1) In “Lessons In Resilience From New Orleans,” Robert Kates, a scholar studying human development patterns, offered some lessons on building resilient communities derived from the history of New Orleans. The lessons are:

The United States is vulnerable to enormous disasters despite being the richest and most powerful nation on earth, creating community resilience is a long-term process, surprises should be expected, the  best scientific and technological knowledge does not get used or widely disseminated, Major response capability and resources were invisible, refused, or poorly used, Disasters accelerate existing pre-disaster trends, overall vulnerability to hurricanes has grown from multiple causes, and efforts to provide protection reduced vulnerability to frequent small events but increased vulnerability to rare catastrophic events.

In regard to citizen involvement in developing that resilience, Kates argues:

In coping with extreme events from climate change and other hazards, there is much talk of partnerships. In every disaster there are unanticipated or unaddressed needs and “shadow responders” often emerge from households, friends and family, neighborhoods, non-governmental and voluntary organizations, businesses, and industry. In responding to Katrina, they were sometimes refused or poorly used by government officials, even though they provided most of the initial evacuation capacity, sheltering, feeding, health care, and rebuilding, and much of the search and rescue, cleanup, and post-Katrina funding. For resilient communities, in advance of hazard events, the tri-level system (city, state, federal) of emergency response needs to welcome, effectively use, collaborate with, and coordinate the combined public and private efforts.

The full post can be found here.

A flooded New Orleans in wake of Hurricane Katrina (Photo: Vincent Foret/New York Times)

The other post, “Building Resilience On A Turbulent Planet,” is an interview is with Robert R.M. Verchick, the director of Loyola University’s Center for Environmental Law and Land Use. He’s on leave as a deputy associate administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, where he is working on developing a national plan for adapting to climate change. Verchick is also the author of a new book, Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World (Harvard Univ. Press).

I thought I would excerpt one question and answer from the interesting interview:

Q: One glaring question is why — even here in a rich, scientifically enabled country — we still tolerate and even subsidize building in harm’s way? (For instance: “Climate Experts Warn of More Coastal Building” and “Development Rises on St. Louis Area Flood Plains.”)

A: Here are two of the biggest reasons, which are related: markets and psychology. Our economic and political markets do not correctly value the benefit of keeping people and development out of harm’s way. Businesses, for instance, have large economic incentives to exploit or develop cheap land — land which could provide a protective barrier from storm surge or which could be a flood plain that would put a proposed residential area at future risk…

When markets fail, government should step in to protect people. But that is hard when regulated businesses and single-issue lobby groups press (sometimes fiercely) for policies that benefit their shorter-term economic interests. The surrounding neighbors can’t compete in this political marketplace because, again, they lack information and, in addition, they lack political access.

…At this point you might be saying, “Well if people just thought about the long-term consequences, businesses and politicians wouldn’t fall for this market-failure trick.” True enough, and this brings us to my point about psychology. Natural disasters are, for the most part, low-probability, high-impact events. Such events — called “black swans” — are notoriously hard to plan for. In the normal course of public protection, government officials are used to managing threats to safety or the environment according to a loose formula in which risk is the product of an event’s probability multiplied by its potential harm. This equation helps set government priorities and in some cases dictates the amount that the public and private sectors will spend on protective measures, including levees and dams, and risk-pooling arrangements like subsidized flood insurance (to refer to your examples from the Times articles).

But if that’s your only decision-making tool, a black swan will eat you for lunch. One reason is that human beings are not very good at evaluating low-probability occurrences and routinely underestimate their significance. We’re pretty good at comparing, say, a 50 percent risk to a 25 percent risk. But when risks fall below 1 percent, we stare at our shoes and reduce all likelihood to zero.

That’s why you probably don’t think much about a major earthquake striking Manhattan or a tsunami battering the Oregon coast, even though each has happened and will probably happen again. It’s why most people never even consider buying insurance for long-term nursing care, although it makes sense statistically. Even experts fall prey to this bias. While assessing flood-control measures before Hurricane Katrina, scientists used a model storm that included data from decades of past events, but that intentionally left out data for two of the strongest storms (Hurricane Camille of 1969 and the Keys Storm of 1935) because they were not judged “reasonably characteristic of the Gulf.”

A second difficulty with black swan events is that because they come in so many shapes and sizes, it is hard to imagine how the next one will be triggered. Too often, we look only in the rear-view mirror, preparing to save ourselves from the last disaster we still remember. We imagine we can avoid our problems with a narrow set of fixes. Worried about tankers leaking off the Alaska coast? Require double-hulled vessels. Terrorists with shoe bombs? Slide your heels and loafers through a scanner. Later this summer, we’ll probably be debating the need for sonar shut-off valves on blowout preventers. By all means, let’s fill the safety gaps revealed in hindsight. But in preparing for the next worst case, what we need more than anything else is imagination.

The full second post can be found here.

When I was diagnosed with a life threatening disease at age 45, some would tell me I was young to have to face mortality. But throughout my treatment I’ve always felt that whether I survived my illness or not, I was lucky to have so many years — unlike the 21-year-olds who have died really young in Helmand, Balud, Quang Tri, Peleliu and the many other battles of our nation’s history.

And, on this day, we also must honor the sacrifice of military families. In a New York magazine issue marking the fifth anniversary of 9/11, a sociology professor made the point that the impact of the nation’s response to the September 11th attacks have fallen predominately on military communities. And, as deep as the wounds are here in New York and in Washington, D.C. from 9/11, it is now primarily in towns from around the U.S. where the impact of our response continues to be felt everyday by uniformed personnel and their families.

So, thank you. Though I realize it is hardly enough.

Mary McHugh in front of the Arlington Cemetery grave of her fiance Army Ranger James ‘Jimmy’ Regan who was killed by a road side bomb in Iraq in 2007.

Though this has not been the best of my 46 years, I am very lucky for a lot of reasons. As of my last blood test on Wednesday, the disease is still in remission. I am feeling good and am now just trying to get myself into shape. I’m back playing basketball, though as one of the players in my regular game has pointed out, chemotherapy has not improved my jump shot.

This blog and its community has been very important to my recovery. I appreciate all the kindness, advice and encouragement I have received from so many people throughout the year.

My own personal disaster has ended up teaching me a lot about the subject matter covered on the blog. It has given me new insight on dealing with trauma, risk, resilience, communicating difficult subjects and even the terror color alerts — though, of course, I would have preferred to learn these lessons in another way! My own crisis and recovery process has energized me even more to work on the preparedness of my community and the nation.

There’s an emergency management truism that disaster response is often as strong as the support systems and community before the crisis. And, it has proved true for me over the past year. Starting at home with my remarkable wife who has made this all as easy for me as physically possible and my two girls who have been profiles in courage. My mom and dad have gone above and beyond for me this year like they have for the previous 45. My brother, as always, has had my back from moment one. And, my mother-in-law has been an incredible help to us throughout.

I am also lucky that much of the rest of my family is here in New York, and I have drawn great sustenance from them. One relative in Boston, a distinguished doctor, has been a constant source of wisdom and optimism no matter how his beloved Red Sox and Bruins did the night before. And, I am lucky to have such good friends who have provided so much support to me and my family — whether it was delivering dinner to us every Friday night, checking in with an email, including me in their prayers, or volunteering to donate blood.

