Three years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Ike offered the disaster management com­munity an opportunity to implement the lessons learned. How did the coun­try measure up? Disaster Resource Guide finds out.

As Hurricane Ike inched closer to US soil in the early days of September, and the national news networks became flooded with eye witness videos of its destruction, America braced itself for the worst.

The vicious storm, at one point with a diameter of 550 miles – and hurricane force winds of 240 mph – made Ike the most massive Atlantic hurricane on record.

Its Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) – a measure of a storm’s destructive potential that is marked on a scale of one to six – sat at 5.6 a day and a half before reaching the US. To put that into perspective, Katrina only topped out at 5.1.

Many believed that if the storm were to hit the US in the form of a Category 3 or higher, it could easily exceed the destruction left behind by Katrina – leaving many to wonder if the country had truly learned its lesson in emer­gency preparedness.

Many companies and organizations claimed they were ready. FEMA, for one, had taken drastic efforts to clean up its image – and improve its emer­gency response efforts – after Katrina.

“We have concentrated on improving responsiveness, customer service, logis­tics, debris removal, and partnerships with state and local officials,” said FEMA director, David Paulison, in an editorial in the Washington Post. “I have invested heavily in hiring the right leaders with emergency management experience to coordinate federal response efforts.”

The Federal organization enhanced its efforts so that it could register 200,000 disaster victims per day – more than dou­ble the number it could handle in 2005 – and tripled the number of post-disas­ter home inspections it could perform, reaching 20,000 homes per day.

States such as Florida responded promptly to the hurricane’s threat – declaring a state of emergency and implementing mandatory evacuations for all visitors on September 6, two days before the storm was expected to arrive.

But was it enough?

Ike made US landfall at Galveston, Texas, in the early morning of Sep­tember 13 as a Category 2 hurricane. While its winds were a fraction of what they once had been — averaging 110 mph – it reached approximately 500 miles across. The hurricane’s sheer size allowed it to pummel a large number of cities – often taking large

amounts of time to pass through them – making it the third most damaging on record, with estimates of property dam­age ranging around $27 billion.

Despite the improved efforts, sixty-one people in the US lost their lives and 300 are still missing, causing many to ask the question – what did we get right with Hurricane Ike, and what can we improve upon next time?

Evacuation Planning

Looking back at Hurricane Rita, the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, rec­ognized that the state’s evacuation procedures needed to be improved upon if the state was going to escape Ike with minimal casualties.

For this reason, upon notice of Hur­ricane Ike’s path, he immediately issued a disaster declaration for 88 counties, which allowed the state to provide assis­tance to local officials. As a result, up to 1,350 buses were made available to support potential evacuations, and more than 800 were sent to pre-stage in San Antonio and 150 to Bee County.

Up to 7,500 guardsmen were on standby for rapid deployment, and 10 UH-60 helicopters were stationed in Austin and San Antonio, while 120 aircraft were on standby in Fort Worth. Two task forces from the Texas Engi­neering Extension Service were also on standby if search and rescue capabilities were needed.

The Texas Department of Transpor­tation put up message signs urging residents along the coast to fuel up their vehicles in preparation for pos­sible evacuation orders. The state’s Fuel Team worked to ensure adequate fuel supplies were available along poten­tial evacuation routes and monitored demand increases. People who were unable to evacuate had the option of letting responders know who and where they were by dialing 211 – a service thousands of people took advantage of.

Specific cities, such as the City of Houston, developed their own plans of attack. After Hurricane Rita, Houston expanded its Hurricane Preparedness Timeline to include all government departments, rather than merely the department of emergency management.

The timeline laid out specific depart­mental instructions for each stage of a hurricane – starting 120 hours before the expected landfall. While most of the instructions were aimed at the City of Houston’s internal departments, there was a version available to local businesses in the area.

After Rita, the City of Houston also received quite a bit of feedback from residents mentioning that it was diffi­cult for them to decipher whether or not they should evacuate. For this reason, user-friendly information services were made available to the public, to indicate which areas were in dire need of evacua­tion, and which were out of harm’s way.

