Upgrading Emergency Preparedness and Response

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 intense yet narrow knowledge will provoke valu�­able insights when deployed in conjunction with others. Often nonprofit organizations are so overwhelmed with demands for their core services that they lack the time or resources to find and interact with others even in the same sphere. Using their convening authority as a catalyst, an official can provide a venue for organizations and individuals with similar goals, find common ground, and perhaps even find ways to divide labor and share resources, making each more effective and efficient than before.

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee demonstrated exactly this kind of leadership when the White House asked his state to house evacuees after Hurricane Katrina. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, met with church leaders to arrange for 8,000 to 9,000 evacuees from the New Orleans Superdome to stay at church camps throughout his state.

Without Huckabee's actions, the church network would not have come into existence. While the churches had their own networks within the com�­munity, their leaders rarely communicated with one another. Since church leaders serve as community leaders, their influence led to an outpouring of volunteers to attend to the evacuees.

The second step is creating the networked governance structure. Taking a group of organizations with substantial professional differences and tacking them together at the top level can be a recipe for failure. First, set up an effective network governance structure. The more points of contact among the players, the more likely trust and com�­munication will flourish. Success depends on quickly identifying and resolv�­ing any friction points. Joint governance structures that address strategy, management and organizational activities can frame a successful network by setting out the network's overall vision and strategy, bringing areas of contention between network members to the forefront early on, antici�­pating problem areas and establishing ways of handling them.

Governance structures also must incorporate procedures for promoting innovation and managing change. Governments must create at the outset a streamlined way to capture innovative ideas and suggestions from their partners. Since many citizens clearly wish to help in any way dur�­ing an emergency, governments would also do well to leverage that spirit. Individuals accomplish amazing things during an emergency. Governments can provide the leadership and tools to turn independent gestures into organized efforts and accomplish much more.

The third step is coordinating activities and synchronizing responses. Gov�­ernment can also provide the infrastructure that allows organizations to share information. Take a city facing a terrorist threat to its water system. The group of individuals charged with responding to such a threat might in�­clude FEMA representatives, state environment officials, local hospitals, environmental groups, public utility executives, local law enforcement officers and building inspectors.

Some states and regions have established fusion centers to collaborate on emergency planning and management. While these were initially formed to bring together law enforcement agencies from multiple jurisdictions and layers of governments, there is a trend to include representatives from the private sector as well as personnel responsible for health surveillance, agriculture surveillance and transportation infrastructure.

A basic requirement for any of these networks to function would be an electronic coordination mechanism that allows disparate groups to share information in real time and synchronize their response.

Although technology is critical, states must also build strong relationships when creating an emergency management network. Successful networks rely, at least partly, on trust. Without trust, network participants shy away from sharing knowledge, hindering coordination among them. Networks operating with a high level of trust, in contrast, lower the costs associated with inter-organizational exchanges.

The fourth step is realigning the state's organizational structure and governance. Many states rely on emergency management organizational structures estab�­lished years ago, based upon strict hierarchies and administrative silos. A government creating an integrated emergency management network needs to take a long, hard look at its structure, organizational culture and information architecture. Once officials understand the current situation, they can determine what changes are needed to encourage better information sharing, collaborative activity and flexibility.

The U.S. Coast Guard's performance in the Katrina response provides a good example. During the storm, the Coast Guard rescued 33,000 people, reconstituted waterways, conducted environmental assessments and restored buoys and channel markers. Critical to the Coast Guard's success was the flexibility in the command structure that allowed those in the field to exercise their own discretion.

 

Information Sharing
One of the most critical elements of a networked emergency response is the ability to share information. Many failures that occurred on 9/11, and in the response to Hurricane Katrina were, at bottom, failures to communicate. 

While technology is important, governance structures that support ef�­fective information flows are even more so. Actions a government can take to improve information sharing include making specific plans that spell out the types of information that need to be collected; the organizations responsible for collections; data-sharing uses; guidelines and standards for shared information; and technology tools for information management and collection, including databases, accountability systems, logistics systems and approaches to track injuries or illness among responders.

All in all, there are seven principles for creating an effec�­tive information-sharing plan, according to physical scientist Brian Jackson's testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform in March 2006:

1.      Set clear goals: All partners collaborating in an emergency management network should outline what they hope to achieve by sharing information. Top officials working for government, nonprofit and private organizations must define what kinds of information they need from partners and how quickly they need it.

