Center of Excellence

Excerpt:

The experience of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and even events like this summer’s flooding in the Midwest in the state of Iowa, demonstrated that the existing structures that generally provide support for smaller or “garden-variety” disasters do not always apply when dealing with large numbers of evacuees, billions of dollars of damages to public and private buildings and infrastructure, the long-term incapacitation of entire jurisdictions and regions, and the decimation of community tax revenue streams, economic systems, and social structures.

The Stafford Act provides significant flexibility for creative approaches in addressing disaster needs. But, its toolbox is incomplete and too much is left to the discretion of individuals in power at the time of any given event.

What is needed now is a catastrophic annex to the Stafford Act, which can be triggered once certain lofty measures of disaster impact are met.

Read more about it here: Stafford Act Reform A Group Discussion on Recommended Changes - EIIP Virtual Forum Presentation.

Published by the Congressional Budget Office:

U.S. Policy Regarding Pandemic-Influenza Vaccines

“Losses from hurricane catastrophes have accelerated in recent years, with seven of the top nine hurricanes ranked by insured losses occurring during 2004 and 2005. Hurricane losses have affected the availability of insurance in coastal states and contributed to enormous growth in state residual wind markets. Of particular policy concern is the possibility that homeowners, businesses and insurance companies are not investing in the efficient amount of mitigation to reduce hurricane losses. This paper examines potential barriers to the adoption of efficient mitigation and reviews specific state insurance regulation and legislation that impedes and encourages mitigation. Premium discounts and hurricane deductibles, which are waived if property owners invest in mitigation, provide incentives for mitigation, but mitigation discounts mandated by legislators potentially could represent disguised insurance subsidies.”

More: The Market for Hurricane Mitigation: Regulatory or Market Failure? (PDF)

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia produced the following:

Keeping the Nation Safe through the Presidential Transition

Prepared statements and video feed available here: Keeping the Nation Safe through the Presidential Transition

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board’s investigation into the West Virginia propane explosion.

“CSB Investigation of the 2007 Little General Store Propane Explosion Emphasizes Need for Immediate Evacuation, Recommends Enhanced Training of Emergency Responders and Propane Technicians, Guidance for 911 Operators”

Article in the Dallas Morning News on the Hurricane and coastal residents. Written by Steve Blow and titled “It’s High Time for the Coast to Pay Its Share” - read it here.

From the article in the New York Times - “Never Again, Again”

Except:

Hurricane Gustav gave the state of Louisiana a test for which it had three years to prepare. There were thousands of poor, sick, disabled and elderly people who could not get out on their own. They needed to be rescued with dispatch, and sheltered in safety and dignity.

One simple test. The state flunked.

All those without a car or a ride were taken on state buses to four state-run warehouses. It was in these shelters, including two abandoned stores, a Wal-Mart and a Sam’s Club, that thousands of working-poor New Orleanians got a sickening reminder of Katrina.

Evacuees said they had had no idea where they were going; bus drivers would not tell them. When they arrived, there were not enough portable toilets, and no showers. For five days there was no way to bathe, except with bottled water in filthy outdoor toilets.

Privacy in the vast open space - 1,000 people to a warehouse, shoulder-to-shoulder on cots — was nonexistent. The mood among evacuees was grim, surrounded as they were by police officers and the National Guard, with no visitors or reporters allowed.

“We didn’t want to evacuate into a prison,” Lethia Brooks told the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, an organization that accompanied the evacuees, inspected the shelters and collected hundreds of stories into a report sharply critical of the state’s response…

Now, many poor residents are vowing “never again,” as in, “Never again will we get on the bus to be warehoused. We’ll ride out the next storm.” In New Orleans, disaster is never far away, and government incompetence cannot be allowed to undermine a swift, sure evacuation. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration should move quickly on a better plan that does not expose the poor to differential, substandard treatment.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices publication:

Pandemic Preparedness in the States An Assessment of Progress and Opportunity (PDF)

More:
Over the course of 2007 and early 2008, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) conducted nine regional pandemic preparedness workshops involving all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four of the five U.S. territories. The workshops were designed to examine state pandemic preparedness, particularly in non-health-related areas such as continuity of government, maintenance of essential services, and coordination with the private sector. The workshops also examined the strengths and weaknesses of coordination activities among levels of government, both vertically (state-federal and state-local) and horizontally (state-state) as well as with the private sector.