The Zip Zone Map and the web­site www.houstonhidefromthewind.org enabled residents to determine, via their zip code, whether they were located in storm surge risk areas that were manda­tory for evacuation.

The website provided projected wind speeds by zip code – comparing cur­rent wind speeds to those of previous hurricanes. This allowed individuals to decide for themselves if they should pack up and leave, or stick it out.

“The use of zip codes also made it easier for the media to disseminate informa­tion on the areas covered by a mandatory evacuation to the public,” said Sharon Nalls, emergency management coordi­nator for the City of Houston.

Various jurisdictions in Texas also took advantage of the state’s Internet-based incident management system. The system allows various governmental departments to input information about their local area and share it with others.

For example, if there is a traffic acci­dent along one of the evacuation routes, the county’s local police department can post a notice on the bulletin board so other jurisdictions can alter their evacu­ation procedures accordingly.

Individual companies also beefed up their evacuation procedures to ensure business continued to run almost-as-usual. Kinder Morgan, a midstream energy company, relocated essential per­sonnel from its Houston offices to the company’s Lakewood, CO office as well as various Dallas hotels.

“For our terminals and pipeline opera­tions where people had to remain in the area, some relocated to hotels just outside of the expected impact zone, and some bunkered down in reinforced buildings on the property,” said Dan Shellenberger, manager of business pro­cesses for Kinder Morgan.

Emergency Planning

Businesses and organizations across the board fine-tuned their emergency plan­ning ahead of Hurricane Ike. With the heartbreak of Katrina still sharp in its mind, the medical community in par­ticular took a proactive approach in preparing for what was expected to be one of the largest hurricanes on record.

Nursing homes and other licensed facilities in coastal regions were con­tacted by the Texas state government to make sure their emergency plans were up-to-date. Staff closely monitored con­ditions to ensure the safety of those at the Corpus Christi State School.

Throughout the medical districts in the Galveston and Houston areas, opera­tions personnel made arrangements for the relocation and transportation of crit­ically ill and special needs individuals.

In many cases, medical facilities that were at risk of losing power were required to transport all oncology and dialysis patients to safer jurisdictions – often as far away as Austin, Dallas/Ft.Worth and San Antonio.

Doctors and nurses, in addition to their regular patients, made sure these individuals received the necessary levels of care, in most cases having to work 24 hours around the clock for days to accommodate their needs.

Other government departments also sought to leave no stone unturned. The Department of Family and Protective Services instructed foster parents and other caregivers how to report the where

abouts of children in foster care if they had to evacuate. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice staged nearly 60 inmate transport buses in the Beeville area in case the evacuation of south Texas prison facilities became necessary.

The Texas Department of Agriculture prepared to distribute food commodi­ties and coordinate distribution efforts with the Salvation Army and American Red Cross. Plans were also created to protect livestock in the Department of Agriculture’s export pens that stood in the path of Ike.

Electricity and telecommunication accessibility were also on the state’s list of priorities. The Public Utility Commission asked electricity provid­ers and telecommunications companies along the Gulf Coast to begin emer­gency preparations, such as reviewing emergency operations plans, updating critical care customer lists, checking inventories, and alerting crews.

Many businesses and organizations also set up a secure line of satellite com­munication before the hurricane hit. Kinder Morgan, for example, provided its personnel in the impacted zone with satellite phones as well as a variety of cell phones provided by different carri­ers – including Nextel PTT, AT&T, and Verizon. The phones included local and out-of-state area codes.

The company also upgraded its cor­porate directory to include emergency contact information – including cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses – that were exported to an Excel file and provided to each manager and director before the storm hit.

Stewart Title Company, which spe­cializes in information services, kept its business up and running during the storm – as well as its aftermath – by taking pre-emptive steps when it came to technology, messaging and telecom­munications.

“The Houston home office campus was closed Friday, September 12th to Tuesday, September 16th, but our business remained open through our remote locations and business resump­tion center to maintain mission-critical applications,” said Murshid Kahn, Chief Information Officer of Stewart Informa­tion Services Corporation.

