The Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster - Research Paper Example

FEMA DISATER OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS Contents Contents 2 3 3 0 Introduction 4 1 Response Efforts before and after 9/11 4 1.2 Hurricane Katrina 6 1.2.1 Stakeholders involved in Hurricane Katrina 8 1.3 Hurricane Sandy 10 1.4 Conclusion 13 1.5 References 15 Abstract The research work aimed at exploring the planning and mitigation efforts by the country in dealing with catastrophic disasters. It revealed the past weaknesses in the preparations and strategies adopted in the provision of response services during disasters. Mostly, failures came because of lack of co-ordination and poor analysis of the situation before and after disasters strike the country. It also revealed the importance of local responders in the provision of emergency response services during disasters. However, the research also revealed that the country has drawn good lessons from the mistakes done in the recent disasters such as the September 2001 attacks and Hurricane Katrina and thus heading towards the right direction. 1.0 Introduction A disaster is an accidental and devastating event that occurs suddenly, causing adverse social and economic impacts in the population or environment it occurs. The effects may include physical injury, deaths, loss and damage on property, emotional and physical hardship, obliteration of physical infrastructure as well as failure of operational and administrative systems. Before and during a disaster, emergency responders have to intervene to save lives, property and minimize the adverse effects caused by the disaster. However, the uncertainty or infrequency of disasters poses very great challenge for these responders to ascertain the effectiveness of their response strategies (Donahue & o’Keefe, 2007). Consequently, responders usually use various methods and experiences to enhance the manner they respond to similar disasters in the future. This paper will examine aspects of planning, response, recovery as well as mitigation during disasters and the manner the country can improve its response capabilities. 1.1 Response Efforts before and after 9/11 The Three Mile high nuclear accident and Hurricane Agnes in the 1979 prompted President Carter and the Congress to establish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as the Emergency Management Council (EMC). This aimed at consolidating the responsibilities for disaster preparedness performed by the different federal agencies to one single agency (Mener, 2007). This came out of the belief that it was going to eliminate the communication and the fragmentation difficulties seen during the earlier disasters. With this order from the executive, all federal agencies that had responsibilities and capabilities of providing response during disasters to co-operate with FEMA. It also provided FEMA with the task of ensuring co-ordination in disaster preparedness and aid operations. Nevertheless, the establishment of FEMA focused mostly, on disaster preparedness rather than improving the response capabilities during a disaster. The process of re-organization left out most of the major components of disaster response. The small programs concerned with actual response during disasters like the National Fire Prevention and Control as well as the Federal Insurance Administration found themselves in FEMA. The 2001 September attacks in the cities of New York and Washington, DC did not overwhelm the capabilities of emergency response like the other common disasters in the country. The attacks only caused confusion in the masses and also overwhelmed the individual agencies for emergency response but did not completely paralyze the entire network for emergency response. The first major response came from the Fire Department of New York, the Port Authority Police Department, the New York Police Department as well as the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management. Despite the fact that officials from the federal government participated in the rescue operation, most of the rescue efforts came from the local responders. However, these responders experienced the same problems that responders experience in the normal disasters that are catastrophic (Mener, 2007). There was failure of the communication systems and overwhelming of the existed nine hundred and eleven call centers. There was also short supply of trained personnel and lack of interagency communication. Most of the efforts ignored the response plans and were thought to be not sufficient while there was ambiguity in the interagency chains of command. All these shortcomings greatly, undermined the response effort from the various agencies involved during the disaster, revealing the hidden weaknesses in the system. The September 2001 attacks revealed the critical concept that the country should not ignore the idea of maintaining a team of highly trained local responders and local emergency response agencies with the proper equipment and staff. This is because; local responders are the ones that are always on the scene and handle most of the rescue operations during a disaster (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2013). In reality, it is impossible to replace these local responders with federal responders especially when a disaster occurs suddenly without a warning. Surprisingly, the federal government failed to adequately, recognize the differences between the September 2001 attacks and the other disasters that often strike various parts of the country. Instead of conducting a careful analysis of the failures of the government, the President and the Congress rushed and established the Department of Homeland Security in 2002. This happened without taking enough time to carefully, contemplate the manner the new department was going to realize its goals (Mener, 2007). The President insisted that the department was going to analyze the threats, guard the borders and the country’s airports, protect the country’s critical infrastructure and carry out co-ordination of the response activities during emergencies in the future. He also insisted that the department was going to focus all the resources of the country in providing security to the citizens. This step, just like the one taken when creating FEMA, brought together more than one hundred and seventy thousand employees from twenty-two different agencies, including FEMA into a single agency (Mener, 2007). This came out of the belief that it was going to enhance interagency co-operation as well as improving the entire security of the country. More obviously, this step was a great failure since it is similar to the one taken when creating FEMA with no considerable changes to address the weaknesses that existed. 