2004.

About 56 hours before Katrina made landfall, the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center cited an "extremely high probability" that New Orleans would be flooded and tens of thousands of residents killed.

Given those warnings, the report notes Bush's televised statement on Sept. 1 that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," and concludes: "Comments such as those . . . do not appear to be consistent with the advice and counsel one would expect to have been provided by a senior disaster professional."

As the president's principal disaster adviser, Chertoff poorly executed many decisions, including declaring Katrina an "incident of national significance" -- the highest designation under the national emergency response plan and convening an interagency board of experienced strategic advisers on Aug. 30 instead of Aug. 27; designating an untrained Brown to take charge of the disaster; and failing to invoke a federal plan that would have pushed federal help to overwhelmed state and local officials rather than waiting for them to request it.

The report said Chertoff was "confused" about Brown's role and authority, and that it was unclear why he chose him, given his lack of skills and his hostility to FEMA's downgrading under new plans.

After failing to foresee the need to muster buses, boats and aircraft, the next critical federal mistake was failure to confirm catastrophic levee breaches, the report asserts.

Despite a FEMA official's eyewitness accounts of breaches starting at 7 p.m. on Aug. 29, the president's Homeland Security Council, led by homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend and her deputy, Ken Rapuano, did not consider them confirmed until 11 hours later, on Aug. 30.

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The first federal order to evacuate New Orleans was not issued until 1:30 a.m. Aug. 31, and came only after FEMA's ground commander in New Orleans, Phil Parr, put out a call for buses after finding water lapping at the approaches to the Superdome, where about 12,000 victims were camped.

The council's "failure to resolve conflicts in information and the 'fog of war,' not a lack of information, caused confusion," the House panel wrote. It added that the crisis showed the government remains "woefully incapable" of managing information, much as it was before the 2001 attacks.

The summary obtained by The Post generally praises pre-storm evacuations by Gulf Coast leaders, but it criticizes preparations and decisions by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D), who knew that 100,000 city residents had no cars and relied on public transit. The city's failure to complete its mandatory evacuation, ordered Aug. 28, led to hundreds of deaths, the report said.

Neighboring Plaquemines Parish, by contrast, issued its order Aug. 27, helping to hold the number of storm deaths there at three. Nursing homes outside New Orleans were able to find special transportation for patients, while at least one in the city could not find bus drivers by the time people were told to leave.

The investigation also condemned "hyped media coverage of violence and lawlessness, legitimized by New Orleans authorities," for increasing security burdens, scaring away rescuers and heightening tension in the city.

It faulted Nagin for repeating, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, rumors of armed gangs committing rapes and murder in an "almost animalistic state." The report said few cases of gunshots or violence were confirmed, although it acknowledged that few police were able to investigate and victims may have had little incentive to report crime.

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The Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina: Lessons LearnedThe White HouseThursday, February 23, 2006; 9:07 AM

Today, The Administration Released Its Review Of The Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina. The President's charge to evaluate the Federal government's response to the storm resulted in the report and recommendations released today by the Administration, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. The product of an extensive review, led by the President's Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, the Report identifies deficiencies in the Federal government's response and lays the groundwork for transforming how the Nation -- from every level of government, to the private sector, to individual citizens and communities -- pursues a real and lasting vision of emergency preparedness and response.

The Lessons Learned Report Assesses The Federal Response, Identifies Lessons Learned, And Recommends Appropriate Corrective Actions. The Report identifies the systemic problems in Federal emergency preparedness and response revealed by Hurricane Katrina -- and the best solutions to address them. Where actions at the State and local level had bearing on Federal decisions or operations, they are included in order to provide full context. The Lessons Learned report includes:

* 17 lessons the Executive Branch has learned after reviewing and analyzing the response to Katrina;

* 125 specific recommendations to the President, which have been reviewed by relevant Federal departments and agencies, and will now enter an implementation process; and

* 11 critical actions to be completed before June 1, 2006 -- the first day of the next hurricane season. The President's Charge: The Government Will Learn The Lessons Of Hurricane Katrina

President Bush Ordered A Comprehensive Review Of The Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina. In his September 15, 2005, address to the Nation from Jackson Square in New Orleans, the President made clear that the Federal government would learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina so we as a Nation can make the necessary changes to be "better prepared for any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people."