I now have a new appreciation for blood donors. As I sat in the hospital clinic getting infusions as part of my treatment, I looked forward to the time when I would be able to donate myself and return the favor. (I subsequently found out that once you get Leukemia you can never give blood again, but I hope to give back in other ways.) I am particularly fortunate to have had access to state-of-the-art medical care: a doctor who is not only brilliant but empathetic; her physician’s assistant who makes every visit pleasant even when she’s probing my hip bone; and the uniformally skilled and kind nurses on the oncology floor (where I hope only to return to visit).

On Thursday night, I took part in my first “Light The Night” walk sponsored by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s New York Chapter. It was overwhelming to see thousands of participants and volunteers braving the blustery wind and cold rain on the Brooklyn Bridge to support the efforts of those working on blood cancers. It was exhilarating to be able to mark this milestone in that way.

WALKING ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE THURSDAY NIGHT AT THE LEUKEMIA & LYMPHOMA SOCIETY’S “LIGHT UP THE NIGHT”

This past week, I happened to hear Roseanne Cash’s beautiful song, “God Is In The Roses,” for the first time. It seemed so fitting for how I feel about the past year (and the lyrics are particularly appropriate for a disaster blog):

God is in the roses/The petals and the thorns/Storms out on the oceans/The souls who will be born/And every drop of rain that falls/Falls for those who mourn/God is in the roses and the thorns

Yes, there have been some thorns this year, but it has also underscored how many roses I have to be thankful for. And, sometimes it takes a crisis to remind you of that. Thanks, everyone.

IN SAN FRANCISCO, ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY STUDENTS LISA ALLEN AND SHAOFU ZHANG DROPPING AND COVERING AS PART OF THE GREAT CALIFORNIA SHAKEOUT (Photo: Associated Press)

Schools, businesses, emergency responders and hospitals across the state took part in the drill which came two days short of 20 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake that killed 63 people in the San Francisco-area. To get a sense of how individuals throughout California readied for the simulated 7.8 quake, some participant photos are here.

The ShakeOut offers many lessons for citizen preparedness, including the value of picking one day to focus on, involving adults and children together, as well as making things fun. This is the type major civilian preparedness drill that should be replicated in states and localities around the U.S., tailored of course to the particular risks in that area. But I would argue that taking events like these — and other local preparedness models —  and spreading throughout the nation would be made far easier if there was a federal citizen preparedness person/office responsible for helping coordinate the issue.

By the way, I checked the three cable news channels at 1:15 ET, and none of them picked up the ShakeOut live. As they weren’t covering any other breaking news (the boy in the flying balloon coverage would not start for a couple more hours), it would have been nice had they given this great preparedness event live national exposure. But there’s another chance: on Saturday, another major earthquake preparedness drill, ‘The Big Rumble,” will take place in San Francisco.

Our success weathering the storm depended on how prepared we were and how much we were willing to come together. Here, five lessons to remember for next time:

Numbers often deceive
Galveston natives or longtime residents of the island are accustomed to storms and storm warnings. Coming two years after Hurricane Rita, the evacuation from which proved difficult and unnecessary, Ike brought skepticism. Those who figured the storm would lose its punch and come ashore as a middling and survivable Category 2 hurricane were proved right, sort of. The winds topped out at about 100 mph over land. But the size of the storm, with its broad wind field of hundreds of miles, pushed more water ashore than many expected – a storm surge of 15-20 feet that swamped the island and destroyed many homes on Bolivar Peninsula. That prompted an official change from the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale to S-S Wind Scale to emphasize that the velocity of the wind and the size of the surge may not be directly connected. Ike’s winds caused plenty of damage, but it was the surge that proved so devastating to coastal areas, in some cases up to 30 miles inland.

No power to the people
A direct hit from a hurricane will surely take down the power grid. The only question is for how long. In the case of Ike, the lengthy power outages afterward affected an estimated 2.6 million people and hindered the ability of municipalities to provide normal power and sewer service because of poor backup power sources at pump stations. The limited evacuation also meant a lot of people living for days or weeks without electricity. A Rice University study reported that more than 50 percent of those surveyed lost power for five days and a third for more than 10 days. Putting utilities underground might be smart – areas such as Clear Lake or the Galleria with underground lines were not without power for long – but the cost makes it a nonstarter for a large-scale retrofit, and if the lines do go down sometimes they can take longer to fix. Better to take matters into your own hands. If you want a working fridge and maybe a little AC, you need to invest in a standby power generator that runs on natural gas or propane and puts out 7 kw or more of power. They are expensive, from $2,000 up to $15,000 for the most powerful units, but a great amenity if you have the means. A gasoline-powered generator is cheap, portable and a big help, but the juice it puts out is not likely to run the average home. And you better stockpile lots of fuel.

Prepare, and then prepare some more
A few things are certain in the aftermath of a hurricane strike: Death, destruction, discomfort and inconvenience. The only variable is how much. Coping has a lot to do with preparation. Ike showed again that people rarely have enough nonperishable food, water, gasoline, batteries and devices that make life easier in the absence of electricity, including battery-powered lanterns and fans. It’s not as if people don’t have plenty of warning for a hurricane, but there is a general expectation of normality returning within a few days. That did not happen this time because of power problems. Municipalities prepared better for Ike than ever before – more targeted evacuation zones, planning for people with special needs, the arrangement of transportation and shelters, and cleanup crews that started work quickly after the storm passed. One disturbing point made by the Rice study is that those evacuating from mandatory zones still did not leave early enough, meaning the gridlock seen in advance of Hurricane Rita would have occurred again if more people from other areas had left. Given the headaches caused by lengthy power outages, that’s a possibility next time.

Better and smarter building makes sense
Hurricanes may not discriminate, but the damage they inflict on buildings is directly related to how those buildings were built, which usually means when they were built. Stronger homes withstand hurricane winds. According to a study done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, modern homes and condominiums built to the International Residential Code and properly elevated fared well, even though they enjoyed no protection, such as it was, from the Seawall. The old homes on Galveston Island, both in the city and western beach communities, were slammed hard by the surge and the wind. And the vast majority of housing damage in the Galveston Bay rim communities was to homes built in the 1960s and 1970s, before current floodplain regulations requiring elevation of structures. One sensible notion is to push residential construction on Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula – and the roads and water and sewer lines they require – well back from the beach, as has been proposed by Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. Developers don’t like the idea, of course, but the nation’s foremost expert on barrier islands says it is the least the state can do. He recommends going much farther back so that federal subsidies are not repeatedly used to rebuild in areas vulnerable to storms.

