The damage has been severe but could have been worse. Voluntary property buyouts conducted in the aftermath of the 1993 midwest floods removed thousands of properties from the floodplain along these rivers and deeded the land to open space. These flood mitigation actions saved taxpayers millions in disaster assistance funds and kept whole communities safe from flooding in the future.
The 2008 floods in Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri have resulted in hundreds of homes and businesses being flooded as rising waters from the Cedar and Mississippi Rivers have breached or topped levees. Research conducted by the Multi-Hazard Mitigation Council of the National Institute for Building Standards (NIBS) has found that every dollar spent on hazard mitigation results in four dollars in savings in disaster assistance. FEMA estimates that property acquisitions in Cedar Rapids and Independence, Iowa after the 1993 midwest floods resulted in over $7 million in savings from a flood in 1999.
However, despite the proven benefits, hazard mitigation has always played a secondary role in our nation’s emergency management system and in recent years funding for hazard mitigation has been significantly reduced. As the nation’s emergency management system is being rebuilt in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina debacle, the time is right for the development of a new model for managing disasters that brings new focus and resources to efforts to reduce the impacts of future disasters.
Understanding the Past
In the 1960’s when the National Governor’s Association commissioned its seminal study on this discipline, comprehensive emergency management became defined as a cycle of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. At that time, emergency management was a new discipline, dominated by three factors: 1) the discipline was driven by the reaction to a series of hazard events (Hurricane Betsy, the Three Mile Island accident, and the Mt. St. Helens eruption,); 2) the individuals staffing state and local emergency management positions held military or civil defense backgrounds; and 3) funding sources drove priorities. As a result, the response function was emergency management’s dominant driving force.
Preparedness became important after the failure of the government’s reaction to the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. In this event’s aftermath, adequate off-site preparedness around commercial nuclear power plants became a condition for continued licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The private sector nuclear operators provided funding to state emergency managers to hire staff to carry out the preparedness licensing functions.
The functions of recovery and mitigation were not widely understood nor regarded within the field, and the skill set needed to support these functions (e.g., land use planning, building code design and enforcement, engineering, architecture, cartography, and geology) were not possessed by most emergency managers. Passage of the Robert T Stafford Act in 1988 significantly expanded the role of the federal government in disaster recovery and provided funding for disaster mitigation for the first time.
However, from an emergency manager’s vantage, these functions were considered politically risky, often controversial and less-than-critical, so they were not given much attention. As a very well respected state emergency manager once said, “I won’t lose my job if I don’t mitigate, but I will lose my job if I don’t respond.”
Reflecting upon this background and the disaster events of the past few years, we would like to propose a new model for emergency management.
New Focus on Hazard Mitigation and Long Term Recovery Planning
In light of the expanding threat to the environment caused by global warming, more diverse and severe disasters and greater concentration of population in high risk areas, it may be time to take a fresh look at the priorities for emergency management to focus on reducing the impacts before the events and enhancing actions to facilitate a swift recovery. We would propose new organizational structures to address the functions of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation.
Consistent with the constitutional requirements for public health and safety, we propose that the functions of preparedness and response remain within the purview of the federal, state and local governmental emergency management organizations. FEMA could be made independent or remain within the DHS structure. The recent announcement by DHS/FEMA of the National Response Framework is not the answer. The issue of authority of the FEMA Director, the addition of a Senior Law Enforcement Official, named by the Attorney General and a Joint Task Force Chairman for military support will result in continued confusion as to who is in charge.
We propose that the functions of mitigation and long term recovery be supported by a different quasi-governmental structure that would promote a significant partnership with the private sector that controls most of the built and infrastructure environment that gets impacted by a disaster. When a community recovers from a disaster, the success of their efforts is very dependent on how quickly the infrastructure that supports the private sector is restored.
To date, the emergency management community has not been extremely effective in engaging the private sector. Even in the heyday of emergency management in the 1990’s, when FEMA and its local partners were exploring new partnership opportunities, there was a general lack of understanding about the private sector’s needs in the post disaster environment and about the potential opportunities the private sector could provide.
The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) provides a potential model for this new organizational structure. NIBS is a non-profit organization created by Congress, and can receive appropriations from Congress, but is independent of the federal government. NIBS brings together representatives of government, industry professionals, and labor and consumer interests, to focus on problems and solutions in the built environment.
We are not suggesting that the functions of mitigation and recovery be added to the NIBS mission. However, NIBS has demonstrated that this type of structure can provide the vehicle for the private sector to work as equal partners with government to accomplish mutually beneficial goals.
We propose that the Congress establish a new entity with a mission to bring together the stakeholders from the building, infrastructure, environmental, development, financial, scientific and academic, NGO, public interest, media, emergency management, elected leaders and Congressional organizations to design and implement mitigation and long term recovery programs. We would seek changes to the Disaster Relief Act that would encourage recovery and mitigation programs that promote new energy efficient and green friendly rebuilding during recovery, allowing the federal government to lead by example.
The most significant obstacle is overcoming the inertia and reluctance of Congress to create new governmental or quasi-governmental entities. The primary positive aspect of this approach is twofold: 1) mitigation and the benefits of long term recovery would be given attention equivalent to preparedness and response, and; 2) one of those entities most important to the implementation of mitigation (i.e., the private sector) would have a significant role in the process.
Conclusion
As a nation, we have cultivated, to a degree, an awareness of the need for preparedness and the necessity of response. We have not yet invested the same level of effort in mitigation and recovery. In spite of the cost-benefit analysis data and empirical evidence of the value of mitigation and its inclusion in long term recovery, it is still a very hard sell. It is clear that the usual government approaches will not work. If we are serious about reducing the impacts of future disasters and improving individual and community disaster resiliency, then we need to look at a new model.
Hurricane Katrina was a tragic event in our history that could and should have been prevented. Katrina was, at its essence, the colossal failure of political leadership at the federal, state and local levels. Aside from Katrina, we would argue that the world has changed and the emergency management cycle and discipline that worked in the past is no longer adequate. The evolving threats, the realities of global warming, and our changing social, economic and political environment demand new and innovative approaches and leadership. This is a challenge that the next president should not and cannot afford to ignore.
Jane A. Bullock
Former Chief of Staff, FEMA; Adjunct Faculty, Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management, the George Washington University; Principal, Bullock & Haddow LLC.
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