1.2 Hurricane Katrina This occurred only four years after the September 2001 attacks and just three years after the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Additionally, it occurred only one year after DHS had established a national response plan. The disaster, according to Sobel and Leeson (2006), simply came to reveal the shortcomings of the measures taken in the process of providing response during emergencies. The whole world watched while the government responders demonstrated lack of capability in offering the required basic protection. This poor response came because of failure in managing various risk factors during the disaster. There was a long consideration of the risks of a serious hurricane on New Orleans with good or sufficient warning. Emergency declarations also made several days prior to the landfall but the responders failed to use the information in making early preparations to deal with the situation. The weak response also came because of the scattered nature of influence in the inter-governmental system of the United States. Responders from the federal government could not recognize the significance of engaging more actively (Sobel & Leeson, 2006). In all the cases, most of the core institutional capacities for managing the response activities at all government levels were not adequate. To be more specific, FEMA became very weak during President Bush administration and the DHS was an organization with no experience in dealing with disasters and not certain in the manner of deploying its resources and authority. The major sign of failure in the leadership of DHS was its inability to judge Hurricane Katrina as an issue of national importance upto when it was very late. 1.2.1 Stakeholders involved in Hurricane Katrina The response effort during the Hurricane Katrina disaster involved inter-governmental agencies comprising of federal, state as well as local agencies. It also involved cross-sectorial agencies involving public, private as well as non-profit actors. In 2004, there was the introduction of the National Response Plan that aimed at formalizing the roles and the responsibilities of some of the key actors during emergency response. This response plan identified a number of functions in support of emergency response for various federal agencies with the aim of providing support and strengthening FEMA (Mener, 2007). The major role of FEMA during disasters is to provide co-ordination while orchestrating the various federal government capacities. In addition, it co-operates with responders from the state. However, the increase in the crisis beyond a certain level calls for more responders. Furthermore, upon the creation of additional tasks by the crisis, then it will require the employment of additional capacities. The size and complexity of the Katrina network resulted to a complete failure in comprehending the various actors involved (Sobel & Leeson, 2006). The various organizations involved aimed at minimizing the suffering of the people involved in the disaster as well as loss of life. In line with this, several other objectives included evacuation and delivery of materials like water, food, ice as well as medicine. They also aimed at recovering bodies, offering mortuary services, offering medical services, restoration of public safety, restoration of communication services and provision of shelter. There was an affiliation of network for each of the particular goal. In general, there existed a number of networks within the wide Katrina network. However, the membership of the various networks appeared to overlap significantly, within the various tasks (Sobel & Leeson, 2006). Despite the fact that these networks performed various response operations together, there were serious problems in coordinating and sometimes disagreements amongst themselves that greatly hindered the effectiveness of the entire process of conducting emergency response operations. A good example in such disagreements was in the responsibility of collecting deceased bodies where FEMA was pushing for the state government to be in charge, while the Lousiana Governer put all the blame on FEMA for the delays in the recovery of the bodies. In addition, the process of identifying victims and providing mortuary services was supposed to be mostly in the hands of the Federal Department of Health of Human Services but finally the Department of Defense took control. This lack of proper co-ordination, according to Mener (2007), delayed the recovery of the bodies and the provision of other emergency services during the disaster. It is obvious that very large and diverse networks like the ones seen during the Katrina hurricane encounter many difficulties in resolving the fundamental issues regarding co-ordination than smaller and harmonized networks. While there is no standardized view explaining the maximum, number of agencies required, it is very clear that there is the need for reducing and making the networks homogeneous to ease co-ordination and enable rapid response (Mener, 2007). The magnitude as well as the increased frequency in new tasks that responders have to perform, together with the need of integrating many created emergency groups or organizations, reduces the effectiveness of the entire co-ordination amongst the organizations during disasters. In the first stages of the disaster, the federal government failure to completely, value the condition of the risk, the affected complex systems and hence the large scope of the hurricane greatly, caused the delay in the provision of the required response (Sobel & Leeson, 2006). However, even after the requirements set by the disaster became very clear to the responders, the large scope of the hurricane posed very great challenge to the provision of response services. Generally, the size of the disaster outweighed the government resources and thus could not act well during the initial times leading to much suffering. It was clear that the preparations made prior to the disaster were very poor to meet the situation. 