Hurricane Katrina Was A Deadly Reminder That We Can And Must Do Better In Responding To Emergencies. Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent sustained flooding of New Orleans exposed significant flaws in our national preparedness for catastrophic events and our capacity to respond to them. Emergency plans at all levels of government -- including the 600-page National Response Plan that set forth the Federal government's plan to coordinate all its departments and agencies and integrate them with State, local, and private sector partners -- were put to the test and came up short.

The Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned

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We Are Not As Prepared As We Need To Be At All Levels: Federal, State, Local, Community, And Individual. Hurricane Katrina obligates us to re-examine how the Federal government is organized to address the full range of potential catastrophic events -- both natural and man-made.

Hurricane Katrina And Its Aftermath Provide Us With The Imperative To Design And Build A Unified System. The Lessons Learned Report confirms the imperative of integrating and synchronizing the Nation's homeland security policies, strategies, and plans across Federal, State, and local governments, as well as the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), faith-based groups, communities, and individual citizens. To achieve this, the Report identifies three immediate priorities:

First, we must implement a comprehensive National Preparedness System to make certain that we have a fully national system that ensures unity of effort in preparing for and responding to natural and man-made disasters;

Second, we must create a Culture of Preparedness that emphasizes that the entire Nation -- at all levels of government, the private sector, communities, and individual citizens -- shares common goals and responsibilities for homeland security; and

Third, we must implement corrective actions to ensure we do not repeat the problems encountered during Hurricane Katrina.

A Comprehensive National Preparedness System

The Existing National Preparedness System Must Be Improved To Minimize The Impact Of Disasters On Lives, Property, And The Economy. Pursuant to the National Strategy for Homeland Security, the President directed the creation of a comprehensive national preparedness system in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8), starting with a national domestic all-hazards preparedness goal. In response, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has developed an Interim National Preparedness Goal. We must now translate this Goal into a robust preparedness system that includes integrated plans, procedures, training, and capabilities at all levels of government. The System must also incorporate the private sector, NGOs, faith-based and other grassroots groups, communities, and individual citizens. The objective of our National Preparedness System must be to achieve and sustain risk-based target levels of capability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from major natural disasters, terrorist incidents, and other emergencies.

The Response To Hurricane Katrina Revealed A Lack Of Familiarity With Incident Management, Planning Discipline, And Field-Level Crisis Leadership. Going forward, the Federal government must clearly articulate national preparedness goals and objectives. It must create the infrastructure for ensuring unity of effort. The Federal government must manage the National Preparedness System for measuring effectiveness and assessing preparedness at all levels of government. The Lessons Learned report outlines five elements that are critical for a National Preparedness System:

1. Building and integrating the Federal government's operational capability for emergency preparedness and response;

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2. Strengthening DHS's capacity to direct the Federal response effort while providing resources to responders in the field;

3. Ensuring unity of effort and eliminating red tape and delays in providing Federal assistance to disaster areas;

4. Strengthening homeland security education, exercises, and training programs; and

5. Ensuring that homeland security assessments, lessons learned, and corrective action programs are institutionalized throughout the Federal government.

Creating A Culture Of Preparedness

The Creation Of A Culture Of Preparedness Will Emphasize That The Entire Nation Shares Common Goals And Responsibilities For Homeland Security. A Culture of Preparedness must build a sense of shared responsibility among individuals, communities, the private sector, NGOs, faith-based groups, and Federal, State, and local governments. Our homeland security is built on a foundation of partnerships. The Lessons Learned Report outlines four principles to guide the development of a Culture of Preparedness:

1. A prepared Nation will be a long-term continuing challenge;

2. Initiative and innovation must be recognized and rewarded at all levels;

3. Individuals must play a central role in preparing themselves and their families for emergencies; and

4. Federal, State, and local governments must work in partnership with each other and the private sector.

Ensuring That The Federal Government Does Not Repeat Problems Encountered During Hurricane Katrina

Changes Must Be Made Immediately To Prepare For The 2006 Hurricane Season. The 2006 hurricane season is just over three months away. Even while the process to implement the lessons learned from Katrina is underway, there are specific steps the Federal government can and should take now to be better prepared for future emergencies. The Lessons Learned Report recommends 11 critical actions to strengthen Federal response capabilities before June 1, 2006, many of which the Administration has already begun to implement:

1. Ensure that relevant Federal, State, and local decision-makers, including leaders of State National Guards, are working together and in close proximity to one another in the event of another disaster;

2. Ensure that for events preceded by warning, we are prepared to pre-position an interagency Federal Joint Field Office (JFO) to coordinate and, if necessary, direct Federal support to the disaster;

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3. Ensure situational awareness by establishing rapid deployable communications, as well as instituting a structure to consolidate Federal operational reporting with DHS;

4. Embed a single Department of Defense point of contact at the JFO and FEMA regional offices to enhance coordination of military resources supporting the response;

5. Designate locations throughout the country for receiving, staging, moving, and integrating military resources to ensure the most effective deployment of Federal disaster relief personnel and assets;

6. Identify and develop rosters of Federal, State, and local government personnel who are prepared to assist in disaster relief;

7. Employ all available technology to update and utilize the national Emergency Alert System in order to provide the public with advanced notification of and instruction for disasters and emergencies;

8. Encourage States to pre-contract with service providers for key disaster relief needs, such as debris removal and the provision of critical commodities;

9. Enhance the mechanism for providing Federal funds to States for preparations upon warning of an imminent emergency;

10. Improve the delivery of assistance to disaster victims by streamlining registration, expediting eligibility decisions, tracking movements of displaced victims, and incorporating safeguards against fraud; and

11. Enhance ongoing review of State evacuation plans and incorporate planning for Continuity of Government to ensure the continuation of essential and emergency services.

Transforming The Federal Response To Future Emergencies

Acting On The Recommendations In The Lessons Learned Report Will Enable The Federal Government To Respond To Natural And Man-Made Disasters More Effectively And Efficiently. The lessons of Hurricane Katrina cannot be learned and put into action without change. As the Federal government works to implement the near-term critical activities and 125 recommendations, State and local governments, the private sector, NGOs, faith-based and community organizations, the media, communities, and individuals should undertake a review of their respective roles and responsibilities in preparing for and responding to catastrophic events.

Together, We Will Strengthen Our Ability To Prepare For, Protect Against, Respond To, And Recover From Catastrophic Events. The lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and the recommendations set forth in today's Report will yield preparedness dividends that transcend Federal, State and local boundaries. Their full implementation will help the entire Nation achieve a shared commitment to preparedness.

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Multiple Layers Of Contractors Drive Up Cost of Katrina CleanupBy Joby WarrickWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, March 20, 2006; A01

NEW ORLEANS -- How many contractors does it take to haul a pile of tree branches? If it's government work, at least four: a contractor, his subcontractor, the subcontractor's subcontractor, and finally, the local man with a truck and chainsaw.

If the job is patching a leaking roof, the answer may be five contractors, or even six. At the bottom tier is a Spanish-speaking crew earning less than 10 cents for every square foot of blue tarp installed. At the top, the prime contractor bills the government 15 times as much for the same job.

For the thousands of contractors in the Katrina recovery business, this is the way the system works -- a system that federal officials say is the same after every major disaster but that local government officials, watchdog groups and the contractors themselves say is one reason that costs for the hurricane cleanup continue to swell.

"If this is 'normal,' we have a serious problem in this country," said Benny Rousselle, president of Plaquemines Parish, a hurricane-ravaged district downriver from New Orleans. "The federal government ought to be embarrassed about what is happening. If local governments tried to run things this way, we'd be run out of town."

Federal agencies in charge of Katrina cleanup have been repeatedly criticized for lapses in managing the legions of contractors who perform tasks ranging from delivering ice to rebuilding schools. Last Thursday, Congress's independent auditor, the Government Accountability Office, said inadequate oversight had cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, by allowing contractors to build shelters in the wrong places or to purchase supplies that were not needed.

But each week, many more millions are paid to contractors who get a cut of the profits from a job performed by someone else. In instances reviewed by The Washington Post, the difference between the job's actual price and the fee charged to taxpayers ranged from 40 percent to as high as 1,700 percent.