People will respond and complain
Asked for his strongest memory of the aftermath of Ike, Houston Mayor Bill White said he was impressed by how much work was accomplished in such a short time. It was inspiring to see the armadas of trucks from all over the country pour into Southeast Texas to help restore power lines and clear debris. The oft-criticized FEMA did a better job than it did after Hurricane Katrina and helped funnel more than $2.5 billion in assistance to individuals and governments, even though long-term housing continued to be a vexing issue. Not all help was organized by government. Neighbors helped neighbors clear debris and unclog storm sewers. One local blogger recalled how a group of young Mormon men from College Station helped clear trees from his yard, part of an effort by the church that provided more than 7,000 volunteers and more 50,000 hours of labor. Texas Baptist Men and Interfaith Ministries doled out meals by countless thousands. But as in all trying times, there were those who tried everyone’s patience. The operator of one convenience store, open without power, decided to close because of complaints from people not being able to use credit cards or who did not like his prices, even though he had not raised them. Some people complained that the free MREs they had been given did not taste good. Others did not like the fact that a barbecue restaurant operating on generator power only offered chopped beef sandwiches. People are people, for better or worse.

Thanks to the Twitter feed of the StormSmart Coasts Network where I first saw this.

LESSONS OF H1N1 FLU OUTBREAK FOR CITIZEN PREPAREDNESS

During the outbreak, there was clear and consistent communication from President Obama on down — led by the public health professionals — which was effective in calming the American people. However, the social and economic consequences of community mitigation guidance have not been as carefully thought through as had been hoped. The value of some mitigation strategies implemented, such as face masks in Mexico, were overstated. While reopening the schools was driven in part by the fact that the virus turned out to be less virulent, the full impact of the challenges of finding alternative child care had not been planned for, even though the CDC had been warned about this.

At present, the nation does not have in place the social and economic policies that support public health recommendations. During the H1N1 outbreak there were numerous media reports of people with influenza-like illnesses not staying home from work, because they had no sick leave and feared losing their jobs or had concerns about the costs in seeking early medical attention. There must be consideration of these work and school policies in a future public health emergency.

There is also a need to consider that the “worried well” did at times stress emergency departments and private practices who were not as prepared as they need to be. Though there were examples of some health departments which did a good job of warning people to stay away from emergency rooms if they did not exhibit symptoms of H1N1.

* Jan Lane, Senior Policy Advisor, George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (www.gwumc.edu/hspi):

Our experience with H1N1 over the past few months provided a number of important lessons, and gave us the opportunity to test a number of areas of pandemic preparedness planning.

Overall, government communications with the general public were handled well, and did much to maintain the public’s trust. However, we still have work to do when it comes to planning at the community level — for example, decisions regarding school closures, and workplace sick leave policies.

Over the coming months, as we face the potential for a more virulent strain to emerge in the Fall, we have a unique opportunity to actively engage the public in community problem solving. While the federal government health authorities can provide general guidance, community needs vary and we can’t always apply a one-size-fits-all response. Local health departments, local emergency managers, schools and businesses would be wise to include members of the general public at their planning tables, as they review lessons learned so far and plan for the future. What do citizens believe they need if we are faced with a more deadly form of the flu? What are their expectations? If they are briefed and understand the issues and limitations of medical surge capabilities of their local health care facilities, can they help reduce the number of patients that could overwhelm emergency rooms?

Real community engagement is an asset to federal, state and local governments as they prepare for what may come next. It requires a re-thinking of roles and responsibilities and the courage to let the public be part of the solution instead of being viewed as a group that needs to be ‘handled’ during a major public health emergency.”

* David Fleming, Director, Public Health – Seattle & King County (www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health.aspx):

One of the major lessons learned here, but it isn’t learned yet because we still have to work on it, is how to handle illnesses in schools and school closings in the setting of an H1N1 outbreak. Most of the schools that were affected had low income students in them with parents, both of whom work, and there weren’t really any good alternatives for parents other than to take the children to an alternate site like a community center or a library. What we really need to do looking into the future is to figure out how to give parents, particularly double income parents, alternatives that are going to work for them to keep their children isolated. That’s a major challenge that we are going to have be looking at in the fall.

A worker disinfects a classroom at Byron P. Steele High School in Cibolo, Texas where all public schools and parks were closed during the H1n1 outbreak. (Associated Press photo)

* Jimmy Jazz, In Case of Emergency (www.breakglass.wordpress.com):

I would argue that the first thing that needs to be done is to bring everyone to the table –to all of the tables. Hospital emergency preparedness staff should bring everyone in for a hotwash. Public health departments should pull those pandemic plans off the shelf and point out where the the pinch-points were — where specifically did we run into problems and what do we need to do to make sure that everyone can do their jobs even with a proposed 30% absentee rate. Then the public health departments should pull together stakeholders from all of the industries and partners and government agencies and school districts and go through the same exercise. This should happen at both the state and local levels. The feds should conduct the same operation, but include the states on all of these meetings. And they should reach out to the international community, including neighbors, places where we frequently get travelers from as well as WHO and start reviewing everything. In the Congress, there should be hearings. There should be funding approved and sent to the White House for disbursement. The Public Health Workforce Act should be voted on immediately and implemented in full force. And public health departments should put their lessons learned and re-written plans in the public sphere for public comment.

* Eric Holderman, Eric Holderman & Associates, Disaster-Zone (www.disaster-zone.com):

From eating a balanced diet to properly disinfecting surfaces in your home and workspace, you can’t go wrong by forming health habits. The CDC has an entire section on Individual and Family Planning with respect to Pandemic Influenza. But their suggestions are great for the common cold or warding off “cooties,” if that was a real problem.

2. Have a Plan if Your School Closes

Besides the fact that schools risked losing federal funding when they closed at the onset of H1N1 influenza, there was a major problem with the CDC’s guidelines on school closings: parents found themselves in a hard place of an unscheduled seven day vacation. Taking your kids to the movies, the mall, or letting little Suzie spend time at Cathy’s house, isn’t what the CDC had in mind when schools closed. They wanted to isolate sick children from healthy ones. I expect that the idea of taking sick children out of school for 7-10 days will be the guideline this fall, allowing schools to remain open. But what many parents don’t realize is that schools that see major spikes in absenteeism because of H1N1 can be closed still. So what will you do if your school closes this fall? Plan now.

3. Emergency Supplies

Nearly every home has a stash of band-aids, hydrogen peroxide, and the like; but this summer is the time to put together (or replenish) you home healthcare drawer. The CDC has a great list here. This isn’t about preparing for a nuclear attack, just a simple reserve for the unexpected. Cash crunch? Purchase these items over several weeks. Seasonal flu shouldn’t hit until the fall.

4. Have a Reliable Source of Information

Many people keep up with news and information by using an RSS reader such as Google Reader or News Gator. Regardless of which one you use, there are several good feeds you should include in your feed list when it comes to following seasonal influenza.

CDC Flu Update
CDC H1N1 Flu Updates
WHO’s Disease Outbreak

5. Relax and Enjoy the Summer

* Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications (www.crisiscommunications.com):

Here’’s the bottom line: We have been warned. So what does this mean for your business, government agency or nonprofit? Now is the time to pull out your crisis communications plan and make sure everything is up to date. Do you have current contact information for your staff and a mechanism in place to quickly notify them if, for example, one of your employees is diagnosed with the flu? Do you have a way for employees to quickly notify you if they are affected by the illness? Have you communicated your policies about what they should do if a member of their family becomes ill?

