Soon after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, The Washington Post threw a spotlight on three individuals who would never see the storm fade away. For Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and to a lesser extent, Alabama Gov. Bob Ri�­ley, Katrina "will define and dominate their public lives for the duration of their time in office," said a Post reporter on Sept. 1, 2005.

A public executive's leadership in a disaster could well become his or her most important legacy. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's performance in the days after 9/11 - his strong manage�­ment, effective coordination of emergency response, and frequent appear�­ances on radio and TV - made him a national figure. Some believe it could one day make him president.

Similarly a governor's performance in an emergency - and what that performance says about his or her ability to manage - may well shape that governor's future career.

The list of emergencies for which states need to prepare is daunting in size and variety. While not every hurricane makes landfall in the United States, state and local officials in storm-prone regions must prepare as though each of them will. In some parts of the United States, tornadoes often threaten property and lives. Wildfires also tax the resources of emergency responders year after year.

Along with disasters that recur many times in a season, governors must prepare for the kinds of events that, although rare, exact terrible costs, such as floods.

A governor who excels in emergency planning and response has mastered five key areas: network activation, coordination and management; information sharing; logistics; risk management; and governance and leadership.

Activation, Coordination, Management
Emergency management and response is, first and foremost, about integrating disparate organizations - the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), first responders, local governments, Red Cross, nonprofits, private companies - into functioning networks that share information, coordinate activities and synchronize responses to prepare for widespread emergencies and respond to them when they occur.

However, without augmenting the Incident Command System - an element of the National Response Plan - with effective network coordination and management, the response to any emergency will likely be untimely or ineffective. Organizations duplicate efforts, while other vital needs fall through the cracks. Lack of knowledge of assigned roles in the network prevents these organizations from performing their duties. Lack of coordination means affected areas wait days for FEMA to deliver various goods and services, while FEMA officials wait for affected states to issue formal requests. Lack of interoperable database systems means organizations can't effectively track requests for assistance. In short, the lack of a networked approach typically means a slow, uncoordinated, overly rigid, procedure-bound response.

The most important principle to ensuring an integrated, networked response is that state government's role isn't necessarily to stand in the center, shoulder the main burden, and call upon partners to supplement its efforts here and there. Instead, state government's role is to coordinate a network of networks.

Public officials must identify effective emergency response networks that already exist, allow each of them to do the work they do best and encourage these groups to multiply their power by working together.

State governments can also identify needs unmet by any exist�­ing organization and devise ways to fill those gaps. The networked model of emergency response augments the command-and-control model the United States has traditionally employed to manage disasters. The question for a governor should be: How do I bring together the resources necessary to execute our shared mission as well as possible?

The first key step in developing a networked emergency management response is convening and activating the network. A government can assemble parties whose