The National Academies’ commission’s report — “Review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Approach to Risk Analysis” — does, however, approve of the Department’s current risk approach on natural disasters. The 150-page study can be downloaded here.

There are few more important aspects of homeland security than risk analysis, particularly in how the government allocates its resources, deals with threats and communicates with all its stakeholders including the public. And, the Department is working on improving things in this area.

Federal News Radio did an interview yesterday with commission chair John F. Ahearne about the report. It can be heard here.

The report of the “Advisory Panel on Department of Defense Capabilities for Support of Civil Authorities After Certain Incidents” provides more than 40 recommendations about how the nation can overcome obstacles that complicate the nation’s ability to respond effectively to CBRNE incidents.

The study, “Before Disaster Strikes – Imperatives for Enhancing Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” focuses mostly on the military-civil response issues which are generally beyond the subject matter of the blog. But I did want to mention the report for two reasons: 1) a statement made by the panel chair Adm. Steve Abbot in the RAND Corporation press release about the inevitability of such a major attack (”such an incident will happen”), and 2) while the military-civil emergency response balance is not a subject the average American needs to know in detail there is some value for the government to at least expose them to what is in fact what would be significant issue in the event of a crisis.

The panel’s full report can be found here.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Transit Security Awareness Campaigns in the San Francisco Bay Area finds: ”none of the five agencies analyzed for this study measures the effectiveness of their campaigns. Whereas they all have a similar goal—to increase passenger awareness about security issues—little evidence therefore exists confirming whether they are achieving this goal.”

But also according to the report: “A positive finding of this research is the consistency with which Bay Area transit organizations address the need for passenger awareness as part of their overall security program.”

It is an issue that I have brought up on the blog previously. While the awareness of these “See Something, Say Something” campaigns are up, I have yet to see real data that indicates how well they are actually working — and could be improved. This study reinforces my inclination and the need for study and specific instructions.

The report offers some suggestions on authorities can better establish metrics for determining success for the awareness campaigns, including surveying customers. Thanks to Homeland Security Digital Library where I saw this study originally.

The study, Bringing Youth Preparedness Education to the Forefront: A Literature Review and Recommendations, looks at best practices, scholarship and offers recommendations. It is worth reading for this interested in the subject.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Education, and the American Red Cross held the Summit, which brought together approximately 150 attendees from the fields of youth communications, programs serving youth, developers of youth preparedness education, practitioners from the state, tribal, and local levels, and academia — as well as abroad, including New Zealand, Chile and Israel.

The goal of the Summit is to synthesize input from all participants to develop a framework for a national strategy on grades K-12 preparedness education to increase youth preparedness knowledge, skills, and behaviors, and to address youth of all abilities and backgrounds.

The full report can be found here. The National Summit webinar can be found (and will be posted later on): here.

Manning wanted to remind preparedness stakeholders, including the public, that there are two days left to contribute a new idea — or offer a comment and vote on an existing one — to the Dialogue. The website can be found at http://preparedness.ideascale.com/.

Thus far, there have been 246 suggestions, 388 comments and 2867 votes posted by 759 users. With this web-based tool, users submit their ideas, the community discusses and votes for them, with the most popular suggestions bubbling up to the top. Right now, educating the public on preparedness are two of the three recommendations with the most votes.

The Dialogue will complement the work of the Preparedness Task Force which was created at the direction of Congress. The Task Force is comprised of 35 local, state, and tribal members and 24 Federal ex officio members with diverse expertise in homeland security and emergency management. It was formed to assess the state of disaster preparedness and make recommendations for improvement throughout the nation. The panel has been meeting since April and is expected to release a report next month.

Manning says the Task Force has been looking at all aspects of the nation’s preparedness initiatives, many of which date to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security more than seven years ago. He adds that the group will be addressing some basic questions, including, “What are we trying to achieve? How do we measure effectiveness? What have been the effectiveness of grant programs?”

To contribute to the Dialogue (by the deadline of September 10th), click here. If you would prefer to submit your comments, ideas or recommendations directly to the Task Force, send them by email to FEMA-Preparedness-Task-Force@fema.gov (also by the 10th).

The study, “Regional Health and Public Health Preparedness for Nuclear Terrorism: Optimizing Survival in a Low Probability/High Consequence Disaster,” is authored by Irwin Redlener, Andrew L. Garrett, Karen L. Levin and Andrew Mener. It was released while this blog was on hiatus so I am posting it now.

The authors contend that our lack of preparedness is in part a result of a lack of understanding that there are things that actually can be done in response:

Although the detonation of a low-yield IND in an American city is one of the 15 planning scenarios developed by the White House Homeland Security Council for use in security preparedness activities, local and regional emergency planning activities have not given attention commensurate to this threat. Barriers to planning for such a catastrophic event are not well understood but may be related to fatalistic beliefs or concepts of improbability, with many believing that other disasters are more probable and merit the focus of emergency planners.

But protective actions will be most useful if they are known in advance:

Following a nuclear detonation, a response based on threat-specific strategies will be essential to maximize time-sensitive life-saving opportunities. Public protective actions to reduce exposure and injury, critical within the first hours, will depend greatly upon a well thought out, pre-event messaging strategy and the ability to communicate easily-understood information to the public. The risk for injury and nuclear detonation effects does not end after the initial blast; the public must understand the correct protective actions and when to take them throughout the response and recovery phases.