Article in the New Yorker by Lawrence Wright:

The Rebellion Within: An Al Qaeda Mastermind Questions Terrorism

August 2008 Congressional Research Service report to Congress:
The Army Corps of Engineers’ Nationwide Permits Program: Issues and Regulatory Developments

Federal Emergency Management Agency’s grant recipient list:

http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/ctgp/ctgp_list.pdf

House Committee on Homeland Security

Waste, Abuse and Mismanagement: Calculating the Cost of DHS Failed Contracts

(Hearing before the Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight). Washington, DC: September 17, 2007.

Recorded video feed and prepared statements accessed at: http://homeland.house.gov/Hearings/index.asp?ID=168

The Let’s Get Ready! kits will be available to download online at www.sesamestreet.org/ready and www.ready.gov/kids/sesame. In addition Public Service announcements will be produced by Sesame Workshop and distributed through the Ad Council to promote awareness around the importance of planning for emergencies. The Ad Council will be distributing the PSA’s to approximately 1,000 stations nationwide this week. Finally, the video component will soon be available, free of charge, on iTunes under the Learning Along with Sesame TV series. The materials will offer tips on how families can prepare their children for an emergency in age-appropriate ways such as:

Everyone, even young children, can play a role in planning for the unexpected.

Creating an emergency plan that the entire family practices and shares with the significant people in their lives is important.

Helping children learn personal information such as a phone number, their full names, and the names of special people in their home, is helpful in case of any emergency.

Chertoff warned against the country becoming hysterical or complacent in dealing with homeland security challenges. And he said the United States must use a combination of military force and law enforcement strategies to counter threats.

Read more about it here: Chertoff cites biological weapons as his biggest worry

Statements from the Sept. 10, 2008 briefing:

http://www.preventwmd.org/9_10_08_commission_public_hearing/

Interesting article in the NY Times. Clark Kent Ervin was the DHS Inspector General from 2003 to 2004. He is now a fellow at the Aspen Institute and the author of “Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack.”

Read article here: All Too Quiet on the Homeland Front

In Summary:

Just 2 percent of Americans identified terrorism as their nation’s top problem in a Gallup survey in early August - the lowest level since the 2001 attacks. And in new poll results released Wednesday, just 38 percent of respondents said they were at least somewhat worried that they or their families would become victims of terrorism - a nine-point drop since the question was asked last year and the lowest level since mid-2005. “The majority of Americans are now not fearful of terrorist attack,” said Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor in chief.

Read the article here: Terrorism Takes Backseat to Economy

Excerpt:

In a disaster such as an earthquake or terrorist attack, nearly two-thirds of U.S. parents would disregard orders to evacuate and would rush to pick up their kids from school, according to a survey released Thursday. The survey by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Children’s Health Fund found that 63 percent of parents would ignore disaster plans and pick up their children, possibly hindering rescue efforts by adding to traffic congestion.

The authors of the study, released on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, said that despite years of government efforts to enhance disaster preparedness, schools need to do more to plan for disasters and parents need to be made aware of the plans.

Read the entire article here: Survey Finds Holes in US Disaster Preparedness

From the article:

It is abundantly clear that the public health impact of large-scale disas­ters is dependent on the degree to which the population affected is at risk or vulnerable prior to the catastrophic event. When health, nutri­tion, and economic status are suboptimal and when general community conditions lack a basic level of support, the public health consequences of any major disaster are substantially exacerbated. That is why invest­ing in community support systems, income stability, and access to appropriate services should be part of effective and comprehensive disaster planning.

Read the whole article here (PDF): Population Vulnerabilities, Preconditions, and the Consequences of Disasters

… former White House anti-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke writes that in the seven years since 9/11, “America has forgotten: forgotten its pledge to get those who attacked us. A few of those involved were captured in the two years that followed. Those who were caught were subjected to a perversion of the American justice system and are still held in Cuba, never having been tried, let alone convicted.” Clarke continues that the freedom of Osama bin Ladin and Ayman Zawahiri “is a symbol to the Islamist fundamentalist movement, a symbol that you can defy America, commit heinous atrocities, and not get caught or punished.” They are also “part of a healthy, functioning al Qaeda organization, one that the CIA director and the director of national intelligence have characterized as rebuilt and again offering a real threat to US interests and to those of us inside the United States.” Clarke states that “the executive branch has proved incapable of managing programs to success.”

Read more here: 9/11 - We Said We’d Never Let It Happen Again, and Yet It Might