Consider the task of cleaning up storm debris. Just after the hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded contracts for removing 62 million cubic yards of debris to four companies: Ashbritt Inc., Ceres Environmental Services Inc., Environmental Chemical Corp. and Phillips and Jordan Inc.

Each of the four contracts was authorized for a maximum of $500 million. Corps officials have declined to reveal specific payment rates, citing a court decision barring such disclosures. But local officials and businesspeople knowledgeable about the contracts say the companies are paid $28 to $30 a cubic yard.

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Below the first tier, the arrangements vary. But in a typical case in Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, top contractor Ceres occupied the first rung, followed by three layers of smaller companies: Loupe Construction Co., then a company based in Reserve, La., which hired another subcontractor called McGee, which hired Troy Hebert, a hauler from New Iberia, La. Hebert, who is also a member of the state legislature, says his pay ranged from $10 to $6 for each cubic yard of debris.

"Every time it passes through another layer, $4 or $5 is taken off the top," Hebert said. "These others are taking out money, and some of them aren't doing anything."

Defenders of the multi-tiered system say it is a normal and even necessary part of doing business in the aftermath of a major disaster. The prime contracts are usually awarded by FEMA or other government agencies well in advance, so relief services can be brought in quickly after the crisis eases. These companies often must expand rapidly to meet the need, and they do so by subcontracting work to other firms.

The two federal agencies that administer most disaster-related contracts, FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, say the system benefits small and local companies that do not have the resources to bid for large federal contracts. At the top end, prime contractors must be large enough to carry the heavy insurance burdens and administrative requirements of overseeing thousands of workers dispersed across a wide area, agency officials say. They also note that contractors have a legal right to hire subcontractors as they need them.

"Our purview of a contract goes to the prime contractor only," said Jean Todd, a Corps contracting officer.

But watchdog groups that monitor federal contracting say Katrina has taken the contract tiering system to a new extreme, wasting tax dollars while often cheating companies at the low end of the contracting ladder. In some cases, the groups say, companies in the top and middle rungs contribute little more than shuffling paperwork from one tier to the next.

"It's trickle-down contracting: You're paying a cut at every level, and it makes the final cost exponentially more expensive than it needs to be," said Keith Ashdown of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "And in almost every case, the local people who really need to be making the money are at the bottom of these upside-down pyramid schemes."

The gap is particularly large for roof repairs. Four large companies won Army Corps contracts to cover damaged roofs with blue plastic tarp, under a program known as "Operation Blue Roof." The rate paid to the prime contractors ranged from $1.50 to $1.75 per square foot of tarp installed, documents show.

The prime contractors' rate is nearly as much as local roofers charge to install a roof of asphalt shingles, according to two roofing executives who requested anonymity because they feared losing their contracts. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the contractor heap, four to five rungs lower, some crews are being paid less than 10 cents per square foot, the officials said.

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At least the prime contractors for roofing and debris removal owned equipment that could be immediately applied to the job at hand. In the world of Katrina contracting, this has not always been the case.

For example, one company hired as an ice vendor owns no ice-making equipment. Landstar Systems Inc., a $2 billion Florida company placed in charge of the bus evacuation of New Orleans, is a transportation broker that specializes in trucking and has no buses of its own. In 2002, the company was awarded a $100 million contract to provide emergency transportation services for the federal government during major disasters. The contract, which is administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, was expanded in the fall to a maximum $400 million. Landstar declined a request for an interview.

Thousands of New Orleanians had been stranded in the Superdome for more than 48 hours by the time FEMA issued the first order for a bus evacuation early on the morning of Aug. 31. The order was passed to Landstar, which then turned to other companies to locate buses, according to an official chronology prepared by the Department of Transportation. Landstar hired Carey International Inc., of Washington, which then hired the BusBank, of Chicago, and Transportation Management Systems of Columbia, Md. Bus Bank and TMS called private charter-bus companies -- some from as far away as California and Washington state -- asking them to send buses and drivers to New Orleans.

More than 1,100 buses eventually responded, some arriving four days later, after traveling hundreds of miles. Daily earnings averaged about $700 per bus, according to bus company owners. Landstar's daily earnings were nearly $1,200 per bus, government records show.

