Center of Excellence

IAEM Oceania EM Weekly Report by emergency manager Steve Detwiler:

http://www.oceania-iaem.com/resources/aoi

Fargo Officials Say Red River Reaching ‘Uncharted Territory’

City Readies Evacuation Plan - Read this breaking news here

In its messy wake, Hurricane Ike left us a clear message: Category 3 or stronger storm winds will come this way again, perhaps soon. Prepare well for them and do so without delay.

And so we pay heed - shoring up infrastructure and buildings, and cleaning out bayous so flood waters will flow more smoothly.

But some of this work is more nuanced. It must get done in Austin, where Gulf Coast area legislators are pressing the case for better preparedness.

A major component of these efforts is the Texas Catastrophe Fund, put forward by state Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, and state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-Mission.

Catastrophe Plan: Hurricane Ike Reminds Us of the Need for Planning.

During its investigation of the tragic explosion and fire that took the lives of two municipal workers and seriously injured a third at the Bethune Point wastewater treatment facility in Daytona Beach, Florida, on January 11, 2006, the CSB determined that public workers in that state are not protected by federal OSHA worker safety regulations or their state equivalent. In its final report on the accident, the CSB recommended that the Florida legislature and governor adopt OSHA coverage or the equivalent safety and health protections for public employees, who often perform the same work as their counterparts in the private sector and who are covered by OSHA regulations.

Following the CSB’s recommendation, a Florida Public Task Force on Workplace Safety was appointed to examine the issue and determine whether the state should adopt such worker protections. In its final report the majority of the task force concurred with the CSB and affirmed that the state should require public employers and employees in Florida to comply with OSHA standards within 3 years …

CSB Chairman John Bresland said, ‘The CSB believes that all workers should be provided proper workplace protections. Extending OSHA coverage to public employees will protect the well-being of an invaluable sector of Florida’s workforce.’

See the PDF here..

About to be published is: “How to Maximize FEMA Funding After a Natural Disaster.” The author, Veronica White, is the New Orleans Sanitation Director.

The online version of the book jacket classifies the text in the category of “disaster management” and cites White, who oversees the city’s hurricane-related demolition and debris-removal contracts, as an expert.

The book is recommended for “all those committed to emergency management: government employees, emergency workers, university educators, consultants, environmental recovery firms and students studying public health or environment management.”

From the article: Sanitation Chief Publishes Book of FEMA Wisdom

An unexpected dip in the Red River miles upstream on Tuesday cheered sandbaggers struggling to raise this city’s protective dikes high enough to withstand possible record flooding.

The National Weather Service lowered its crest forecast for Wahpeton and its cross-river neighbor, Breckenridge, Minn., downward to 18 feet by Wednesday morning, well below the tops of their dikes.

From the article: Lower Projection on Red Upstream May Help Fargo

“Overseas Contingency Operation” is now the new name for the “Global War on Terror”.

Read about it the Washington Post’s article: Global War on Terror’ Is Given New Name

From USA Today:

The name has a bureaucratic ring to it — the Interagency Levee Task Force. But advocates say the group is helping victims of last year’s Midwestern floods recover quicker, and setting the tone for future flood events.

The task force met Tuesday in St. Louis. It is made up of officials from federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with local and state leaders in the five states hit hard by the 2008 flood — Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana.

Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers said the task force provides “one-stop shopping” for levee districts, homeowners and others by determining the agency best-suited to help them.

In past floods, those seeking help had to figure it out themselves. A levee district representative, a homeowner whose house was damaged, a flood-impacted business owner might start with a trip to city hall or the county courthouse, then call upon state and federal officials. It was often a frustrating journey.

Walsh cited the example of a levee district owner trying to repair a pump house. “Is it a federal issue, a state issue, or up to the owner of the pump house?” Walsh asked. “The same thing for a homeowner. If you wanted a buyout, who do you go to?”

Read more here: Task Force Looks into Floodplain Management

The Importance of Reducing Disaster-Related Losses for Vulnerable Populations

The Importance of Reducing Disaster-Related Losses for Vulnerable Populations highlights the critical need in high-risk communities to better-protect citizens who need special assistance to prepare for hazards. In this white paper, IBHS outlines how disasters often disproportionately impact the poor, elderly, disabled, non-English speakers and others, and offers solutions to limit displacement, sustain affordable housing, create economic activity and reduce the overall cost of response and recovery.

Janet Napolitano Sits Down with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer
From an edition of CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, spoke about the economic crisis, the violence in Mexico, the department’s future home and more.

Melting snow threatens spring flooding in north

Spring flooding threatens the upper Midwest, parts of the Great Lakes region and the Northeast, government forecasters warned Thursday. The Red River of the North along the Minnesota-North Dakota border faces the nation’s greatest threat of spring flooding, the federal Climate Prediction Center said in its spring weather outlook.

Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to the International Association of Fire Fighters in Washington, D.C., on March 16, 2009. Washington, DC: DHS, March 16, 2009.

House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response. PKEMRA Implementation: An Examination of FEMA’s Preparedness and Response Mission (Hearing).