The company relied on the Internet to maintain its connections with other divisions of the company, and made a point of conducting regular confer­ence calls to disseminate information, identify and resolve issues related to the company’s disaster recovery and busi­ness continuity efforts.

Stewart Title’s remote locations were involved in managing the Customer Care Center during the event – a deci­sion that resulted in minimal call center interruption for customers. And the company’s Business Resumption Center was functional well in advance of the storm to maintain operations, in case the Houston campus lost service.

Robert DiLossi, Director, Crisis Management at SunGard Availability Services shared another insight from the recent hurricanes. “If you’ve taken the time to prepare a plan, follow that plan – don’t wait it out,” said DiLossi. “We saw companies choosing not to follow their disaster recovery plan until sig­nificantly into the event, which caused unnecessary complications and delay.” He also noted that with so much of the region impacted even feeding employ­ees was not an easy task.

The Aftermath

When Ike finally veered off into the Atlantic, an unthinkable number of states – including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indi­ana, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania – suffered from its destruction. But only parts of Texas and Louisiana were officially declared major disaster areas by President Bush, granting them fed­eral funding.

At the end of September, FEMA agreed to grant Texas an extension on its reimbursement period, given the exceptional destruction and debris left behind by Ike. By October 9th, Texas officials were pleading with FEMA to send more trailers as fast as possible to the Beaumont, Texas area.

County officials said about 4000 trail­ers were needed as thousands were still homeless and very little housing was available. Thousands were sleeping in cars and tents outside their flooded homes.

While many areas suffered from devastation, Galveston and Chambers County, TX, undeniably bore the brunt of it. The storm hit these areas first and, unlike other parts of the country, few residents chose to heed authorities’ warnings and evacuate.

Even though there were advance evacuation plans, Mary Jo Naschke, spokesperson for the city of Galves­ton, estimated that a quarter of the city’s residents ignored evacuation calls, despite predictions that most of Galves­ton Island would suffer heavy flooding storm tide.

Widespread floods – reaching six feet in some areas – enveloped Galveston as the storm hit. The next day, rescuers went door-to-door to check on the esti­mated 20,000 people who failed to flee Hurricane Ike.

Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city, was also paralyzed by Ike – suffer­ing from shattered skyscraper windows and streets blocked with debris and downed trees. Many residents were left without power for an average of

2½ weeks – and wastewater treatment plants and water treatment plants alike also suffered.

“When the electricity went off, we began losing water pressure,” Ms Naschke said. “Smaller communities might have one wastewater treatment plant, so it doesn’t cost them a lot to back it up with a generator. In larger metropolitan areas, such as Houston, it gets expensive.”

Nalls said, next time around, this is something Houston will be bet­ter prepared for. There is already talk of introducing legislation that would ensure that all water systems and water treatment systems have appropriate generated power – especially for-profit organizations.

While this would undoubtedly cost a lot of money for many companies and government bodies in Houston, Nalls said it’s necessary.

Shelter

Providing adequate shelter for evacu­ees in an efficient manner was one of the emergency management commu­nity’s greatest failures in the wake of Katrina – primarily because the vast amount of emergency resources were never required before.

In 2008, the emergency management community refused to be caught off-guard again. The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) made hurricane housing resources available for communities on the agency’s website. The TDHCA also contacted agencies in the projected path of the storm, advising them that they might be called upon to serve more people.

The City of Houston took pride in its ability to quickly respond to the shelter needs of evacuees. While it took the city several days to prepare appropriate shelter for Katrina’s victims, this time around it only took the city a couple of days to set up 800 cots, along with por­table showers, hand washing stations and toilets after Ike.

After temporarily escaping the storm in San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth, evacuees were bussed home and – if their homes were still standing – were offered city-funded taxi passes to allow them to return. If their homes were destroyed – or in an area where resi­dents were not yet being admitted back – they had the opportunity to register in the city’s makeshift shelter.

The city also shipped in an abundance of dirt and grass to create a fenced-in area for pets. The area included fans and separated kennels, as well as security services.

Not everything went according to plan, however. FEMA’s manufactured houses were slow to trickle in due to health concerns regarding formalde­hyde in some trailers. Formaldehyde – a toxic chemical that’s common in new carpets, glue, and permanent press materials, among other things – has been a common problem with FEMA’s manufactured houses, and were said to cause many respiratory illnesses during Katrina.