The report explains that “in the minutes and hours after the detonation of an IND, the public would need to make a few key decisions in order to maximize their chances of surviving and minimize their injuries and long-term health effects”:

1. Is it better to evacuate now or later?

2. If I stay put, how should I shelter and decontaminate myself to prevent further injury?

3. When I do evacuate, where should I go to avoid placing myself at an increased risk from fallout?

…Individuals will very likely need to make these decisions in the absence of official directions. If local health officials are to dramatically increase the percentage of affected people who can survive, they must make the public aware of the benefits of these initial life-saving responses actions and of knowing what to do in an emergency.

Despite the benefits that these simple protective measures can have, it seems that the widely-known images of the nuclear devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and subsequent fictionalized portrayals of nuclear conflict in movies and television-program images of total nuclear devastation have led people to conclude either that preparedness is impossible or that the federal government already must have done everything in its power to protect the country. Both assumptions are inaccurate.

The study recommends what the U.S. should do to address this lack of readiness:

In the United States, virtually no public education has taken place about what an individual should do in the event of a nuclear detonation, although there is urgent and critical need for such education, especially for those living in potential target areas. Also lacking are pre-developed, exercised and well-tested communication plans to deliver rapid information from officials to the public following a nuclear incident…

…A public education campaign that addressed these issues could save lives and reduce injury in the gray zone by empowering the public to initiate life-saving actions without the need for official advice, which may never arrive. Immediate protective actions in the first moments after a detonation are critical. Considering that it might be impossible to get emergency messages to the public after a detonation, it is sensible to equip the public now with basic information on how to best protect themselves and their family should they ever confront this type of disaster.

The full report can be found here.

It may help explain why many Americans still do not prepare for disasters (and, by contrast, Japan and China hold special disaster preparedness days for its citizens). It also may underscore the challenge — as well as the need — of building community preparedness in the U.S.

According to the study reported on the Emerging Health Threats Forum website:

People from different parts of the world rate differently their risk of dying or getting injured in a disaster, and this has more to do with cultural factors than actual exposure to an event, suggests research published online in Risk Analysis. It also indicates that people across cultures share a belief that they are less prone to harm than others around them…

Unlike risk assessment, which is based on objective information, risk perception tends to rely on a person’s psychological state, personal experience and socio-cultural factors. Cultural values influence which hazards are believed to be relevant to a group, the authors explain. “Members of a group construct shared meanings to explain the reasons behind hazardous events to promote a sense of stability and allegiance within the group.”

Researchers measured and compared risk perceptions between 365 mental health workers from Japan, Argentina, and North America — countries that represent different degrees of interdependence and histories of exposure to disaster:

During a four-hour disaster preparedness training run by one of the study’s authors, the participants were asked to complete a risk perception survey after being presented with information describing a tsunami and a terrorist event. The survey included questions about the probability of themselves or other people suffering a disaster-related fatality or injury. Risk scores were calculated based on answers to these questions, and differences between groups were analysed statistically.

“Japanese groups had the highest risk perceptions for both types of hazards and North Americans and Argentineans had the lowest risk perceptions for terrorism,” report the authors. They also found that participants in all groups rated their own risk in either type of disaster as lower than that of others.

“The strongest and most robust findings were of an optimistic bias that was especially prevalent in the US samples,” add Gierlach and colleagues. Although participants from the USA had a higher exposure to terrorist events than those from Japan and Argentina, they believed they were least vulnerable to them.

This may be explained by the country’s position of power in the world, the authors speculate. It also indicates that cultural factors have a stronger influence on risk perceptions compared with the frequency of exposure to disaster events. Similarly, participants from Japan, where terrorist events were least frequent, had the highest perceived risk, possibly because of the region’s instability and a history of other disasters such as atomic bombs and tsunamis.

According to a Brigham Young University report, “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review,” published in the journal PlosMedicine, by professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith, social connections – friends, family, neighbors or colleagues – improve our odds of future survival by 50 percent.

For more information on the study, click here. Thanks to the Twitter feed of @AndrewPWilson where I saw this.

The fascinating study notes that the recovery effort — “in the last five years, hundreds of citizens, government leaders, business and civic leaders, nonprofits, and philanthropies have been tirelessly working together” — is becoming a case study of regional community resilience.

The report. “An Overview of Greater New Orleans: From Recovery to Transformation,” was written by Amy Liu and Allison Plyer. It is part of a joint project of Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program and the  Greater NewOrleans Community Data Center called the New Orleans Index at Five.

In the introduction, the authors write:

It has been often said that New Orleanians are resilient. They have to be after being dealt three crises in five years—Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches, the Great Recession, and now the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. To be resilient is to be able to recover from a major stress or shock. But New Orleanians have issued a more laudable challenge for themselves after Hurricane Katrina: They must not only bounce back, but do so better than before.

Yet, as the nation witnesses another disaster unfolding in the Gulf Coast region on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, some have questioned whether New Orleans can rebound at all. The answer is yes. The city and metro area have been recovering from Katrina and, in fact, may even be on the path to transformation.