* Ralph Dutcher, Office of Public Health Preparedness, Monroe County, New York:

Simply put, Wash your hands, be aware of the situation around you and be more prepared. The smart money says that this will likely be a preparedness marathon and not a sprint to the finish.

As has been mentioned regularly on the blog, Israel offers a helpful model for the U.S. when it comes to civilian preparedness and engagement, including in its drilling and school-based programs. Of course, Israel’s special circumstances (terror threat, size, militarily-trained populace, etc.) mean that not all its lessons are readily transferable. Yet, these exercises which involve Israelis of all ages help keep the citizenry informed, engaged and prepared.

The first episode of “Carrier” is particularly good –informative, funny, inspiring, frank, and beautifully shot. There are many interesting moments throughout (as a father of two young daughters, I was particularly taken by the stories of the women serving in so many capacities on the ship). But for the purposes of the blog, I want to mention one theme that comes through right from the start that I think is very much applicable to citizen preparedness back here at home. The episode opens with a stirring three-and-a-half minute video overture accompanied by a song from one of my favorites, The Killers, called ”All The Things That I’ve Done”. (You can view the segment at pbs.org/weta/carrier/full_episodes.htm). Towards the end of the opening montage, a senior fighter pilot tells the interviewer about the ship’s prevailing team-oriented, management philosophy:

The 145-page study offers a comprehensive review and analysis of citizen preparedness efforts in U.S. as well as Israel and then makes some excellent suggestions on how we can learn from Israeli experience in this area. I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject of public readiness. As has been discussed regularly on this blog, Israel provides a helpful model for the U.S. when it comes to civilian preparedness and engagement. Of course, Israel’s special circumstances (terror threat, size, militarily-trained populace, etc.) limit the transferability of many of its lessons. Nevertheless, the U.S. needs to move farther down the citizen preparedness continuum towards Israel. The key questions then are how much farther and how we do it. This report should be helpful in answering to both those questions.

To me, we can learn and draw from Israel on citizen readiness particularly in three areas — more robustly informing the public on potential terror threats, better educating kids on emergency preparedness, and expanding readiness drilling to include the public. I believe this study will be very useful in developing new efforts here in the U.S. to prepare and engage the public going forward with the goal of building more societal resilience. I have excerpted a portion of the summary results below. 

The report’s key observations on the different Israeli and American approaches to the public role and engagement in counterterrorism are: 

In Israel,

• The public is treated as a key partner in counterterrorism.
• Both the public and government agree on a high level of public responsibility for personal safety and national security.
• The public is interested and motivated to assume its responsibility in counterterrorism issues.
• The level of public participation in counterterrorism efforts and readiness programs for terrorism-related emergencies is high. This is likely to be the result of the high threat level and strong national consensus on public preparedness.
• The government programs and messaging are centralized, highly coordinated, and consistent.
• The government organizes and funds extensive, diverse, and ubiquitous programs that provide the public with appropriate information and education to facilitate its active role in counterterrorism.
• The Israeli government enjoys a high level of public trust and credibility on terrorism-related issues.

In the U.S.,

• Within the official paradigm of homeland security, terrorism is subsumed under an “all-hazards” approach.
• Both the public and the government perceive counterterrorism primarily to be the responsibility of the government.
• In official emergency management and security/counterterrorism programs, the term “the public” appears to be frequently understood to mean only uniformed /official first responders. Thus, large parts of the public at large are excluded.
• The level of public participation in counterterrorism efforts and readiness programs for catastrophic incidents-both natural and manmade, including terrorism-related emergencies-is low.
• The current public apathy may be a result of the lack of effective/adequate programs for greater citizen involvement in counterterrorism practices.
• The number of and funding for effective programs for public education and training on terrorism-related issues is limited and reflects a lack of prioritization at the national level.
• Even though there are examples of good practices in the field at the state and local level, there is little awareness of these efforts at the federal level. Moreover, these efforts are disjointed, inconsistent, and lack federal-level coordination and mandate. 

Some of the report’s key recommendations are:

• DHS needs to champion greater understanding, in both the general public and within those responsible for homeland security, of the public‘s unique role in ensuring its own safety and homeland security. Emergency authorities, in particular, need to change their perceptions of the public from seeing them as victims to considering them as partners and force multipliers.

• As a way to reinforce this understanding, DHS needs to support programs that inform, educate, train, and prepare the public to take a role in ensuring its own safety and security.

• Despite its benefits, the current all-hazards approach has an unintended consequence-terrorism-specific preparedness issues are not adequately understood and addressed. There is need for more systematic and comprehensive terrorism awareness and education programs in the United States that can highlight terrorism-specific risks and coping strategies.

• Given the perception that the terrorist threat to the United States is non-immediate, the government will need to work creatively to overcome public apathy, and must increase preparedness for disasters in general and terrorism-related emergencies in particular.

• To mount an effective counterterrorism strategy, DHS and other federal agencies involved in homeland security issues need to improve information sharing internally and better coordinate their risk communications with the public.

• Providing the public, particularly the more youthful segments of the population, with terrorism-related information, education, and training may prove useful in facilitating and maintaining public resilience as a long-term counterterrorism strategy.

As I mentioned, the report is not yet available on the web. However, if you would like a PDF copy, please send me an email at jsolomon@incaseofemergencyblog.com. (Thanks to the “Homeland Inside & Out” radio show for bringing this report to my attention.)

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The logo in Hebrew & English on Israel’s Home Front Command from its public preparedness website.

From eating a balanced diet to properly disinfecting surfaces in your home and workspace, you can’t go wrong by forming health habits. The CDC has an entire section on Individual and Family Planning with respect to Pandemic Influenza. But their suggestions are great for the common cold or warding off “cooties,” if that was a real problem.

2. Have a Plan if Your School Closes

Besides the fact that schools risked losing federal funding when they closed at the onset of H1N1 influenza, there was a major problem with the CDC’s guidelines on school closings: parents found themselves in a hard place of an unscheduled seven day vacation. Taking your kids to the movies, the mall, or letting little Suzie spend time at Cathy’s house, isn’t what the CDC had in mind when schools closed. They wanted to isolate sick children from healthy ones. I expect that the idea of taking sick children out of school for 7-10 days will be the guideline this fall, allowing schools to remain open. But what many parents don’t realize is that schools that see major spikes in absenteeism because of H1N1 can be closed still. So what will you do if your school closes this fall? Plan now.

3. Emergency Supplies

Nearly every home has a stash of band-aids, hydrogen peroxide, and the like; but this summer is the time to put together (or replenish) you home healthcare drawer. The CDC has a great list here. This isn’t about preparing for a nuclear attack, just a simple reserve for the unexpected. Cash crunch? Purchase these items over several weeks. Seasonal flu shouldn’t hit until the fall.

4. Have a Reliable Source of Information

Many people keep up with news and information by using an RSS reader such as Google Reader or News Gator. Regardless of which one you use, there are several good feeds you should include in your feed list when it comes to following seasonal influenza.