"A lot of that money is going to brokers who didn't have to do anything," said Jeff Polzien, owner of Red Carpet Charters, an Oklahoma bus company that sent coaches to New Orleans as a fourth-tier subcontractor.

Lower pay is hardly the worst problem subcontractors face. With many tiers to navigate, money trickles down slowly, delaying payment by weeks and months, and frequently imposing hardships on the smallest firms.

Several bus company owners said they were still owed tens of thousands of dollars for work they did in the fall. For some, the delays have been ruinous.

Thomas Paige, owner of Coast to Coast Bus Line of Dillon, S.C., laid off staff, and two of his four buses were repossessed by creditors after payment for his New Orleans work fell behind by three months.

"I went to New Orleans to help people -- and hopefully to help myself -- but now I feel like I've dug a ditch and fallen into it," Paige said. "If I would have known what I know now, I never would have gotten involved. It's just not worth it."

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FEMA's Katrina Report Details FailuresBy LARA JAKES JORDANThe Associated PressMonday, April 3, 2006; 5:16 PM

WASHINGTON -- An internal FEMA report that calls for urgent reform after Hurricane Katrina outlines old failures the disaster response agency was warned about five months before the storm struck.

A Feb. 13 report assessing the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to the storm concludes FEMA suffered from confusing leadership roles, outdated or inadequate response plans and inexperienced or under-trained staff during Katrina. It also details problems in tracking supplies to disaster sites.

All of those findings were highlighted in a March 2005 consultant's analysis, titled "A Vision for the Future," on how to revamp FEMA before the next disaster hit.

"For years FEMA has approached disasters almost timidly," the agency's post-Katrina report found. "FEMA should be attacking with sledgehammers, not fly swatters. Specific changes in logistics need immediate attention."

FEMA's internal review is the latest to surface in a series of studies about the government's sluggish response to Katrina, and how to fix it before the 2006 hurricane season starts on June 1. Katrina struck last Aug. 29.

Senate investigators are wrapping up their own inquiry of the Katrina response, following findings by the House and the White House that concluded FEMA failed to learn from earlier disasters.

FEMA acting director R. David Paulison said the agency is looking carefully at all post-Katrina reports, and he described them as "helpful in rebuilding FEMA."

But Paulison, a former Miami-Dade County fire chief in Florida, acknowledged the government is often slow to revamp itself, comparing the recommendations made after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 to Katrina more than a decade later.

"You could have taken 'Andrew' out and put 'Katrina' in," Paulison said in a brief interview last week.

He added: "FEMA was a four-letter word when I was a fire chief during Hurricane Andrew, and that's why I'm determined to make (changes) happen."

Many reforms following disasters are never enacted because of financial costs and power struggles, said University of Pennsylvania scholar Donald F. Kettl, co-author of "On Risk and Disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina."

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"The big crises like Sept. 11 and Katrina challenge us and punish us for failing to adapt," said Kettl, a political science professor. "But these reports call for really dramatic, radical change in ways that disrupt the patterns of political power and standard operating procedure. So it's a lot easier to let the day-to-day pressures rule instead of confronting the issues that we know we have to deal with."

Former FEMA director Michael Brown said the two documents, taken together, raise concerns that few of the lessons learned from Katrina will be heeded. Brown, who left the agency under fire days after Katrina hit, is a top critic of the Homeland Security Department, FEMA's parent agency.

"They are fighting an uphill battle," Brown said Monday. "They wouldn't give me the money and resources to do it."

The new FEMA report was posted on the agency's Web site earlier this year. The agency pulled it from the site after a reporter's inquiry. The 2005 analysis by the Mitre Corp., obtained by The Associated Press, examined FEMA's performance during the 2004 Florida hurricanes.

Both reports describe FEMA's blunders in trying to communicate and coordinate with onsite disaster responders, and get much-needed supplies like food, water and ice to victims.

Mitre, in early 2005, found FEMA was incapable of getting a clear picture of the disaster as it unfolded because it did not have a system capable of sharing information from the ground-up. It also concluded that FEMA could not track supplies as they were being distributed.

One unnamed employee interviewed for the Mitre report worried about holes in the tracking system, noting: "White House is asking, `Where are the water trucks?' I didn't know. ... We don't have confidence that the trucks have checked in, arrived at the destination. We have to rely on third parties to tell us they have arrived."