The federal organization has previous­ly worked with the Centers for Control and Prevention to conduct indoor air assessments. To avoid further respira

tory ailments, every trailer had to be tested for formaldehyde before being deployed after Ike, which slowed down the process.

As of late October, about 150 families were housed in FEMA-provided mobile homes, and about 1,150 additional families were still waiting on them, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Room for Improvement

While Ike was significantly less devas­tating than Katrina, lives were still lost – which means there are still lessons to be learned.

“You can do as many exercises and drills as you want, but the problem with those is that everything goes according to plan,” said Sharon Nalls of the City of Houston. “You have to be engaged in planning – but the plans have to be flexible enough so you don’t have to fit a square problem into a round solution.”

Nalls recognizes that after any emergency, there is always room for improvement – especially when there are casualties involved. After Ike, Hous­ton lost seven – with that number expected to rise as, at the time of print­ing, many were still missing.

Nalls says many of the casualties were a result of improper use of power gen­erators – an area she expects will get much more attention in preparation for the next hurricane. Simple lessons such as following a power generator’s instruc­tions, or waiting for it to cool before refueling it, will be included in future public preparedness materials, she said.

Emphasizing the importance of stock­ing up with enough materials to survive a month-long power outage will also be included in the materials. While many people could survive three days without power, few people in Houston were prepared for 2½ weeks – which was the average amount of time without power.

The City of Houston also aimed to educate members of the disabled com­munity regarding the limitations of emergency services personnel.

“While firefighters can carry a person out of a home, it’s very difficult for them to carry electric wheelchairs with heavy batteries,” said Nalls. “If we’re honest with people, that will allow them to make better arrangements on their end.”

While individual preparedness is obvi­ously a major issue – and an area that will always need special attention in the wake of a hurricane – business prepared­ness should also be a matter of priority.

Ed Minyard, CEO of ResponseForce1, said – in Galveston, at least – levels of preparedness were mixed. “We’ve seen examples of apparently well-planned recovery, such as the Bank of America mobile banking unit, which is positioned outside of their damaged brick-and-mortar branch and providing a full range of services,” he said. “Then, on the other end of the spectrum, we see the impact on small businesses, most of which were severely impacted and have yet to re-open for business.”

Minyard said small business is the real story of Ike. In a town of mom and pop shops and franchises, most independents don’t have the support infrastructure to establish a disaster resiliency plan or a business continuity plan.

“It’s all about the day-to-day business that keeps them afloat – or not,” he said. “Even with the low-interest-rate loans being offered by the SBA, recov­ery will not be easy.”

One month after Hurricane Ike left town, there were still large areas of Galveston without power. Only about half the original population had returned and many wondered how many would, in fact, return.

Minyard said there are many methods to help small businesses weather the next hurricane – and most solutions involved encouraging them to work together.

“We can’t expect that The Children’s Palace will have the resources that a Target has. But, it might be possible to form a group-buying consortium, possibly through the auspices of an organization like the Chamber of Com­merce,” he said. “This could provide for an arrangement of ‘co-opetition’ amongst the members.”

That term, originally coined by Andy Grove of Intel, implies that even com­petitors must cooperate on occasion to ensure the survival of the group, Minyard said. He added that teaming together to acquire the resources to support both resiliency planning, as well as recovery, could be beneficial to all involved.

Steps have been taken towards this measure. In October, the Galveston Chamber of Commerce held a Disaster Recovery Workshop for its members.

“This is a laudable effort to assist chamber members in moving forward towards recovery,” Minyard said. “The suggestion here is that future meetings should address disaster preparedness, as well.”

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About the authors: Pat Moore, CBCP, FBCI is the disaster recovery and business continuity planning industry’s leading educator, providing programs based on extensive real-world experience in these fields. She can be reached at: [email protected].

Vanessa Chris is an editorial contributor to the quarterly Disaster Resource GUIDE and the weekly newsletter, Continuity e-GUIDE. She can be reached at [email protected].

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