End of Katrina Trailer Parks; New FEMA Expectations?

Here's a poignant and pointed story by the NYT on the shuttering of the last FEMA trailer parks and the still-vulnerable people who are struggling to leave. The tone that reporter Shaila Dewan takes in this story with respect to FEMA is an appropriate one -- painting them as an highly imperfect agency (who isn't?) that has had egregiously unfair expectations put on them.

FEMA, which ultimately is a disaster-response agency, not a social service department, endured years of blistering criticism for its failure to understand that many New Orleans residents needed more than just a roof over their heads after the hurricane. The agency now is quick to admit that other agencies are better equipped to handle persistent social ills. Its job in cases like that of Ms. August, FEMA officials say, is limited to getting her housed.

Now I'm the first to criticize our country's (over-)emphasis on emergency preparedness and emergency management, rather than social vulnerability reduction and sustainable development. However, I think a lot of the specific criticisms of post-Katrina/Rita FEMA were unwarranted. First, it wasn't FEMA that made cuts to itself and made it a small fish in a ginormous Department of Homeland Security pond. Second, as the above quote hints at, FEMA is an *emergency management* agency. It should be supported in this role and not overstretched to meet public demands that can be met better by other agencies and perhaps even the private sector. The point ultimately is that we as a government and society need to mainstream disaster risk reduction and sustainable development (two sides of the same coin).

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Do Presidential Candidates Understand Disaster Risk Reduction?

The recent news cycle describing John McCain's visit to New Orleans to criticize the Bush administration's response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe made me curious how the three current presidential candidates compare on the issue of community resilience and each compares with what the experts say on the topic.

To see my quick comparison, keep reading.

John McCain

Unfortunately, the McCain campaign doesn't have anything on its website related specifically to Hurricane Katrina, emergency management, hazard mitigation, etc. Interestingly, they don't even have links to the New Orleans news coverage in the "In the News Section." So all I can go on are the news stories about his New Orleans campaign stop. For example, this New York Times article describes McCain as making three general recommendations:

1. Use qualified people


2. Allocate as much money in the recovery phase as is necessary


3. Utilize the private sector, like FedEx, UPS, etc. in the response phase

Hilary Clinton

Clinton's campaign does have a section on their website specifically devoted to Hurricane Katrina and what could be done to prevent future catastrophe. The campaign lists 10 points related to disaster response and mitigation, though most of them are specific to on-going recovery in the Gulf Coast:

1. Elevate the Gulf Coast federal rebuilding director


2. Cut red tape


3. Attract workers to rebuild New Orleans and the region


4. Build a reliable hurricane protection system so there is not another Katrina


5. Expand affordable housing


6. Combat rising crime and give first responders needed tools


7. Build 21st Century schools in New Orleans


8. Revitalize a lagging health care system


9. Promote smart development


10. Revamp federal response so we are ready next time

Barack Obama

Obama's campaign definitely gets the nod for having the most verbiage on the issue, with a Hurricane Katrina fact sheet [PDF file] posted. The major points in the fact sheet are the following (caps below are theirs):

1. REBUILD NOW STRONGER THAN EVER




1. SAFETY AND SECURITY




1. Strengthen the Levees


2. Restore the Wetlands


3. Fight Crime




2. INFRASTRUCTURE




1. Shake the Money Loose


2. Rebuild Hospitals


3. Rebuild Schools


4. Restore Housing


5. Improve Transportation




3. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT




1. Ensure Locals Can Get Recovery Jobs


2. Provide Incentives to Employers in Hardest-Hit Areas


3. Support Financial Infrastructure


4. Fix FEMA Insurance Rules






2. NEVER AGAIN




1. Fix FEMA


2. Fix the Small Business Administration


3. Adequately Plan for Emergency


4. Direct Rebuilding Efforts from the White House


5. Minimize Waste and Abuse


6. Provide an Insurance Backstop

The "Experts"

Of course there are many experts related to various facets of emergencies and disasters and there is not a enough room to put all their views here. So I chose one expert, Kathleen Tierney, who gave congressional testimony on this subject [PDF file]. As part of her testimony she discussed the following seven points towards reducing the potential for another Katrina-scale disaster:

1. Ensure that the nation develops a fully-functional intergovernmental emergency management system, placing a priority on the nation’s most vulnerable urban areas.


2. Ensure that an all-hazards approach to emergency management is implemented at all levels of government.


3. Ensure that FEMA and other crisis-relevant organizations center their efforts on comprehensive emergency management [meaning all phases: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery].


4. Explore organizational arrangements and authorities that de-politicize high leadership positions within FEMA, DHS, and other crisis-relevant organizations.


5. Invest in and mobilize institutions that provide the “backbone” for effective emergency management.
   
6. Develop and implement a strategic emergency management workforce strategy for the nation.


7. Build oversight, accountability, and evaluation into emergency management programs at all levels of government.

The Verdict

Sorry, there's no verdict. This is just a quick (i.e., way longer than intended) blog post and the information synthesized is incomplete and not directly comparable.

That said, it's interesting to note the emphasis of each of the above on the components of resilience (loss reduction and recovery facilitation). The emphasis overall seems to be on response/recovery, rather than risk reduction.

Isn't it always? [Sigh.]

