Home Security and Local Hazard and Disaster Management

By William L. Waugh, Jr.

Local emergency responders and emergency managers are the foundation upon which the nation’s system to deal with hazards and disasters rests. Local fire brigades and other volunteer organizations were the earliest of our emergency response and emergency management programs. Today, local governments still have primary responsibility for managing natural and technological hazards and local first responders still handle small and large disasters. Local officials are responsible for land-use regulation, building code adoption and enforcement, and emergency planning and training. The effectiveness of national efforts to deal with threats ranging from hurricanes to terrorist attacks is dependent upon the capacities of local governments to exercise their responsibilities well.   

When disasters do occur, the assumptions are that state governments will provide assistance when the resources of local governments are overwhelmed and that the federal government will provide assistance when the resources of state and local governments are overwhelmed. State officials can intervene if it is clear that local officials need assistance, but federal officials are required to wait for state officials to request assistance. In practice, state resources are mobilized when the threat to life and property is substantial and federal resources are mobilized when it is apparent that local and state resources will be overwhelmed. State officials seldom take over responsibility for disaster response from local officials and federal officials generally defer to local and state officials who have legal and political responsibility for managing hazards and disasters. This is the system that operated before the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked on September 11, 2001, and the system that operated until around 2004. Since that time, federal responses to major disasters like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have been more ad hoc, less proactive, and slower.

The assumptions upon which major disaster responses were based in the 1990s are less certain since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003.  The support roles for federal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), that were defined in the Federal Response Plan and the Stafford Act have been changed under the new department. The new National Response Plan (NRP) is more oriented toward dealing with terrorist attacks and less oriented toward dealing with the more certain natural and technological disasters, more oriented toward preventing terrorist attacks and less oriented toward mitigating the hazard and dealing with the disasters that might result from such attacks, and more oriented toward disasters in which there is a lead federal role and less oriented toward disasters in which state and local agencies are the lead or there is shared governance. All of these changes have affected local government roles in managing hazards and dealing with disasters.

Indeed, the Katrina and Rita disasters have raised serious questions about Homeland Security priorities and capabilities and the connections between and among Homeland Security programs and their local and state counterparts. The capacities of local officials in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas to manage hazards and to deal with disasters were found wanting, as were the capacities of state and federal agencies to provide adequate and timely support.  In some measure, the causes of the problems were the centralization of federal decision making which slowed the deployment of resources, the loss of communication within the disaster areas and between the disaster areas and state and federal emergency management agencies, and poor planning and poor plan execution at all levels.  

Local Emergency Management

Local emergency management utilizes an all-hazards approach. The underlying principle is that agencies can develop generic disaster programs that can be adapted to a variety of circumstances. Mass evacuation programs, for example, can be used to move populations away from flood, wildfire, hazardous materials spills, nuclear accidents, and terrorist attacks. Similarly, temporary shelter programs can be used in any circumstances in which people are evacuated from their communities or their homes are severely damaged. The assumption is that there are enough similarities in the responses to most disasters to justify some commonalities in the response programs. Disaster response almost always requires adaptation, innovation, and improvisation.

The all-hazards approach is also linked to the comprehensive emergency management model. The model divides emergency management activities, policies and programs into four functional areas: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Mitigation is the prevention of or reduction in losses from disaster, preparedness is planning and training and the development of response capabilities, response is the immediate reaction to disaster before or after it occurs, and recovery is the restoration of lifelines and other essential activities. The functions overlap. For example, measures taken during disaster response can mitigate the effects of disaster, such as covering damaged roofs with plastic tarps very quickly to minimize damage from rain or shutting off natural gas lines to prevent fires. 