2.      Get buy-in at the top: Because information sharing represents a fundamental shift for a government organization, it must be driven by someone with the authority and influence to make decisions and get people in line. In most cases, only the agency head (or perhaps a top deputy) has that kind of clout. Leaders must be directly involved in making things happen, sitting down with counterparts from other agencies and organizations to hammer through the details. Many agencies view information sharing as a technology issue and as such assign it to the IT group. This is a mistake. In most cases, the real issue is getting people to change their behavior. Dumping the problem on IT won't get the hard work done.

3.      Create a culture of sharing: Before 9/11, agencies designed their policies and approval processes to keep information from leaking out. They shared only on a "need to know" basis. Today, government's philosophy has generally shifted to a "need to share." But in many cases, the restrictive practices and policies of the past live on, hampering collaboration. To create a culture of sharing, government leaders must analyze their policies and establish new ones where necessary. But that's only the start. It's important to reinforce those policies with perforÃ?­mance measures, incentives, training programs and job definitions that will change the way people think and act. Leaders should also streamline and automate approval processes to make sharing information just as easy as not sharing. In short, make sharing the rule, not the exception. This does not mean government agencies should share everything. But the sharing process becomes easier if partners asÃ?­sume that they will make visible most of the information relevant to an emergency response, and then create mechanisms for controlling the smaller volume of information that needs to be restricted.

4.      Create a governance model.

5.      Establish communication protocols: It is difficult to route the right information to the right parties unless it has been properly classified and organized. Government agencies need to creÃ?­ate guidelines defining what information should be produced as part of an emergency response, with whom it should be shared and how that sharing should be accomplished.

6.      Implement appropriate technology: FEMA has developed an information system that contains documentaÃ?­tion on millions of police, firefighters and other first responders. The aim of the National Emergency Responder Credentialing System is to identify those emergency personnel who should be allowed to enter the scene of a disaster or terrorist attack. Several states have implemented statewide radio systems, which provide a shared communications pipeline for all of their own agencies. Local govÃ?­ernments that want to join the network can buy new equipment based on the same standards as the state's system, or they can implement "gateway" technologies to connect their existing systems to the state's. A state's emergency plan should also include a communications system that doesn't require land-based infrastructure, and that will continue to opÃ?­erate if towers and base stations are destroyed. A satellite-based network is one possibility. Another is an ad hoc mesh network. Governments also need to evaluate their legacy systems to find out whether they already promote information sharing, or whether the emergency management network suffers from a proÃ???Ã??Ã?­liferation of information silos.

7.      Mitigate risks: Public- and private-sector partners must understand how the information they provide to one another might be used outside the context of emergency management. They might need to create legal contracts that spell out how differÃ?­ent classifications of information may be used by the different partners. Governments creating emergency response plans also must anticipate how they will accommodate laws that protect citizens' privacy.

 

Logistics
While difficulties during a disaster may provoke blame and finger pointing, one group often finds itself singled out for praise. Those are the major U.S. retailers - the Wal-Marts, Home Depots and other big box stores. News reports after Hurricane Katrina, and after the hurricanes that washed over Florida in 2004, tell the story: how fast the trucks started rolling; how soon the stores reopened to meet demand for plywood, mops, bleach, generators, food and water; how quickly the corporations also came through with donated goods. Transportation and logistics firms such as DHL Corp., UPS and FedEx are also known for contributing manpower, equipment and much-needed expertise to disaster relief around the world.

One lesson that states and their relief agency partners should learn from the private sector is the importance of logistics. This is the science of mov�­ing the right goods to the right place at the right time. Leading corpo�­rations long ago stopped treating logistics as an afterthought. Companies recognize that logistics is a core function that requires strategic planning and a serious investment of time and resources. Done right, it cuts costs, improves service and boosts the bottom line.

In emergency management, getting the right goods to the right place at the right time is also vital. Long before a need emerges for emergency equipment and supplies, leaders must develop strategies for procurement, transportation and distribution. Without such strategies, other aspects of the emergency plan will fall apart. Evacuation centers, for example, serve no purpose if they aren't stocked with enough food, water, bedding, toilet paper and other supplies to meet the needs of the people who shelter there. Depending on the emergency, the ability to quickly bring in sandbags, firefighting equipment, sump pumps, medication or other vital supplies can mean the difference between success and failure. A well conceived logistics program saves effort, money and lives.

The first step is to understand the nature of, and interrelationships among, key variables that make up the risk. The assessment addresses these questions:

• What could go wrong (threat)?
• What could cause it to go wrong (drivers)?
• How likely is it to go wrong (probability)?
• What are the consequences?
• How vulnerable are we?