CDC Flu Update
CDC H1N1 Flu Updates
WHO’s Disease Outbreak

5. Relax and Enjoy the Summer

For all of the hype around H1N1 influenza, people stayed calm. The media may have hyperventilated, but there were no riots in the streets, fist-fights over masks, and the like. This novel strain of influenza hasn’t proven itself to be very virulent. In fact, most of the deaths-even in Mexico-were intertwined with other health issues in the patients. There is no reason to be anxious about the coming flu season. There also is no reason why should shouldn’t be prepared either.

*Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications (www.crisiscommunications.com)

HereÂ’’s the bottom line: We have been warned. So what does this mean for your business, government agency or nonprofit? Now is the time to pull out your crisis communications plan and make sure everything is up to date. Do you have current contact information for your staff and a mechanism in place to quickly notify them if, for example, one of your employees is diagnosed with the flu? Do you have a way for employees to quickly notify you if they are affected by the illness? Have you communicated your policies about what they should do if a member of their family becomes ill?

“No one wants to be Chicken Little, wailing against the falling sky. But the folks who ignored the warnings, and played down the emerging impact of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, put their businesses and the safety of their staff at risk. Roughly 8,000 people caught the disease, about 10% of them died and a large number of survivors were maimed by frantic, emergency treatments. The regional economy, and many businesses, got hammered…Now there is fresh debate over a new bout of contagion — swine flu, or H1N1. Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Homeland Security the World Health Organization and any number of bureaucrats and politicians overreact?…Here is a different view of what happened: Even if this outbreak doesn’t get more serious, consider the past few weeks a practice run for the real one, a worthwhile expense to test preparedness in the U.S. And if frogs didn’t rain down from the sky as you might have expected — consider yourself lucky.”

Thanks to Bruce Hennes from Cleveland, Ohio for bringing this article to my attention.

So, I thought I would ask readers what you think is a lesson (or lessons) we can learn from the H1N1 situation when it comes to informing, engaging and preparing citizens for major emergencies. The suggestion can be very short or longer if you want. You can either comment at the bottom of this post or email me at  jsolomon@incaseofemergencyblog.com. I will collect and present them all on the blog. I think it will be a helpful collection not only for other citizens but also for policy makers.

For me, one of the major lessons  as I wrote about last week is the need to improve the government’s emergency social media capability. Another lesson is that we should not ‘let a serious crisis go to waste’ and make sure we are each prepared for the next — possibly more serious — crisis. I look forward to hearing your ideas.

The report argues that the U.K. will become a more resilient nation by increasing citizen and community involvement:

We live in a brittle society. Over 80 per cent of Britons live in urban areas relying on dense networks of public and private sector organisations to provide them with essential services. But our everyday lives and the national infrastructure work in a fragile union, vulnerable to even the smallest disturbances in the network. And both are part of a global ecosystem that is damaged and unpredictable. How does Britain protect against these risks? Much of our infrastructure is outmoded and archaic. And with their narrow focus on emergency services and institutions, so are the policies that underpin it.

This pamphlet calls for a radical rethink of resilience. Instead of structures or centralised services, it argues that citizens and communities are the true source of resilience for our society. Using numerous case studies it highlights what policy makers can learn from people’s resourcefulness and points to new tools that can transform our ability to respond when disaster strikes. Resilience is an everyday, community activity. It is people’s potential to learn, adapt and work together that powers it. Only by realising this potential will we succeed in building a resilient nation.

The report recommends the government adopt an approach to community resilience based on the “4 Es – Engage, Educate, Empower and Encourage”: 

Engagement
Engagement strategies are based on dialogue and feedback. Central government, local authorities, emergency planning officers and the emergency services can no longer simply communicate with individuals and communities; they need to engage with them. Engagement must go beyond the ‘fire alarm’ approach of handing out specific information to communities and instead involve listening to individual and community concerns, and focus on helping to shape and influence their decisions…

Education
…Education is crucial to ensuring that people build individual resilience. However, educating individuals and communities about resilience must be embedded into their everyday lives and must connect with them, whether in the classroom, at work or shopping. The balance is to ensure the
approach is subtle, connected to current activities (rather than standalone efforts) and reflects the context and demographics in each location…

Empowerment
The emergency planning bureaucracy and the focus on the response and recovery phases are a central plank in UK resilience but a balance needs to be made that allows communities to feel empowered to act. As the flood wardens in Walcott demonstrated in November 2007, communities have the relevant experience and skills to be resilient. They must be empowered to act and given the tools and resources to do this. Training and public exercises are one approach – examples in this pamphlet and elsewhere demonstrate the valuable role they play…

Encouragement
Finally, formal and informal institutions and organisations need to encourage individuals and communities to play a role. This encouragement can take many forms but ultimately it is about realising the potential communities have and taking time to support and influence their actions. There will never be a single template for this activity and every initiative and idea will be different across the country…

And the report concludes:

How should central government, local authorities and emergency services realise the potential to become a resilient nation? The scale and nature of the exercise in front of them looks vast. But as this pamphlet has argued, it need not seem so. The UK is covered with multiple dense networks of volunteers,
community and faith groups, clubs, societies and voluntary organisations, and small, medium and large businesses. Include governance networks that contain parish councillors, ward councillors, local authorities, regional government structures and central government departments and agencies based in Whitehall and beyond, and you immediately see the potential across the country. The difficulty for individuals within this system is where
to start. It is precisely because of the complexity of all these networks that we tend to opt for blanket approaches, which include community risks to individuals, families and communities. But increasing the number and complexity of these networks demands a new approach, which is both surgical in its initial attempts and then helps influence the message across other networks of actors.

Community resilience may be best managed through existing neighbourhood watch schemes; in other areas of the country schools and education initiatives may present a more obvious route. In rural areas farm networks can be employed by local authorities, while in major cities supermarkets may offer an innovative way of nudging individuals to become more resilient. There can be no one-size-fits-all approach to community resilience. What works in Birmingham may make no sense in Bristol, while initiatives that work in Northumberland may fail to take root in Newbury – community resilience activities will always have to be developed from the bottom up.

The full “Resilient Nation” report can be downloaded here.

The Transportation Security Administration might be America’s least favorite federal agency. For every discarded 4-ounce bottle, dropped laptop, or missed flight, a furious traveler stands ready to heap abuse on the next TSA employee he sees. And it is the job of Bob Burns, official TSA blogger, to take it. ”Do I get beat up? Oh, yes, definitely,” Burns says. “You have to have thick skin and realize that people do need an outlet to vent and get rid of frustrations.” The Transportation Security Administration’s blog, Evolution of Security, is everything the TSA is not-lighthearted, informative, responsive, and devoted to the needs and concerns of its customers. It may also be the best model for government to engage citizens over the Web.

Beam says the TSA’s blogging initiative is successful because there is sincere reader interaction and the blog has the power to get action:  

When some travelers missed their flights last year because their MacBook Airs looked suspicious under an X-ray, Burns created a video explaining why that’s the case. After that, security officers-many of whom read the blog-knew what to look for…The worst thing an agency blog can do, on the flipside, is write at readers…When Evolution of Security commenters complained about having to remove all electronics from carry-on bags during screening in certain airports, the TSA put a stop to it. When they kvetched about long lines, the agency created a new express-lane program…The direct line from the comments section to the top brass isn’t just good business; it also builds goodwill.