1.3 Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Sandy stroke the East Coast in October 2012 causing adverse effects in the highly populated region of New Jersey. Heavy rains, very strong winds and storm surges caused loss of power to many people, flooding of roads to interfere with transport and consequently, many people had to seek for temporary shelter as their homes were destroyed (Force, 2013). During the disaster, around one hundred and sixty people lost their lives. The disaster simply, came to allow the country to demonstrate its ability of learning from past mistakes during Hurricane Katrina and the other similar disasters. Drawing lessons from the previous challenges encountered in the preparation and provision of response services during Katrina hurricane, the federal government, through FEMA and other departments started to place trained personnel and assets in the suspected areas before the fall of the storm (Schmeltz et.al. 2013). It also involved the state complements to provide co-ordination to the potential response as well as the relief. The federal government took the necessary steps to allow FEMA to transfer some resources to the state, tribal and local organizations to make prior preparations for the disaster. President Obama went a step ahead and advised FEMA to establish the National Power Restoration Taskforce that intended to reduce red tape and enhance co-ordination amongst all the government agencies. This aimed at restoring power and fuel rapidly, to reduce the suffering and enhance the provision of response services. All these actions revealed some substantial changes in the manner the authorities acted during Hurricane Katrina. It showed that FEMA was trying to be more proactive rather than being reactive (Schmeltz et.al. 2013). This was coming because of the efforts made by the Congress in restructuring FEMA to allow for easier access to the federal assets and enhance communication and co-ordination among all the agencies right from the federal to local level. Furthermore, upon the end of the Hurricane Sandy, the federal government took various important steps focusing mostly, on innovations, legislative reforms and partnership with the private sector (Force, 2013). The primary aim was to enable FEMA to acquire more funding for disaster preparedness and help in building areas affected. This included the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act that allowed the acquisition of fifty billion dollars. These are welcoming changes but more is yet to come to strengthen the means the country uses to deal with disasters that strike the various parts of the country. It is very true that apart from carrying out rescue activities during the disaster, there should be proper strategies to help both the people and the environment to regain its initial conditions within the shortest time possible. Lastly, the country’s efforts to strengthen its means of dealing with the issue of climate changes are very welcoming. It is very evident that some of our actions may promote or help to reduce the possibility of occurrence of these natural disasters. Many experts support the idea that these frequent disasters like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy that occurred within a very short time span, are the results of climatic changes (Schipper & Pelling, 2006). No matter how well we prepare to deal with these disasters, their occurrences will significantly, produce negative effects on our people and environment. This means that the efforts to prevent them are more important and welcoming than the efforts to prepare on how to deal with the disasters. All the organs and the people at large must join hands to deal with the problem of adverse climate changes to avoid the frequent recurrence of these disasters. 1.4 Conclusion It is very clear that for the country to win the war in dealing with the problems encountered during catastrophic disasters, it requires very high level of commitment and sacrifice from all the individuals involved. The country must work to enhance its capabilities of dealing with the problem every time and not to wait to see the warning signs of the disaster. Preparations done during the actual time of the disaster are toothless and produce no significant impacts to save the situation. The success in providing good response comes from the ability to predict the risks posed and availability of adequate resources in the suspected areas. It is evident that local agencies are very important and must play an important role in the response mission, with proper co-ordination between the various agencies at all levels. With the last steps taken by the government, it is clear that the country is heading towards the right direction and in the very near future; we may record almost zero deaths and minimum suffering from these disasters. 1.5 References Donahue, A. K., & o’Keefe, S. (2007). Universal lessons from unique events: Perspectives from Columbia and Katrina. Public Administration Review, 67(s1), 77-81. Force, H. S. R. T. (2013). Hurricane Sandy rebuilding strategy. US Department of Housing and Urban Development. August. Haddow, G., Bullock, J., & Coppola, D. P. (2013). Introduction to emergency management. Butterworth-Heinemann. Mener, A. S. (2007). Disaster response in the united states of america: an analysis of the bureaucratic and political history of a failing system. University of Pennsylvania Schipper, L., & Pelling, M. (2006). Disaster risk, climate change and international development: scope for, and challenges to, integration. Disasters, 30(1), 19-38. Schmeltz, M. T., González, S. K., Fuentes, L., Kwan, A., Ortega-Williams, A., & Cowan, L. P. (2013). Lessons from Hurricane sandy: a community response in Brooklyn, New York. Journal of Urban Health, 90(5), 799-809. Sobel, R. S., & Leeson, P. T. (2006). Governments response to Hurricane Katrina: A public choice analysis. Public Choice, 127(1-2), 55-73. Read More