The real killers - often, unfortunately, in the literal sense of the word - are risks that carry very serious consequences but happen rarely. Until recently most managers didn't pay much attention to these risks because the odds against them happening "on their watch" were rather low. But in the rare event that they do occur, the harm they cause is so extreme that neglecting to plan for them leaves the public dangerously vulnerable. Virtually all ter�­rorist actions fall into this category. The chance that terrorists will strike most locations is small. But as most locations have no particular safeguards against terrorists, they are highly vulnerable, and a successful attack on them would cause tremendous damage.

Then, for each risk, one can decide on the appropriate strategy:

• RISK ACCEPTANCE. The risks may be negligible, and risk reducÃ?­tion may not be worth the effort or feasible.
• RISK AVOIDANCE. Take a path that avoids the risk. For example, if a particular technology poses significant risk, abandon research on it.
• RISK TRANSFER. Transfer the risk to insurance or a third party.
• RISK REDUCTION. Change policies and processes, tune up supportÃ?­ing infrastructure, set up training, define organizaÃ?­tional roles and responsibilities and wrap all these activities in a "quality" and continuous improvement envelope.

Evaluating risk appetite sets the overall priorities for developing emergency response capabilities - both those that would apply to a broad range of emergencies and those tailored to specific risks.

 

Risk Management
In this stage, government officials develop risk-specific policies, organizational roles and responsibilities, and training. Risk management involves building and sustaining capabilities to support the plans and priorities de�­veloped during the risk assessment process. These capabilities include:

• policies - strategy, operations, finance;
• organizational and people strategies;
• support infrastructure including technologies; and
• processes for assessment and continuous improvement.

Each organization responsible for emergency management should assess its capabilities to manage risk, starting with a "gap analysis" to illuminate any shortcomings in the management process - as aligned with the organiza�­tion's risk appetite. A gap analysis begins with describing the process for re�­sponding to a crisis or catastrophe. By describing the process, and surfacing and reconciling conflicting points of view, government agencies can better explain, predict and prescribe improvements in policies, organization, infra-structure and technology for emergency response.

Policies should provide unambiguous direction about roles, responsibil�­ities and standard operating procedures to follow as a catastrophe unfolds.

Organizational and people strategies should clearly delineate responsi�­bilities within and among organizations. One useful tool is a memorandum of understanding that defines the role of each state and local agency, nonprofit and private-sector partner expected to respond in an emergency. Partners should conduct training to make sure everyone understands the command, control and communications protocols; knows how to use the necessary tech�­nology; and can step into his or her role as soon as it's time to implement an emergency plan. Also needed are well defined procedures for interfacing with stakeholders - citizens groups, utility and transportation companies and health-care organizations - as well as with the media. Support infrastructure includes communication technology and processes to keep all levels of gov�­ernment connected, from first responders to executive management.

Assessment and continuous improvement recognize that perfection won't come easily or immediately. Governments need to develop controls to ensure that everyone understands expectations and that participants continuously measure their progress toward the goal. The goal is to move to a capability maturity model, in which the response to risk is no longer an ad hoc exercise, but rather a well managed process, if not an entirely "opti�­mized" one. If such a model had been applied in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina, for example, none of the first responders would have needed to strike deals on the spot with retail managers to obtain food, water, ammunition, flashlights and other goods, or commandeer those goods first and make deals later. There would have been plans in place to equip responders for their jobs, with clear backup plans in case they couldn't obtain supplies and equipment from the expected sources.

 

Governance and Leadership
How a state rises to the challenge of emergency management depends very much on the leadership shown by its governor. The state's chief executive should be the chief evangelist for a networked emergency response. He or she should understand the risks facing the state, put mechanisms in place to answer each risk, promote mitigation strategies and lead the charge to restructure government in ways that encourage collaboration.

States have developed several strategies for organizing their homeland security and emergency management infrastructures. Popular approaches include:

• Creating a homeland security department whose director coordinates emergency management, law enforcement, fire and rescue, public health, National Guard, transportation, public works and information technology activities related to homeland security and also advises the governor.
• Appointing the adjutant general, head of the state's NaÃ?­tional Guard, as homeland security adviser.
• Forming a homeland security task force, composed of execuÃ?­tive office staff and agency heads from areas such as law enÃ?­forcement, fire and rescue, public health, the National Guard, transportation, public works and information technology.

The first governance model appears to work best for ensuring high-level attention to emergency response and a single individual who can be held accountable by the governor.

This article is an adaptation of chapter seven - Upgrading Emergency Preparedness and Response - in The Governor's Book: States of Transition.