National attention on the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has overshadowed the more mundane but herculean task of reinventing New Orleans. In the last five years, hundreds of citizens, government leaders, business and civic leaders, nonprofits, and philanthropies have been tirelessly working together to ensure that the city they love emerges from the 2005 hurricanes with all of the city’s assets preserved but its flaws corrected.

The report’s research found:

• Despite sustaining three “shocks” in the last five years [Katrina, recession and oil spill], greater New Orleans is rebounding and, in some ways, doing so better than before.

• Further, greater New Orleans has become more “resilient,” with increased civic capacity and new systemic reforms, better positioning the metro area to adapt and transform its future.

• Yet, key economic, social, and environmental trends in the New Orleans metro area remain troubling, testing the region’s path to prosperity.

The report (as well as the related work in the Index project) has some really interesting research and analysis on New Orleans recovery thus far and the road ahead. It notes that the community has used the post-Katrina period to make major reforms in its public schools, health care delivery, criminal justice system and neighborhood development efforts, though obviously there is a long way to go. The full study can be found here.

Thanks to the Recovery Diva, Claire Rubin, for posting this on her blog.

This white paper is intended for people who must help communities prepare for surprises. It assumes that no community can protect itself from every conceivable threat, but can increase its ability to be resilient or ‘bounce back.’ The resilience approach described below is written in plain language and as culturally-neutral as possible in order to make it globally applicable across a broad range of communities.

We recommend that communities assess their resources and adaptive capacity for a variety of community systems: ecological, economic, civil society, government, and infrastructure in order to find the balance that achieves the degree of resilience most appropriate for them.

This approach also requires attention to the intersections and overlaps of these systems. The ideas presented here are consistent with the most current efforts at defining and assessing resilience, even if the terminology varies. The paper concludes by outlining the next steps for concept refinement and validation through case-based research and development of assessment tools for practitioners.

The full paper can be found here.

According to a Chicago Tribune article on the study:

“I think everybody knows, as we saw things unfolding (in the study), that there are significant gaps in the preparedness for this type of earthquake,” the study’s lead author, University of Illinois professor Amr Elnashai said Friday. “FEMA will have a very clear idea of what is missing, and hopefully they will have some type to fill some gaps.”

FEMA is working toward holding a national-level disaster drill next year that simulates a big New Madrid quake. ”This comprehensive study has not only assisted in our planning and preparedness efforts, but should serve as a reminder to the public that disaster can strike at any time, and we all need to be prepared,” FEMA spokesman Bradley Carroll said in a statement.

The study was completed late last year but was just recently released. It focuses on Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee, where the New Madrid seismic zone lies deep underground, as well as Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Indiana and Alabama.

The Tribune article continues:

The fault zone has a long history of big earthquakes, including four in 1811 and 1812 estimated to have been magnitude 7.0 or greater. The region was sparsely populated but the quake caused land slides and waves on the Mississippi that swamped boats; it also opened deep fissures in the ground. The shaking was felt as far away as New England.

The Illinois study assumed a magnitude-7.7 quake based on recommendations from the U.S. Geological Survey, Elnashai said. About 7.2 million people wouldn’t be able to live in their homes, at least not within a few days after the initial quake, and 2 million would temporary shelter.

“Many, many, many — maybe 80 percent — of the numbers you are seeing in the report would turn into long-term dislocation,” Elnashai said. The study also concluded that nearly 715,000 buildings would be damaged and 2.6 million households would be without electricity.

The study predicts extensive damage in both St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., the two largest cities near the fault zone. ”There are also disruptions of the transport system that we think will be debilitating,” he said. “(State and local governments) will need to fix and repair lots of bridges, more than we’re ready to handle.”

Utilities also are likely to struggle to find enough contractors to quickly repair what could be many substantial natural gas leaks, the study predicts.

The study urges state and local governments to retrofit hospitals, fire stations, police stations, nuclear power plants and other essential facilities to improve their odds of holding up in a big quake.

The study should be a planning tool for the affected states, Elnashai said. But he said it should also help convince state officials and the public that preparedness is worth considering and paying for, particularly during a recession.

The study looks at the opportunities and challenges that communications advances present for humanitarian organizations in helping communities throughout the globe affected by disasters and members of those communities to communicate with each other and with the outside world. It includes case studies in the areas of warnings, preparedness, response and recovery. The full report can be found here.

The report, “The Public’s Response to the 2009 H1N1 Influenza Pandemic,” reviewed 20 national opinion polls, including eight by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, taken during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. It was authored by HSPH’s Gillian K. SteelFisher, and Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis. The analysis appears as an Online First Perspective in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine:

Throughout the H1N1 pandemic, more than half the U.S. population appeared to have a positive impression of the government’s response, although a sizable minority did not. For example, in the early days of the pandemic, 54% believed the response of the federal government was appropriate, whereas 39% believed the government had overreacted (CNN, May 2009). Nine months later, in January 2010, 59% believed that public health officials did an excellent or good job in their overall response to the pandemic, whereas 39% believed they did a fair or poor job (HSPH, January 2010)…

Our review of these data suggests that in the event of a future influenza pandemic, a substantial proportion of the public may not take a newly developed vaccine because they may believe that the illness does not pose a serious health threat, because they (especially parents) may be concerned about the safety of the available vaccine, or both. More work may need to be done to understand the basis of these beliefs and to address them in the case of a serious influenza outbreak.