McCain makes no mention of loss reduction, unless of course the qualified person he would appoint will focus on it. Clinton does not specifically mention loss reduction, but certainly investing in flood protection, smart development, good schools, and quality housing could count as risk reduction, depending on how implemented. Obama mentions several similar points, in addition to restoring wetlands, investing in transportation infrastructure, and taking a local approach to economic development. Tierney was asked to testify specifically on issues of response and recovery, but if you read her testimony she takes many opportunities to emphasize the important of loss reduction, particularly in her points 1, 2, and 3.

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Emergency planning in our schools

Over the last week, I have been in Los Angeles talking with school administrators about emergency plans. This is in preparation for the largest earthquake drill California has ever done - the Great Southern California ShakeOut scheduled for November 13, 2008. In the process I have been inducted into some of the real-world headaches of school emergency planning.


At the Team Safe-T office, a non-profit organization helping to create education material on safety, emegency preparedness and social responsibility, I learned of the hazards of doing earthquake drills....not the hazards of a real earthquake, but the hazards of the drill.

Every time there is a fire drill or earthquake drill, the students file out of the building. In some inner city LA schools, some students go to the designated field and are accounted for. Others just disappear- and get in trouble. Following the drill, teachers cannot account for all of their students. The number of hall fights and vandalism goes up that day. Police report increased gang violence on the days schools do such drills.

Fire and earthquake drills are mandated by the state of California, yet so is keeping students in school and learning. Its a tough call and some school administrators have chosen to stop doing drills. This does not bode well for an actual emergency. Students and staff will be unprepared and unpracticed. Moreover, what is occuring in drills may very well indicate major issues that could arise in a real emergency. Following a major earthquake, staff charged with accounting for students and searching for injured and unaccounted students may be looking for students who have left the premises all together. Looting may also be an intensified issue if students take off after the shaking subsides. I also do not envy the school administrators facing anxious parents and telling them then have no idea where their kids are.

In other conversations, I heard about issues of special needs kids. Students on life-saving medication may not have extra supplies to last until their parents can re-unify with them. Nor may staff have the authority to administer needed medications, even if it was on the premises.

Finally, I read a recent new report out of Florida where post-hurricane building code improvements for schools is interfering with police radios. You can look at the article yourself here. Hurricane-resistant concrete walls are so thick they block police radios and have led to difficulties in on-premise police calling for back-up when dealing with security issues.

There are obviously a lot of questions to ask about how to better address the underlying causes of school violence and how to address the needs of disabled students. Those larger questions aside, I was reminded of the vast difference between clear-cut emergency plans on paper and the complicated reality that occurs when they are implemented.

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Hummers: Our response to climate change?

Naomi Klein writes in The Nation today about two "growth industries" -- green technology and homeland security -- noting that last year, by revenue, they were neck and neck, and this year homeland security is seen as the better investment:

The market, however, appears to have other ideas about how to meet the challenges of an increasingly disaster-prone world. According to Lloyd, despite all the government incentives, the really big money is turning away from clean energy technologies and banking instead on gadgets promising to seal wealthy countries and individuals into high-tech fortresses. Key growth areas in venture capitalism are private security firms selling surveillance gear and privatized emergency response. Put simply, in the world of venture capitalism, there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand and guns and garrisons on the other--and the guns are winning.

According to Venture Business Research, in 2006 North American and European companies developing green technology and those focused on "homeland security" and weaponry were neck and neck in the contest for new investment: green tech received $3.5 billion, and so did the guns and garrisons sector. But this year garrisons have suddenly leapt ahead. The greens have received $4.2 billion, while the garrisons have nearly doubled their money, collecting $6 billion in new investment funds. And 2007 isn't over yet.

Klein notes that there is more profit in continuous protection, recurring escape, and privatized emergency response -- just what we need: a "pay to save" emergency management program! -- than in investing to mitigate the hazard and reduce risk. This is similar to the argument that pharmaceutical companies focus on developing drugs that treat symptoms, rather than eradicate disease.

This "disaster capitalism" trend (as Klein calls it) is summed up well by HOPE: Hummer Owners Prepared for Emergencies. Buy a Hummer so you can save people from the floods resulting from the more severe and frequent storms caused by high CO2 emissions from your Hummer!

I do agree with Klein's general argument here. But one thing she leaves untouched is the fact that even those who are investing in "green technologies" are taking a similar for-profit, silver-bullet approach, rather than "investing" in behavior changes that require no new technologies and won't make much money for anyone (but will still reduce our risk of disaster).

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John Stewart on the Cycle of Emergency Management

Criticism is good. We, as scholars, educators, and the merely curious, can all agree on that, right? So in that spirit, I want to link to John Stewart and The Daily Show, who have done an amusing job of criticizing emergency management in the United States. Of course, they have focused primarily on FEMA. One segment in particular, which I use in class, focuses on a general concept of traditional emergency management: the CEM or cycle of emergency management:



And he's right of course: The impact and costs of disasters have and continue to increase. Thus, we need to remind ourselves that much of what we are doing isn't working! We need (and are in the process of experiencing) major shifts in thinking about disasters and how to reduce their likelihood.

We hope criticism, such as above, will be a jumping off point for IGCR, our colleagues far and wide, and citizens of the world for a cultural shift toward disaster risk reduction.

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