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Why Disaster Preparedness Hasn't Worked, What Should Be Done
Published on 10/12/2005
Carlini's Comments, ePrairie's oldest column, runs every Wednesday. Its mission is to offer the common man's view on business and technology issues while questioning the leadership and visions of "pseudo" experts.
ePrairie would like to congratulate Jim Carlini for his hard work and dedication over the years as this is his 200th column.
CHICAGO - Hundreds of millions of dollars continue to be wasted in state and federal government endeavors. Asks adjunct Northwestern professor James Carlini, when will the game plan finally be changed and what needs to be done to make disaster preparedness more effective?
In reading several articles in the last couple weeks - including one in the Wall Street Journal by Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, and another interviewing Kendall Post, founding technologist of Emalert - the need to revamp and redefine emergency preparedness agencies is vastly apparent.
Though there's a lot of finger pointing and criticism starting to come out, the bottom line is that a radical revamp is needed of what has proven to be off target.
Sure, there will be some investigative committees looking into the New Orleans issues, but you wonder if they will come up with some viable directions to take. Didn't they do that after everything from 9/11? Were those emergency response ideas ever implemented? If they were, I think it's time to go back to the drawing board again.
Non-Experts Know the 'Experts' Are Wrong
For years, monies have been wasted on plans, people and material that just don't seem to cohesively fit when it comes to merging units together in a major crisis. This isn't something to blame on President Bush. This has been going on for years if not decades.
Getting critiques by Jack Welch may impress some people because of his background and success with GE, but when average consultants who have worked on various systems projects also see the shortcomings and some solutions, it's time to fire a lot of people and not just have the FEMA director resign.
Some have questioned why more federal and state people haven't been fired for incompetence in performing a duty that they have been handsomely paid for years. That is an excellent question. What have the state and local disaster preparedness coordinators and directors done in the years they've sat in their offices?
One reader of this column (who was also a former student a long time ago and is now a systems architect consultant in Colorado) sent me this observation, which ties into some of the observations from Jack Welch:
The first level in a disaster is local and state authorities. Their job is to get through the first three to four days until help can get there. They failed miserably here.
Both the Louisiana governor and mayor of New Orleans should resign. At least the FEMA director made himself accountable. Why shouldn't these elected officials own some responsibility for this disaster?
The real issue is that four years have passed since 9/11 and we are no more competent now than we were then in responding to crises (manmade or natural). After billions of dollars wasted by federal, state and local government for all this planning, coordination and toys, we are as inept now as we were then.
Unfortunately, terrorists won't give us 48-hour notice like this storm did. The package they deliver may be a lot more lethal and create much more difficult conditions in which to operate.
It should make you shudder to think of what the aftermath of one of those scenarios will look like if we get the same level of leadership and coordination that we got in this little preview. The body count will be higher and the resulting chaos might make the Katrina disaster look like a Mardi Gras party that just got out of hand.
This is a ringing wakeup call. It says that many people who are collecting a check to prepare pragmatic plans and operations that actually work are not doing a good job.
From complex coordination issues to things as simple as getting all responders on the same local radio frequency to coordinate resources and communications, there are many areas that have to be improved. Though this seems so basic, many people just haven't really thought through all the details.
They are also a victim of some very huge bureaucratic obstacles that have been in place for years, according to Emalert CTO Kendall Post, who pointed out these four barriers to better emergency preparedness:
1. There is no overall infrastructure plan for the information superhighway. There is no one super agency that is the official oversight organization.
2. Fundamental effectiveness of local emergency warning systems. In the case of New Orleans, they had 40 hours to execute a 72-hour evacuation plan.
3. Funding. This is a scattered approach where some get money for certain projects, others get nothing and none of it is coordinated. The end result is that a lot of money is wasted.
4. No umbrella organization. Even if everything was fixed, there is no real oversight manager. If FEMA was supposed to do this job, they failed.
Adopting New Procedures, Approaches
There needs to be a rethinking in the approach by many municipalities to dealing with disasters. You would think the Louisiana area would be focused on being ready for something that's as predictable as a hurricane. It would be different if they were hit with something they didn't know much about (like 30 inches of snow).
With some of the new compliance laws demanding that publicly held companies have disaster recovery plans, there seems to be some positive movement in at least thinking more about how to recover from a disaster.
What about the same requirements for municipalities so they have some policies and procedures drawn up for preparedness? If you think your municipality already has a plan, ask for a copy and find out if it's relevant to current operations.
It shouldn't be a huge task to develop a pragmatic list for cities that are faced with manmade or natural disasters. If a basic framework is given to everyone, maybe they can customize it for their specific region. Again, I know this sounds so fundamental, but where are everyone's plans?
Carlinism: Disaster planning is a must have, rather than a hoped for.
James Carlini is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. He is also president of Carlini & Associates. Carlini can be reached at james.carlini@sbcglobal.net or 773-370-1888.
Click here for Carlini's full biography. http://eprairie.com/printer/article.asp?newsletterID=12693
Reprinted with permission from James Carlini
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