Parental concern must be better addressed in any future pandemic vaccine rollout, according to the HSPH press release:

First, many people who did not get the vaccine were not convinced that the illness was a serious threat to them personally. In one January poll, 30% of people who would not or might not get the vaccine said a “major reason” was their belief that they were not at risk of serious illness and 37% said the H1N1 outbreak was not as serious as public health officials once thought. A second reason for not taking the vaccine was concerns about the safety of the vaccine. This was especially a concern for parents. In one poll, 56% of parents who were not going to or might not get the vaccine said a “major reason” for their decision was their concern about “safety risks from the vaccine,” compared to 35% of adults making the same decision for themselves about the H1N1 vaccine.

“These findings suggest that in the event of a future influenza pandemic, a substantial proportion of the public may not take a newly developed vaccine,” said SteelFisher. “Public health officials who want to encourage vaccination must better understand and address the beliefs and concerns of those who chose not to get the H1N1 vaccine.”

Polls during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic also suggest that public health communication efforts related to other personal influenza prevention behaviors, like hand-washing and staying clear of people with flu-like illness, were effective in reaching a large swath of the public. Even early in the outbreak, a large majority of people (59%-67%) said they had washed their hands more frequently due to H1N1, according to polls in April, May and June 2009.

“Building on these self-protection measures, as well as a vaccine strategy, may be useful for future response planning and throughout an outbreak,” said Blendon.

Michael Coston at Avian Flu Diary says that the survey results indicate a potential public complacency issue:

The concern here is that the impressions left by the experience of 2009 may mean that a lot of people may not be quick to accept a pandemic vaccine in the future. It is the same sort of reaction we see in Florida, and along the Gulf and Atlantic Coastline, after every hurricane season.

People who emerged unscathed, or who may have ridden out a weaker storm, come away believing that they’ve seen a hurricane . . . and they weren’t particularly impressed. People who evacuated upon the order (or advice) of local officials, only to return and find their house intact, are less likely to evacuate in the future. But of course, all hurricanes aren’t created equal. And basing your future expectations on the last storm can be a fatal error.

The same holds true for pandemics. As epidemiologists like to say, “If you’ve seen one pandemic . . . you’ve seen one pandemic.”

Although there were some missteps along the way (particularly in the overpromising of vaccine supplies in October and November) the HHS and the vaccine manufacturers pulled off a considerable coup by delivering a safe and effective vaccine a month sooner than originally anticipated. Despite the ominous warnings of the anti-vaccine contingent, we have not seen any spike in Guillain-Barre syndrome, or any other serious vaccine related side effects.

The pandemic shot has proven to have roughly the same safety profile as the seasonal flu shot, which is excellent. Unfortunately, the message that the `vaccine is deadlier than the virus’ continues to persist – particularly online – and that raises doubts in many people’s minds.

While everyone is happy that the pandemic of 2009 proved less deadly than first feared, the public complacency that this has engendered may prove to be a substantial obstacle the next time we face an emerging public health threat.

We use ―citizens and ― members of the public interchangeably to support readability, though the latter is the most accurate term. When readability allows, we privilege ―members of the public in acknowledgement that not all people who are affected by emergencies and other disruptions are accorded national citizenship. In fact, vulnerable populations, which include non-citizens, are disproportionately affected by such situations. Tourists and visitors to foreign countries are also affected by disruptions, and usually have fewer resources for reacting to events than residents.

I have never explicitly clarified the use of “citizen” on my blog, and — as I use the word in practically every post — I probably should have posted a similar note at some point. But what I found particularly interesting about the footnote is the point that “tourists” and “visitors from foreign countries” are often particularly at the center of crises (and have less resources to deal with them). I’ve written about non-citizens living in the U.S. but had never thought about tourists though I should have, because:

1) it stares me right in the face every year when I distribute ReadyNY preparedness guides to tourists in Manhattan’s Columbus Circle on “National Night Out” for CERT, and

2) even more recently, the The Times Square bombing attempt is a perfect example of a crisis situation in which many of the people at the site were from out of town which has implications for the response/evacuation. Similar situations are likely going forward as many potential terror targets are also often places where tourists are apt to be. The fact is that many folks in the direct area of an incident do not know the environs or the usual information sources  and have not been exposed to any type of local preparedness/response messaging. That’s an important element to think about when it comes to public disaster response. And until reading the EPIC paper this week I really hadn’t.

Tourists and locals behind police barriers in Times Square after the attempting bombing there (credit: Daily News)

It is co-authored by the University of Colorado/Boulder’s Leysia Palen (head of the school’s Crisis Informatics program which has been a leader in this area), Kenneth M. Anderson, James Martin, Douglas Sicker, Martha Palmer and Dirk Grunwald, and the University of California/Irvine’s Gloria Mark. The research is being done as part of the new Project EPIC: Empowering the Public with Information in Crisis established by faculty from both institutions.

