What prompted me to write today was Claire Rubin sending me Stop Blaming Me for Hurricane Katrina, an opinion piece by Michael Brown.
First let me say this, I was part of the blame game 10 years ago. The draft op-ed that I had submitted to the Washington Post, in July of 2005, six weeks before the storm hit New Orleans, pointed the finger at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which was obsessed with its counterterrorism mission at the time, to the detriment of an all-hazards approach. Thus Destroying FEMA was published Aug. 30, 2005 (10 years ago today) the day after the levees failed in New Orleans, with a Katrina twist put on what I had submitted weeks earlier. It only takes a few months or years to decimate an organization with poor leadership and priorities. I'm seeing this same scenario play out today in local and state emergency organizations. FEMA in 2005 was a shell of what it was under James Lee Witt, the previous FEMA director under President Bill Clinton.
What Michael Brown points out in his op-ed is absolutely true. He didn't have the authority to do much of what needed to be done. Unfortunately what is also true, is he proved to be the "stuckee" when responsibility came home to roost. The then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff should have been relieved for his miscalculation of resources and priorities. Brown unfortunately was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like many others, he could have survived if events had not revealed the weaknesses in the federal system for which he took the fall. There was another fall guy, Bill Lokey, who hails from Washington state, and who was the federal coordinating officer (FCO) for New Orleans. He too took a fall for what happened, even though he was a competent emergency manager with state and local emergency management experience. Bad timing again. Wrong place, wrong time.
Leadership at all levels of government matter. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate's "Go big, Go early" philosophy is meant to counteract state and local emergency management organizations being slow to respond. He can't step in and take over, but by pre-positioning people and supplies he has better situational awareness and is able to react quickly when a request from a state is made.
This applies to state and counties too. If a city, for a county, or a county for a state, activates its EOC, you should do the same for your higher-level organization. Sending a liaison to their EOC helps you know in advance what type(s) of resources might be needed and you can have a head start on having those ready when called upon to supply them.
Read the comments on the Recovery Diva's blog post to see some other insights and commentary.
Lastly, don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you can figure out how to do that, let me know.