“And if there’s one thing the TSA experiment has shown, it’s that engagement doesn’t sacrifice authority,” Beam concludes, “It enhances it.”

The last things President Obama will want to confront in his first year in office are the bodies of dead Americans and complaints of ineffective government response following a terrorist attack within the United States. His predecessors both faced terrorism in their first year in office: President Clinton on February 26, 1993 at the World Trade Center and President Bush at the same location and at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. President Obama may well face a comparable attack.

However, a recent Washington meeting co-sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative…brought together homeland security, public health, and hospital officials from Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, U.S. cities with subways and mass transit systems that are “soft targets.” They met with their counterparts from Madrid, London, Tel Aviv, Islamabad, New Delhi, and Mumbai, cities hit by mass casualty conventional attacks that left thousands dead and with preparedness and response systems that learned a great deal from the experience.

Colleagues from Pakistan and India described the panic and resulting chaos that reverberated in hospitals following suicide attacks. They reported on measures taken to restrict hospital hallways to those needing care and limiting the access of anxious relatives and eager politicians who descended on the hospitals and impeded efficient medical care. What should President Obama and other leaders take from these lessons?

Three of the six “lessons” directly involve the public:

3) The real “first responders” are not fire, police, and EMS professionals. They are the second wave of help. It is the crowd of fellow passengers who jump into action, on the scene, and who are able to assist and support victims in those critical first moments following injury. President Obama must ask himself how he can galvanize the populace so that they know what to do if they are present and physically able to help.

4) While official plans outline a well orchestrated series of compliant actions on the part of the population and responders, the immediate aftermath of such a tragedy is pandemonium. People do not wait for ambulances to get to the hospital. The “walking wounded” victims get there on their own, creating a first wave of moderately injured victims. Those who are severely injured and cannot walk, the “horizontal victims,” take longer to get onto stretchers, into the ambulance, and to the hospital. By the time this wave of critically injured patients arrives at the hospital, much capacity has already been consumed. One lesson from abroad: distribute less severely victims to more distant hospitals that are less likely to be overrun by the injured.

5) Think resilience. The intent of these bombings is to bring people down, to destroy our confidence, to foster fear, and to shatter our economy. We know the period after a new President assumes office is one of greater vulnerability. We must all be vigilant. If you find a suspicious package or observe suspicious behavior, report it to authorities. This is a time to be safe, not sorry. Be prepared to get back on your feet if we are hit. It will be difficult. However, returning to normal living is the most defiant of acts following a terrorist bombing. 9/11 was a wake-up call and we have been fortunate that, to date, there has not been a repetition. However, time dulls our memories and complacency sets in with its own dangers. Now is the time for our homeland security, our preparedness, and our response officials to turn their attention to what is a more likely set of threats. While we have little experience here, there is much we can gain from that of our friends abroad, and in the name of humanity, they are generous in their willingness to share what they learned.

The warnings must be clear, unambiguous and consistent – even if the information on the ground is not. They need to come from many different channels (most people check with four or five sources before evacuating prior to a hurricane). And it is crucial that they be repeated – again and again. Most important, warnings need to be honest. The public does not tend to panic in the face of a crisis. To the contrary, most people become obedient when given clear direction – on burning airplanes and soon-to-be-flooded coastlines.

People also prefer that officials err on the side of caution, says John Sorensen, an evacuation expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. If storm warnings turn out to be wrong, people do not refuse to evacuate the next time around – provided officials explain why the first warning proved incorrect. “People are well aware of the fact that science is wishy-washy,” says [disaster expert Dennis] Mileti. “It’s the scientists who think they need to make it perfect.”

Most warnings are inadvertently written for emergency planners, not regular people – and that doesn’t help. For example, most people will never remember the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning. Likewise, people have become familiar with the ranking of hurricanes on a scale from 1 to 5, and since Hurricane Ike was a Category 2, many people disregarded it. But that scale measures only wind – not storm surge, which is often far more dangerous.

The other challenge that exacerbates the human bias to linger is the ambient noise in our lives. “We have warnings from all directions – about fire, about drugs,” says Martin Lindstrom, author of “Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy.” “We put up a filter and say, ‘This won’t happen to us.’ So to communicate in an ordinary way will not work.” These filters can be penetrated, but only if emergency communications are written to work the way the human brain works.

This year, people in harm’s way will probably not hear the “certain death” warning, no matter how bad things get. After Hurricane Ike, the Weather Service decided to change its approach. “We had to be careful of not being overly deterministic,” says Walt Zaleski, warning coordination meteorologist at the Weather Service’s regional headquarters in Fort Worth. “There’s always a possibility you’re going to have somebody survive, and people will say, -Look! There you go! You told us we were going to die, and we didn’t!’ Then for the next storm, they won’t react.” Now, people living in high-risk areas will be warned only that they “may die” if they don’t evacuate.

Over the past 50 years, evacuations have, in fact, gotten much more effective. Forecasts are more accurate and timely. Warnings are more vivid, as are storm graphics. TV and new technology such as reverse 911 calls can distribute warnings much more efficiently – whatever the warnings may say. Those systems will be tested again. So far, 2009 is predicted to be a busier-than-average hurricane season, with 14 named storms. Death is not yet certain.

Now, obviously there are differences between emergency preparedness and safe sex preparedness. But one similarity between both (and other social education campaigns) is that if you want to change citizen behavior sometimes you need to offer some kind of encouragement to those citizens to do so. Yet, to date when it comes to emergency preparedness, that type of incentive and creativity is for the most part not being employed.

Federal, state and local government web sites all recommend that the public store extra emergency supplies for emergencies, which is not an insubstantial financial commitment, particularly in these economic times. But there has not been a concerted effort to provide citizens with a start in that direction. I’m not saying that the government should be responsible for fully preparing every American. Instead, it just means giving people a little something to get their attention and encourage them to begin the process, as has been done in other social marketing areas. 

Of course, a condom retails for about $1.39/each over (or maybe more precisely, under) the counter while in the preparedness area the necessary items are more costly. That’s where I think we need to get the private sector — which showed its interest and capacity in post-disaster response after Hurricane Katrina — far more involved in preparedness cause marketing partnerships. In fact, I think not involving business more directly in preparedness campaigns over the past few years has been a huge missed opportunity. The idea would be to set up partnerships in which the public would get some free preparedness supplies while providing promotional attention and more traffic for firms in the emergency preparedness business categories (ie. big box stores, safety/construction supplies firms, food and bottled water companies, etc.). A nice potential win-win situation that should capitalized upon. 

Governments cannot just list items on a web site for the public to buy and store, and realistically expect most people to follow those directions. And predictably, they haven’t. If we want citizens to take preparedness seriously and actually go through the process, federal, state and local governments need to offer the type of encouragement, creativity and focus that the City of New York has shown on its safe sex campaign.