The authors write that their aim is to: “present a vision of the future of emergency management that better supports inclusion of activities and information from members of the public during disasters and mass emergency events.” And the paper does a terrific job of doing so in a detailed but readable manner. It offers an excellent summary/analysis of information and technology (ICT) uses during previous emergencies and then lays out ideas and multidisciplinary research questions that should be studied and addressed in the future:

According to the paper, the objective of the “vision”:

…is that people find and share the information they need to make the best, most informed decisions possible during situations of emergency and high disruption—in other words, to support and enhance the analytical skills of members of the public. In our own work, we aim to do this through leveraging the knowledge of members of the public, and through reframing emergency response as a socially-distributed information system. This work will support people across a range of geographies (Powell, 1954), by which we broadly mean those who are inside the crisis zone as well as those on the outside who are compelled to help not only through supplying physical labor, goods and psychological support, but also by playing critical roles in information dissemination.

Through reuse of computer-mediated communications that are publicly available (such as those on community websites, personal blogs, public texting systems like Twitter, social networking sites, mapping sites, etc.), we aim to derive applications and services for use by the public that integrate those original communications with information that helps citizens assess context, validity, source, credibility, and timeliness to make the best decisions for their highly localized, changing conditions.

Such a vision of research, then, is guided by this question: How can publicly-available, grassroots, peer-generated information be deemed to be trustworthy, secure and accurate, so that it can be leveraged and aligned with official information sources for optimal, local decision-making by members of the public?

The full paper can be found here.

In the past, social and information scientists seemed to be on the outer margins of the conference. This year, there were four sessions focusing on collaboration and social networking – many of which discussed the use of new media in disaster and crisis response, specifically examining the use of Twitter.

Sutton highlights four papers presented at the meeting “about how Twitter is actively used by members of the public on the ground”:

Twittering Tennessee: Distributed Networks and Collaboration Following a Technological Disaster (Jeannette Sutton, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs). This paper examined the use of Twitter following the Tennessee Valley Coalash disaster of 2008. Sutton describes the use of Twitter as a backchannel communication mechanism to alert the major media to the environmental devastation wrought on the Tennessee Valley; the distributed location of major Twitter stream contributors; the types of information shared following the toxic event; and the lack of participation at the local level among those most directly impacted, emergency management and public officials, and organizational representatives from the TVA.

Pass It On?: Retweeting in Mass Emergencies (Kate Starbird and Leysia Palen; University of Colorado at Boulder) This paper looked at the phenomenon of Retweeting (RT) on Twitter, identifying the kinds of information that is shared among Twitter users and how that information propagates over time. Using sophisticated data capture and visualization models, they depict the flow of information across a variety of information sectors and the RT process.

Tweak the Tweet: Leveraging Microblogging Proliferation with a Prescriptive Grammar to Support Citizen Reporting (Kate Starbird, University of Colorado at Boulder and Jeannie Stamberger, Carnegie Mellon University). Starbird explains a process identified at the Random Hacks of Kindness conference and tested during recent events such as the response to the Haiti earthquake, showing that syntax adoption for Twitterers could lead to machine readable text in the future. The caveat: training the everyday user to “tweak the tweet” is problematic without having champions who can model Tweet syntax in disaster and crises.

Microblogging for Citizen Communication: Examination of Twitter Use in Response to a 2009 Violent Crisis in Seattle, Washington (Thomas J. Heverin and Lisl Zach; Drexel University). Haverlin presented preliminary findings on the use of Twitter following the murder of four police officers in the Seattle region. He showed how members of the public used Twitter as a communication channel to share information on the event, the suspect, and the final hours leading to the suspect’s demise. His micro level analysis also examined how the crowd challenged unpopular opinions on Twitter and even worked to censor those who disagreed with the majority consensus.

The papers are not yet posted in their entirety but will soon be on the ISCRAM web page.

On the citizen and community preparedness front, the GAO urged NOAA to expand the TsunamiReady program and examine why participation has been limited among at risk areas:

“Although the number of TsunamiReady communities has increased from 27 in 2006 to 74 as of February 2010, overall participation in this voluntary program remains relatively low among the more than 760 communities identified as at risk for a tsunami. In this regard, GAO recommended in 2006 that NOAA conduct an assessment to identify potential barriers to program participation. Although NOAA has not yet conducted this assessment, GAO continues to believe that such an assessment is needed to help inform the agency’s strategic planning efforts.”

According to GAO, “NOAA reviewed a draft of this report and agreed with its recommendations.” You can find a podcast and transcript with the GAO staffer in charge of the report, Anu Mittal, here. (Thanks to the Natural Hazards Center for bringing the report to my attention.)

Today, NAPA released its own report on the Dialogue process summarizing the feedback and offering lessons that can guide similar future efforts by DHS and other government entities. It’s an very good piece that should be reviewed not only by those in the homeland security business but anyone interested in opening government up to the public and other stakeholders. Many of the report’s recommendations are aimed at building upon the dialogue to expand outreach and engagement.

If you were one of 20,000 Americans who took part in any of the Dialogue’s three rounds, you will be interested to read in the report some of the ways that the stakeholder input impacted the development of the QHSR document. For example, in the first round, the QHSR study group panel reported:

• Users identified ambiguous terms in several vision statements and goals which they felt might cause confusion. Examples include “malicious actors” and “man made hazards,” both of which were included in Counterterrorism mission area statements.

• One of the most highly rated ideas was that DHS goals follow the “SMART” method of goal-setting: to ensure that goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time based.

• Users identified consistency gaps among mission areas. For example, some goals are naturally shared between the Counterterrorism and Disasters; yet some were listed under one area but not the other.