Prepared statements and recorded video feed accessed at: http://homeland.house.gov/Hearings/index.asp?ID=178

School-Based Emergency Preparedness: A National Analysis and Recommended Protocol (PDF)

From Executive Summary:

More than seven years after the disaster of September 11, 2001, the U.S. remains relatively unprepared for a large-scale disaster involving children. Despite important advances in our country’s ability to respond effectively to chemical, biological, or nuclear terrorism, there continues to be inadequate development of pediatric protocols that could be implemented by the local, State, and Federal agencies charged with preparation and consequence management.

Emergency preparedness plans have evolved over recent years to include not only intentional (terrorist) disasters but also unintentional public health emergencies such as natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes or floods; chemical incidents such as hazardous materials releases; and emerging infections such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), West Nile virus, and pandemic influenza). Under principles of dual functionality, emergency response plans must now take the approach of creating response plans that integrate intentional and unintentional disasters.

Children differ from adults in many ways that are of great importance in building public health emergency response plans. Their greater susceptibilities result from differences in breathing rate, skin permeability, innate immunity, fluid reserve, communication skills, and self-preservation instincts. These differences and others require that disaster response plans be modified for such a priority population.

Children also spend as much as 70-80 percent of their waking hours away from their parents in school. Schools, therefore, have a vital role in assuring that children are cared for and proper interventions are delivered after a public health emergency. When this project was undertaken in 2004, there was no national model for school-based public health preparedness. Consequently, school districts across the Nation had rudimentary, fragmented, or non-existent emergency preparedness programs. Since 2006, there has been a marked increase in awareness of the vulnerability of schools and the challenging logistics involved in protecting children in schools during unexpected events. However, there continue to be obstacles for many school districts in creating a practical, comprehensive, and practiced school-based emergency response plan. Amo ng these obstacles are evacuation, accommodations for children with special health care needs, and inclusion of after-school programs in emergency response plans.

Under a contract from AHRQ, the Center for Biopreparedness at Children’s Hospital Boston conducted an analysis of emergency response plans from school districts in Massachusetts, Florida, Wisconsin, Colorado, and California. Using these findings in conjunction with existing recommendations on the development of school-based preparedness programs, we developed a template that provides an overview, including “best practices” for school districts to use in their development of a comprehensive emergency response plan. Finally, in cooperation with the Brookline, Massachusetts, public schools, we designed a roadmap for the development of school-based plans for each of the eight elementary schools, high schools, preschools, and after-school programs in Brookline.

This monograph provides guidelines for use by school districts of all sizes. Our goal in creating this monograph is to describe to readers a practical approach to creating a school-based all-hazards emergency response plan from the national literature in combination with “lessons learned” in the field.

“Angry Obama Aides Push Katrina Recovery.”

Excerpts:

“President Obama deployed two Cabinet secretaries to the Gulf Coast region Thursday to signal that his administration will push stalled rebuilding efforts, and in a stark change to the backslapping that residents usually witness from federal officials, neither was shy about frustration with red tape. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told residents that he is ‘personally disturbed’ and even ‘angry’ by the sluggish pace of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina …. ‘To be honest we have been disturbed by what we have seen and what we have not seen in terms of progress,’ he said ….

Ms Napolitano said that since she took the Homeland Security post, she is constantly asking why so much bureaucracy, wavering decisions and miscommunication are preventing people from returning to their homes. ‘This will not be the last time we are here,’ she said. ‘This will not be the last time I ask, ‘Why?’…We’re going to get this done.”

Also attending the press conference was newly designated FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, the leader of Florida’s emergency team whom Mr. Obama nominated o lead the agency Wednesday.

More: “Obama Cabinet Members Pledge Faster Katrina Effort.”

More than a year after Congress ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to devise a strategy to protect Louisiana from the strongest hurricanes, on Tuesday the agency released a 4,000-page technical study that offers countless alternatives but no action plan.

The document, dubbed the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Study, came under immediate fire from state officials who called the exercise a waste of money and time in the face of the need for urgent action.

Corps Releases Storm Study, But No Plan

Naples Daily News (Editorial), “FEMA…Our Man Goes to Washington.” March 5, 2009.

Orlando Sentinel (Editorial). “We Think: Fugate, Klein Offer Relief in the Wake of Catastrophes,” March 6, 2009.

Tampa Tribune (Editorial). “A Perfect Fit For FEMA.” March 6, 2009.

Time. “FEMA Chief W. Craig Fugate.”

Admissions Office has informed us that a number of the approximately 200 applications received have not complied with the new procedure for conferences which requires that the applicant write in on the top of the application form whether they are requesting housing or not. Thus, those who wish to attend who have not submitted an application, please indicate on the top of the form whether or not housing is being requested.

While on the topic of the Conference, one of the other questions we have received has to do with how to get an invitation, if not already invited – for technical reasons the conference in “by invitation.”. Information related to the upcoming conference is now being added weekly to the conference “box” on the EM Hi-Ed Program home-page — http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/edu/educonference09.asp

Recently released:

National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) Fact Sheet (PDF)

From the Journal of Business Research, 2009.

Developing Pandemic Communication Strategies: Preparation Without Panic