The role of incentives was underscored by former White House Terrorism Adviser Fran Townsend on this blog last year. I also included some incentive-based ideas as part of my preparedness recommendations for the “New Year and New Administration”:

*CREATE TAX-FREE PERIODS FOR CONSUMERS TO PURCHASE PREPAREDNESS SUPPLIES. PROVIDE A TAX WRITEOFF TO CITIZENS TO PURCHASE PREPAREDNESS-RELATED PRODUCTS AS A WAY TO ENCOURAGE PARTICIPATION AND TO SIGNAL GOVERNMENTAL COMMITMENT. ALSO CONSIDER TARGETING ASSISTANCE TO CITIZENS WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO PREPARE.

*BRING IN BUSINESS TO HELP SELL PREPAREDNESS – DESIGN AND ROLL OUT A FULL SERVICE PUBLIC PREPAREDNESS MARKETING CAMPAIGN WITH HELP FROM PRIVATE SECTOR. GALVANIZE BUSINESS TO TAKE ON DISASTER PREPAREDNESS IN THE SAME WAY THEY HAVE WITH DISASTER RESPONSE, MOST NOTABLY IN AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE KATRINA.

In sum, I believe that government using its incentives at its disposal in a small, but demonstrative, manner while tapping the private sector’s resources (and self interest) can help accelerate citizen preparedness.

Valerie wrote that she had wanted to get involved in emergency preparedness in her community, but there was no Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) there. Then, she found this blog on the web which showed her “a real person doing real things” and “presented the Red Cross in such a way that piqued my interest. I decided to sign up for a class and was drawn into a new world.”  As Valerie was also one of the winners of the blog’s “Preparedness Tips” contest (and therefore will be receiving an audio book prize from me), her comments may be a little biased. However, I will take them nonetheless! Below is the full email:

“I’m one of those people whose sees a disaster on TV and gets the adrenaline surge that says, ‘You should go and help out!’. I was actually moved up off the couch and out the house to drive down and help my church group after Katrina. It was one of the most impressive experiences of my life for many reasons, but I came away realizing how unprepared I was to be truly helpful.

I heard about CERT training in other states and when I read about a local class, I signed up. It was a great experience, lots of fun and toward the end of it, I started asking about where do we go from here? How will we be called up? What help can we actually offer? I found out that there was no real CERT program in place since the local agencies are worried about liability issues. At our final exercise, the fire department representative was from another county – no locals showed up.

Undeterred, I started searching the web and found an article about the “In Case of Emergency” blog – a real person doing real things as a CERT member in his community. John presented the Red Cross in such a way that piqued my interest. I decided to sign up for a class and was drawn into a new world.

I won’t be going out for national disasters since I don’t like to fly but I’ve found that there is plenty to do otherwise:

-I’ve been helping at the Mile High Chapter headquarters in the staffing area and got to follow some mentors around during the recent DNC alert.

-Toward the end of that week, Gustav deployment started. I was able to help process loads of volunteers going out to help – amazing people who are going to live for 3 weeks in staff shelters in hot, humid weather for the sake of helping other people.

-This week, I finally got to go on my first Disaster Action Team (DAT) call, a house fire. (It’s funny to be in a position of really wanting to get experience on a call but not to wish misfortune on others…) Fortunately, there were just a few minor injuries, and we were mainly needed to feed the responders some snacks. But it was still an amazing experience to pull up to a pre-dawn scene of 10-15 vehicles with flashing lights, people toting heavy equipment and the smell of the smoldering fire. Joan, my DAT captain has my uptmost respect – she’s been doing this for 5 years – getting up in the middle of the night or otherwise rearranging her life to make sure people in need get some help.

So here I am, still very much a Red Cross newbie, but I’ve come to understand more about that big adrenaline-rush aspect to disasters. I’ve realized that one way to really help is to maintain that level of interest and willingness to join in and help out. If someone is interested in helping their local community or the community of the human race, the Red Cross is a great vehicle for that.”

Thank you, Valerie, for your very kind words and for your service in your community. I hope others are inspired to follow her example of getting more involved.

That point is underscored by an intriguing new study,  “Preferring A Pound of Cure to an Ounce of Prevention: Voting, Natural Disasters, and Government Response” by Andrew J. Healy, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University.

By studying data on natural disasters, government spending and election returns, Healy found that “voters reward disaster relief spending but not disaster prevention spending.” As he further concludes: “This aspect of voter behavior creates a large distortion in the incentives that governments face, since data show that prevention spending substantially reduces future damage.”

The study helps explain why emergency preparedness does not receive enough attention by elected officials — because their constituents do not raise the subject with them nor make it a criterion for their support in the voting booth. (While, by contrast, we do reward politicians who lobby for financial assistance after the disaster, often when some advance preparedness would have limited the damage.)

To me, Healy’s conclusions also help explain why in a political system where every conceivable issue and interest group has at least one champion, there is no major elected official identified with the issue of citizen preparedness. Rectifying the relationships that Healy’s regressions have found must be done if the U.S. is to develop a more balanced, rational and effective disaster policy. So, this election year, ask your candidates about public emergency preparedness and then make sure to factor their answers into deciding who you reward with your vote. (Hat tip to NewYorkTimes.com Freaknomics Blog)

Yet, as Part 1, the Times-Picayune collection of preparedness tips I posted on Monday, indicates, the testimony of disaster survivors can also be very compelling and helpful. That’s why Pinellas County, Florida Office of Emergency Management has done something very smart as part of their preparedness education program. When I was in Washington. D.C. last week at the offices of James Lee Witt & Associates, Jordan Nelms, a summer intern there, suggested I take a look at “Project Storm Story” created by the Pinellas’ Emergency Office where he worked last year. 

According to the website, the idea of “Project Storm Story” is to: “catalog the memories of hurricane survivors. Knowing that experience is the best teacher, emergency managers are still collecting your personal accounts to use in future hurricane educational materials.’

Pinellas County — which includes the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg — has been lucky to avoid a major storm since 1921. But that good news is bad news for preparedness efforts. In fact, Tom Iovino, who came up with the idea, likes to say that “Pinellas County isn’t in the state of Florida, it’s in the state of denial!” Therefore, he has had to solicit stories from residents who experienced hurricanes in other areas. 

The video of the initial volunteer survivors can be found at the Pinellas County website.The County is continuing to solicit stories which will be posted to its website. If you are interested in contributing to the project or learning more, you should go to: www.pinellascounty.org/emergency/storm_story.htm

This is an idea that other emergency management offices might consider trying. And, in fact, I may do so as well. It is remarkable how many great preparedness ideas there are out there in communities around the U.S.; one of the goals of this blog is to highlight and help spread the news about them. 

In the Times article, Klinenberg asks and tries to answer a key preparedness question:

In 2006, Klinenberg organized some focus groups in New York City to look into that question:

“One major concern I heard was that there are simply too many things to worry about. Participants complained about having to prepare for too many specific disaster possibilities and in turn feeling overwhelmed, if not helpless. Their list of disasters was daunting: another terrorist attack, perhaps a dirty bomb that would require evacuation, or an assault on the subways. An infectious disease. A heat wave leading to prolonged power outages (like the regional one in 2003, or the Queens outage of 2006). A hurricane.”