• Several users suggested that “mitigation” be added as a goal for Disasters.

• Users suggested that some Immigration goals did not seem to fit within the scope of the mission area.

These suggestions were integrated into the second round of the Dialogue and the following stakeholder ideas resulted:

• Counterterrorism generated ideas that ranged from broad, strategic suggestions—such as focusing on eliminating causes of terrorism, including finance—to more discrete, practical ones, such as using strapping machines to secure luggage.

• As for Immigration, participants discussed the necessity of including public education as a benefit of immigration to society. Many ideas also referenced worksite enforcement of immigration laws, some of which could have been due to the influx of users from communities that support immigration limits.

• The 287(g) program provided the most salient discussion for Borders.

• Disasters had the most focused group of participants; it had the fewest number of users contributing ideas to other areas and the highest number of users who only prioritized disasters. Given this dynamic, ideas were very detailed and well developed. They included suggestions to align funding with community-wide interoperable communications and institute a “national preparedness mindset” that would inculcate preparedness into American life. Discussion also centered on the need to define “resilience” and incorporate the concept into this mission area.

• Suggestions for Risk Assessment included a proposal to incorporate risk perception analysis into risk analysis, development of a taxonomy of strategic opportunities under the Risk Assessment, and widespread discussion of the need to increase intelligence and information sharing.

• Planning and Capabilities generated comments on ways to expand the exercise and include more stakeholders, improve internal human capital standards, and integrate funding into goals, objectives, and planning discussions.

It will be fascinating to see if and how the recommendations for increasing stakeholder engagement in homeland security and other governmental policy will be implemented. This report will definitely offer terrific guidance for those efforts.

James Opoka, Region V’s Deputy Federal Preparedness Coordinator, told me Wednesday that the idea for the Summit largely came out of officials’ “frustration” with lack of progress on citizen preparedness. The conference examined barriers, objectives and possible solutions for public and community readiness. Everything was on the table: in fact, ironically, one of the major themes of the “Preparedness Summit” discussions was the idea of replacing (or recharacterizing) the term “preparedness” itself. According to the first of the report’s “Guiding Principles”:

“Preparedness is really about personal safety: People cannot relate to the term “preparedness” but can relate to the concept of personal safety. We may need to connect the message of preparedness to other safety/preparedness messages and change the way we deliver it as a result.”

The 23-page report is part of Phase 1 of the initiative, and its findings are being “shared with stakeholders to assist with message creation and public policy initiatives.” As FEMA leadership in Washington, D.C. continues work on a new strategic plan for citizen and community preparedness, the analysis and ideas offered at the Summit will undoubtedly be very useful.

The Summit focused on four main elements of citizen preparedness: Message, Messengers, Methods and Collaboration. Some selected “findings”:

Message: Our preparedness messages must be tangible, achievable and relevant to individuals; Focus on creating behavioral change rather than awareness.

Messengers: Before finding the right messenger, we must identify the audiences; the messengers must be individuals and groups that generate acceptance and trust

Methods: Establish a uniform preparedness branding, similar to corporate branding; use a comprehensive array of disciplines for input into a marketing campaign.

Collaboration: Identify the local and community groups that have the greatest leverage to prepare everyone; Establish an advisory board composed of disaster survivors.

There was a “Creative Thinking Exercise” during the Summit, which resulted in a terrific list of citizen preparedness proposals, some which have been discussed on this blog). A sampling:

* “Have a National Preparedness Day (instead of Preparedness Month)”

* “Follow-up. “‘Ok, I’ve got all this duct tape, but I don’t know what do with it.’”

*  ”Imitate a political field worker’s approach with leaders in each precinct getting neighbors involved.”

*  ”Exercise disaster plans using the public.”

* “Advancement requirement for schools, 6th and 10th grade, must participate in community preparedness service.”

* “Get Oprah to talk about preparedness”

Thanks to Brit Weber from Michigan State University for bringing the report to my attention. It is unfortunately not yet available online.

As governments at all levels try to determine the optimal alert/warning systems, Wimberly, president of Galain Solutions, argues for a “system of systems” which encompasses myriad distribution methods:

Get five emergency management professionals together, and you’ll get five opinions on the best way to alert and notify the public. Opinions will range from sirens-to-telephones-to-broadcast-to-giant voice-to-flashing lights-to-instand messaging-to-social media to who knows what else. Walk the floor of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) conference vendor display area and you’ll see more companies hawking their notifying and alerting wares than any other product. And, guess what, they’ll all claim theirs is the best.

So, who’s really right? Well, none of them…and all of them. There is no single “best” way to notify and alert the public. There are lots of them! It all depends on three questions, each one as important as the other: (1) what are you trying to say, (2) who are you trying to say it to, and (3) what do you have available?

There are significant differences in the ways people receive and react to important information…and the variances between the preferences grows daily. Gone are the days when the nation waits for dinner time to hear the late and wonderfully trustworthy Walter Cronkite tell us the way it was.

Now, some people use only the latest communication modes, like social media, to get important information. Others don’t even know what social media is. Many of us rely on email, yet some young people think email is passe’. (I overheard young colleagues recently talking about a friend fighting with her boyfriend because he kept emailing her. “Doesn’t he know how to text?”, they said.) What about the people who don’t have land telephone lines? What about special needs?