The February report noted that responders in New Orleans were unable to communicate easily and quickly with the emergency operations center in Baton Rouge because of inadequate phone and data systems. It also said FEMA's tracking system "was of little use."

"Unfortunately, logistics personnel had a muddled picture," the report found.

Homeland Security has pledged to develop response systems before the next hurricane season begins. They include better tracking of supplies, registering victims, approving debris removal contracts and creating disaster teams to give the agency a real-time picture of unfolding emergencies.

"There are a lot of things we can do between now and hurricane season," Paulison said. "But there's stuff that's just going to take a couple of years to get in place.”

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More Devastating Hurricanes PossibleComplacency Worries Experts at Symposium in Laurel

By Jennifer LenhartWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, April 19, 2006; B03

Enmeshed as they still are in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, disaster planners and hurricane forecasters have no choice but to prepare for this year's possible foes: Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto and the rest.

All signs point to another severe season, though the ferocity and number of hurricanes is impossible to predict, top U.S. forecasters and emergency planners said yesterday at a symposium in Maryland.

"I think a lot of people say you could never have the same death and damages as we did last season," Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center and Tropical Prediction Center, said during a break in the conference at the Johns Hopkins University campus in Laurel. "I'm here to say it could happen."

Nature is signaling another active season. La Niña is back, judging by telltale cooler water on the surface of the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Surface water in the Atlantic, meanwhile, is warmer. Conditions are similar to those recorded ahead of last year's record-breaking string of named storms, said David L. Johnson, assistant administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and director of the National Weather Service.

"I've got a bunch of hardworking scientists who are crunching those numbers right now" and aiming to make their prediction public May 22, about a week before hurricane seasons officially begins, Johnson said.

Confidence-boosting was the undercurrent of the day-long event, which drew about 300 emergency management workers from across the United States to sessions heavy on "lessons learned" from last year. Several Marylanders said they welcomed the brief remarks by R. David Paulison, nominated to replace Michael D. Brown as chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"A person stepping in, experienced with emergency management and in working with local emergency management, will be able to bring confidence," said John W. Droneburg III, director of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

Only twice in recorded weather history has the Chesapeake Bay region taken a direct hit from a storm that was still hurricane strength at landfall. Residents base evacuation decisions on memories of past surges, most recently the eight-foot surge and inland flooding spawned by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

Complacency, development near coastal areas and millions of people living in the region concern Mayfield.

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"I'm really worried about the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast because [a hurricane] is such a rare event . . . and you all worry about a lot of things besides hurricanes," he said.

His agency will use a new tool this year, a 24-hour surge tracker to help emergency responders in the expected path of a storm. A computer-generated model predicting the path of the storm and the surge in the 24 hours before landfall will be available to state and local emergency management officials, Mayfield said in an interview.

The idea, he said, is that officials in communities in the storm's path will be better able to predict where to position emergency response teams, equipment and food. Gulf Coast communities did not have such detailed information during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Mayfield said he hesitated before going public with the new tracking tool out of fear that local officials would consider it etched in stone and plan evacuations accordingly -- and perhaps erroneously. "I don't want local emergency managers to make evacuation calls based on that. It's not going to be accurate," he said.

If a hurricane thrashed its way to the mid-Atlantic coast, forecasters still would not have the tools to reliably predict its point of landfall.

"Do you think we're going to be able to tell if it's going to clip the Chesapeake Bay or crash into Cape Cod?'' Mayfield said. "Nobody's going to be able to tell you where it's going to hit. Nobody."

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5. References

Hurricane Katrina:

Government Accountability Office, David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. “Hurricane Katrina: GAO’s Preliminary Observations Regarding Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.” Testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Washington D.C.: Government Accountability Office, 8 March 2006.

U.S. Congress, House of Representatives. A Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina. 109th Congress, 2nd Session. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006.

The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. February 2006

Other:

Department of Defense, Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2005.

Department of Homeland Security, National Response Plan, December 2004http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dhs/nrp.pdf

* caution: 3.89MB

Department of Homeland Security, National Incident Management System, March 2004http://www.nimsonline.com/nims_3_04/index.htm

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