I spoke with Eric last year about Heat Wave and the subject of civilian readiness. I appreciate how he sees  disaster preparedness as part of a broader community resilience and his focus on the needs of disconnected parts of society. As he notes in the Times piece:

 

 

Though it is now two years old, the Report is a fascinating and incisive study whose overall conclusions about the lack of attention to the public in emergency preparedness and planning are important on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, the report contains some of the most direct and profound insights about citizen preparedness that I’ve read in a government report. 

 

A London bus where terrorists set off a bomb July 7, 2005

According to the Review Committee report:

“{Emergency] procedures tend to focus too much on incidents rather than individuals, and on processes rather than people. Emergency plans tend to cater for the needs of the emergency and other responding services, rather than explicitly addressing the needs and priorities and the people involved.”

The Report further recommended:

“London’s plans should be re-cast from the point of view of people involved in a major or catastrophic incident rather than focusing primarily on the point of view of each emergency service. A change of mindset is needed to bring about the necessary shift of focus from incidents to individuals and from processes to people.”

A followup report in 2007 indicated that the British authorities had made improvements in their response plans, particularly in regard to the public. However, the idea that there needs to be a “change of mindset” and the emergency plans should be “re-cast” to take the interests and the point of view of the  ”people”into consideration is a lesson that we here in the U.S. must learn as well. I would argue that we have not yet.  

The episode is wonderful – informative, funny, inspiring, frank, and beautifully shot. There are many interesting moments throughout the show (as a father of two young daughters, I was particularly taken by the stories of the women serving in so many capacities on the ship). But for the purposes of the blog, I want to highlight one theme that comes through right from the start that I think is very much applicable to citizen preparedness back here at home.

The first episode opens with a stirring three-and-a-half minute video overture accompanied by a song from one of my favorites, The Killers, called ”All The Things That I’ve Done”. (You can view the segment at pbs.org/weta/carrier/full_episodes.htm). Towards the end of the opening montage, a senior fighter pilot tells the interviewer about the ship’s prevailing team-oriented, management philosophy:

“All the departments are vital to make a jet fly off a carrier to put a piece of precision ordinance onto a target…without one department, without religious ministries, without the legal department, without the reactor department, without supply department, without hot water cold water and steam for the catapults none of it works.”

During the show, that ethic comes through repeatedly from the top levels of the ship, and it filters down throughout the Nimitz — that an aircraft carrier is only as strong as its weakest link and the enterprise will be strongest when everyone is doing their job all down the line. Further, and maybe even more importantly that objective can be compromised by anyone at any level. We need to bring that same approach in communicating with the public about our homeland security

, t 

The deck of the Nimitz from Carrier

I have had the opportunity to interview many political leaders, homeland security and emergency management officials, as well as first responders. And almost all of them tell me how important the public is to preparing, preventing and then responding to emergencies.

If they really believe it (and I think they do) then the first step is for them to more actively tell us how and why we are important. In fact, I would argue that should be a priority of the next President to tell us exactly that – both encouraging and challenging us to take on that responsibility. Understandably, people aren’t going to take on responsibility if you don’t tell them why and how they should.

Obviously, a kitchen dishwasher is not as vital as a Navy top-gun airman to the ultimate objectives of the carrier. Nor is the average citizen as crucial as a first responder to preparing and responding to emergencies. However, as we see over and over, most recently during the recent floods, the public is a key element in dealing with disasters. And we also have the ability to hamper that process as well. It may well be partially propaganda but you get a clear sense in Carrier that even the lowest ranking person on the Nimitz still feels part of a team.

Obviously, we have military — and uniformed responders – that are on the so-called point of the spear. But the rest of us have a role too and right now our talents, energy and spirits are not being tapped fully. Our leaders need to tell us how and why we are important in order to foster the same team mentality at home that, at least according to Carrier, the leaders of the Nimitz have successfully done on the water. 

“…pay close attention to what is happening right now in the heartland of America.  Over the past several days, the citizens of Cedar Falls, Iowa, have filled hundreds of thousands of sandbags to save their City from the rising waters of the Cedar River.  Thousands of volunteers of every age and walk of life have stepped forward to fill bag after bag and put them in place to save their ‘homeland’ and preserve the ‘security’ that it brings to them.

While Mother Nature is neither patient nor forgiving to communities in times like these, Cedar Falls and others like her in the Midwest that are fighting the ‘battle’ for survival represent the personification of resilience.  They are offering us all a teachable moment and we all have a lot to learn.  As we watch this lesson unfold (and hopefully help them overcome their current threats along the way), we should all be asking ourselves, “Are we ready to do the same things for our community, our families and ourselves?”

While pondering that question, let’s put the following facts on the table.  There was no legislative mandate that made the citizens of Cedar Falls step forward to fill sandbags and stack them atop one another.  Nor were there FEMA checks handed out to make them come downtown to save the City streets from more ruin.  They just showed up and did it.  They were business owners, employees, parents, students, etc.  – all citizens committed to the survival of what is important to them.   That is what resilience is: action that enables survival. Before we allow the word to become so overused that it loses its meaning (e.g. interoperability), we need to remember that people focused on a mission are at the center of resilience.

The example of Cedar Rapids and other Midwest towns fighting floodwaters from taking what they have left is not unique.  We’ve seen it in the West during large wild-fire outbreaks.  We’ve seen it in coastal communities that have been struck by hurricanes.  We saw it on the evening of September 11th when construction workers and others showed up in lower Manhattan to start the grim recovery work.

All of these examples and more are emblematic of a spirit we saw heroically manifested on United Flight 93.  Average citizens with no prior connection to one another other than a common purchase of an ill-fated plane ticket, came together and stopped further carnage so others could survive.” 

 

 

In fact, earlier that day in Washington, D.C., I was discussing that very subject with Time magazine’s Amanda Ripley. We have both been struck by the fact that while preparing the citizenry for emergencies has much in common with the efforts against global warming, the nation has largely embraced one cause and largely ignored the other.

It was a point that DHS Secretary Chertoff made to me last month when I asked him for his thoughts on improving civilian emergency preparedness.

“I tell you what’s fascinating. If you look at like this whole global warming thing. At some point, it captured the imagination of somebody and it became a big media thing. And then all of a sudden, every kid was coming home with information about global warming. And I wish we could get that media attentiveness in the area of preparedness, so that kids come – because this – actually, this is an area where it could make a difference if everybody had the plans and the kit and everything. You could actually see every individual could make a difference.”

The global warming campaign can and should be a model for civilian emergency preparedness in a variety of ways, including as Chertoff noted somewhat enviously, getting kids to lead the way and involving the media. But preparedness will also require the same kind of governmental and corporate commitment, high profile public spokespeople and some governmental incentives that has boosted the climate change effort.

The two campaigns are complementary and should be more linked closer together in the public’s mind — and actions. In both, society is being asked to mobilize in order to avert or mitigate potential disasters, and both are part of strengthening the nation’s general national resilience. Yes, global warming has some skeptics, but so does emergency preparedness - ironically they are usually not the same people which may conveniently add to its complementary synergy.