Nothing new in that paragraph. We all have seen our communications preferences change, perhaps significantly and perhaps often, during the last few years. So, what’s the best way to notify and alert the public? It’s not a notification “system”, but rather a “system of systems”. According to Wikipedia, a system-of-systems is “a collection of task-oriented or dedicated systems which pool resources and capabilities to obtain a coalesced, more complex, ‘meta-system’ offering more functionality and performance than simply the sum of the constituent systems”.

Translate this to the world of notifications and alerts and you have a central controlling system, built in a way that other systems can plug into it. The system of systems would be “managed”, meaning specific processes would be followed for design, sustainment, operations, and flexibility. Standards, governance, and a management process would provide discipline and structure to keep the approach from becoming daunting. It’s really not that difficult, but it takes acceptance by all involved that there’s no “best” way of notifying and alerting the public.

According to the survey, 83% of women surveyed responded that they made an extra effort to cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue, compared to 67% of men; 35% of women surveyed have gotten their seasonal flu shots this year, compared to 26% of men.

Though overall the poll found that roughly 7 in 10 Americans are confident they could take time off from work, have the right supplies at home and know what flu symptoms signal a need to go to the hospital.

The poll also indicated that in the past two months, one in five households has someone who has gone to work or school when they were sick. The latter statistic would seem to be troublesome in part because it appears to underscore the fact that some people fear they need to go to work or risk losing pay or their jobs.

More information on the survey can be found on the Red Cross’ blog here.

At the hearing, Bill Jenkins Jr. from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) presented a preliminary report, Emergency Management Preliminary Observations on FEMA’s Community Preparedness Programs Related to the National Preparedness System, which said that FEMA does not currently have an overall strategic plan for community preparedness or the ability to accurately measure the performance of its various citizen readiness initiatives.

“The operating budgets for community preparedness programs currently represent less than one-half of 1 percent of FEMA’s total budget,” the report noted. “In fiscal year 2009, FEMA’s overall budget was about $7.9 billion, of which about $5.8 million was dedicated to operating community preparedness programs and $2.1 million was for the Ready Campaign.”

FEMA’s Deputy Administrator for National Preparedness Timothy Manning who also testified on the panel, said he not yet had a chance to closely examine the brand new GAO report (though he said he didn’t disagree with much of Jenkins’ testimony to the Subcommittee). And in his own written testimony, Manning made this instructive statement: ”Since September 11, 2001, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in bolstering government’s [his italics] preparedness, while paying little attention to personal and community preparedness.”

At the end of the hearing, Cuellar requested that Manning over the next two weeks develop a preliminary outline of a FEMA strategic plan for community and citizen preparedness that will include the vision, objectives and ways to measure success, and return to the Subcommittee to present it. Cuellar said he wasn’t blaming Manning, who was confirmed just five months ago, and the new FEMA management for the lack of a strategic plan. But by putting a quick turnaround deadline on the request, the Congressman wanted to underscore the need for fast action and for renewed focus on the issue.

Earlier in the week, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano delivered a major speech on preparedness to mark the end of National Preparedness Month. She said that in order to improve our nation’s readiness all Americans should “raise your hand and ask, ‘What’s our plan?’” at meetings of their local community organizations. In some ways, Rep. Cuellar did exactly that at the Subcommittee hearing in regard to the nation’s overall community preparedness plan.

In his testimony, Manning made this pledge: “Increasing individual and community preparedness and resiliency is a FEMA priority; it is also a national priority, and I will make it a personal priority during my tenure.”

The hearing was called in part to examine a recent Citizen Corps survey which had many interesting findings (most of which highlighted shortcomings in public preparedness) and a number of useful recommendations (most of which urged far more attention be given to the subject).

Also testifying at the hearing were Suzy C. DeFrancis, Chief Public Affairs Officer, American Red Cross and Wendy Smith, Assistant City Manager, McAllen, Texas.

In his opening remarks, Cuellar mentioned a recent post from this blog, “On Sept 11, Some Ideas To Improve Emergency Preparedness & Engagement,” and introduced it into the hearing record.

In a statement after the hearing, Cuellar explained why he requested Manning produce a preliminary plan and return to the Subcommittee within a couple weeks:

“There is a new administration overseeing FEMA and I look forward to seeing their vision for how we can create a national preparedness strategy which puts an emphasis on citizen preparedness…It’s been eight years since the attacks of 9/11 and while we’ve been fortunate to not experience an event as devastating we see local emergencies unfolding across the country everyday. Fires, floods, tornadoes, snow storms, hurricanes. During these events, Americans continue to show they’re willing to respond when disaster strikes…We need FEMA to draft a strategy on how we harness that willingness to contribute before the crisis occurs.”

In fact, even the events of the past two weeks — significant terrorism arrests in several parts of the nation, major flooding in Georgia and other Southeastern states, the American Samoa tsunami, Asian earthquakes and H1N1 spreading in all 50 states — would seem to only reinforce the need for bolstering community preparedness. And, with all these crises in the news, one might have thought this hearing would have received a good deal of attention. Yet, there was only one reporter there (Matthew Korade from CQ Homeland Security), which just seems to highlight one theme of the hearing that despite the apparent importance of community and individual preparedness the subject is often overlooked.

I read Dory’s terrific report when it was released in 2003. And, six years later, as the Obama Administration develops plans to bolster public engagement and resilience, ”Civil Security” is still very useful. The CSIS web site provides this overview:

During the Cold War, a comprehensive program of civil defense was designed to address Americans’ survival concerns in relation to the threat of a massive Soviet nuclear attack. Today we need a new concept — “civil security” — that recalls the nation’s experience with civil defense and updates it, addressing and enhancing the ability of Americans to recognize danger, limit damage, and recover from terrorist attacks. In so doing, we should learn from the nation’s experiences, both positive and negative, with Cold War civil defense, as well as the many related aspects of coping with natural disasters and public health emergencies.

Author Amanda Dory proposes a framework that links four key components needed to increase Americans’ resilience before and during a terrorist attack — risk education, preparedness, warning, and protective actions. She devotes a chapter to each of these components and concludes with policy recommendations that bring more coherence to disparate post-September 11 activities and initiatives as well as increased attention to the important role the American public can and should play in homeland security.

The first 20 of the report’s 97 pages are available for free here. Or “Civil Security” in its entirety can be purchased here.

Focusing on the region damaged by Hurricane Katrina four years ago, the RAND study examines the ongoing policy and financial challenges that nongovernmental agencies face when supporting the often-overlooked area of long-term human recovery. ”What we’re seeing in New Orleans and other communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina is that recovery is more than just restoring roads and buildings,” said Anita Chandra, lead author of the study and a behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

“Human recovery includes things like rebuilding people’s social routines and a community’s support networks — actions that help restore a community’s physical and mental health,” Chandra said. “This is the kind of work nongovernmental organizations can do so well.”

Nongovernmental organizations such as the United Way and the American Red Cross have proven they can be invaluable assets to a community after a disaster, but their roles are poorly defined and frequently not supported by state and federal guidelines, Chandra said. ”There needs to be more recognition on the state and federal level that it may take years, not just months, for a community to truly recover,” said Joie Acosta, the study’s co-author and an associate behavioral scientist at RAND.

In April 2009, researchers from the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute, part of the RAND Corporation, the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps., the Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations and the United Way of New Orleans met with local leaders from 47 Louisiana organizations in New Orleans.

The group discussed experiences from the region’s recent hurricanes, identified challenges the groups continue to face in supporting human recovery, and compiled recommendations to bolster support for communities and enhance the involvement of nongovernmental organizations in long-term recovery.

Among the findings: Human recovery is not well-defined at the federal, state or local level and there is no national recovery framework; Long-term human recovery takes longer and is more complicated following multiple disasters; There is no comprehensive system of services or operating plan to support human recovery; The federal Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act is designed to meet the needs of small disasters, but can create roadblocks when considering the needs of communities with long recovery periods.

Acosta said the group found several problems with the Stafford Act, which is designed to coordinate disaster relief and recovery through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, state and local agencies, and nongovernmental organizations. For example, the act does not specifically identify case management and services provided by nongovernmental organizations as expenses eligible for federal aid. Plus, states must come up with matching funds for rebuilding, which is difficult when recovering from disasters such as hurricanes that can happen one after another.

In addition, the Stafford Act penalizes communities for rebuilding “smarter” in the long-term recovery phase. For example, the current public assistance program penalizes a community if it improves infrastructure rather than simply replacing it — for example, rebuilding a facility in a more-secure location. The main rationale for this is that the funding is supposed to help a community return to the state it was before the disaster, not better than before, according to the report.

Allowing nongovernmental organizations to establish contracts with state agencies before a disaster strikes to provide human recovery services would be beneficial, Chandra said. Currently, there are only limited provisions for this in the Stafford Act, including contracts with the American Red Cross for shelters. The study also suggests several areas for additional research, such as further analysis of what constitutes human recovery and how policies at the federal, state and local levels can better engage nongovernmental agencies in those efforts.

Thanks to the new Twitter feed of Neal Denton for bringing this report to my attention.

At a time when there is such polarization on many public policy issues, it was striking to read books by two authors from different sides of the political spectrum who, in a different ways, both argue for more of a bottom-up approach — and the centrality of local communities — to disaster preparedness and response.

In Homeland Security And Federalism, Mayer, a former DHS official who now leads the Heritage Foundation’s Homeland Security And States Project, traces the “nationalization” of disaster preparation and response. He argues the U.S. ”must reverse” that centralization and return to a more federalist approach which puts more responsibility in the hands of states and localities.

In A Paradise Built In Hell, Solnit, a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine, also focuses on the role of communities in responding to crisis. Using well reported case studies from five major North American disasters, including 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, Solnit shows how (contrary to popular perception fostered, she argues, by Hollywood and the media) citizens do not panic but instead rise to the occasion in disaster. These two authors may come at the topic from disparate locations, but they both present similarly strong arguments for local empowerment and responsibility.

That theme is also touched upon in another new book, John Farmer’s The Ground Truth: The Untold Truth Of America Under Attack on 9/11 (Riverhead Books). Farmer, a “9/11 Commission” staffer and former New Jersey Attorney General, looks closely at the nation’s response to the attacks during the day of September 11th. In his conclusion, Farmer’s first “starting point” is that “Crises are lived from the ground up, not from the top down.”

I will be writing more about these interesting books and interviewing their authors in the days to come.