The biggest dilemma for local emergency management is the unevenness of capabilities.  Some local agencies have few resources and may only have a part-time, unpaid emergency manager, while others may have large professional staffs and state-of-the-art capabilities. Some local agencies are well-supported by their state governments and some are not. For example, California’s “standardized emergency management system” (SEMS) framework provides a common all-hazards approach with comprehensive planning processes, communication networks, and mechanisms for state-local and local-local coordination. There are regional coordinating bodies to assure effective delivery of resources to local agencies. Perhaps most importantly, SEMS assures that emergency agencies have a common technical language [1].  The State of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management provides a number of services to local and regional emergency management organizations, including developing and maintaining geographic information system (GIS) databases to facilitate local disaster operations and training local officials. 

Local emergency responders include the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other nongovernmental voluntary organizations, as well as fire, police, emergency medical services, and public works departments. Volunteers provide essential resources to deal with large disasters, i.e., the surge capacity. Volunteers provide critical manpower and technical expertise. The overwhelming majority of fire departments in the U.S. are volunteer. In the State of North Carolina, for example, 79 percent of fire departments are unpaid volunteers, 19 percent are mixes of volunteers and paid professionals, and only 6 percent are paid professionals [2].  

States support local efforts by providing material and technical expertise. National Guard units, state police, state natural resources personnel, state fish and wildlife personnel and other state personnel can be deployed to support local responders. When additional assistance is needed from the federal government, the state governor must file a formal request and document the extent of damage and the level of need. The request includes a damage assessment and the kinds of aid that are needed. If warranted, a presidential disaster declaration is issued and makes available individual and public assistance, ranging from grants to state and local governments for the repair of infrastructure, public facilities, and debris removal to low interest disaster loans to private citizens for damage to residences and property. 

The National Emergency Management and Homeland Security System

A series of major natural disasters during the 1960s and 1970s encouraged state and local government officials to ask for changes in national policy. In 1978, at the request of the National Governors’ Association, President Carter initiated the reorganization of federal preparedness programs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created. There were organizational and political problems within the FEMA from the beginning. Most of the problems resulted from the appointment of administrators lacking emergency management experience. The very poor federal responses to Hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, and Iniki were serious embarrassments to President George G.W. Bush and Congress considered abolishing the agency in 1992. However, in 1993, President Clinton appointed James Lee Witt, the former head of the Arkansas emergency management agency and a former local government official, as director of FEMA. Witt reinvented the agency, building strong working relationships with the agency’s state and local counterparts. While the agency was not without its critics, its reputation benefited tremendously from a change in focus from national security to natural and technological disasters. The agency’s effectiveness in supporting state and local disaster efforts, building partnerships with state and local agencies and the private sector, and increasing public awareness of hazards and appropriate self-help measures gave it a high public profile and a positive image. The agency’s approach became much more collaborative and cooperative and much more consistent with the legal and political realities of the American federal system [3].

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 fundamentally rearranged federal emergency management structures and, consequently, has had considerable impact upon state and local emergency management programs.  FEMA retained its role in coordinating federal responses to natural and technological disasters, but some programs were shifted elsewhere within DHS. Decision processes within DHS were centralized and altered FEMA’s decentralized, regional office-oriented processes. The DHS’ organizational culture is also much less collaborative and cooperative than the culture within FEMA and relationships with state and local partners have suffered.  The secretary of DHS has assumed many of the functions previously the responsibility of the director of FEMA, including making recommendations to the president concerning Presidential disaster declarations. The new National Response Plan was approved late in 2004 and reorganized the federal response to large-scale disasters. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) was adopted early in 2005 and has not been fully implemented. Many local agencies, in particular, are not NIMS compliant and most nongovernmental agencies are still trying to figure out what NIMS means. In short, there is considerable confusion at the local level and among nongovernmental organizations concerning expectations.

FEMA’s mission has included capacity-building at the local and state levels and programs to define minimum and desired capabilities, but, under DHS, funding for local capacity-building has been slowed and/or diverted to counter-terrorism programs. Little guidance has been provided for equipment choices and priority setting. Monies funneled through state agencies have tended to be allocated more broadly, reducing allocations to large central cities. State officials have often ignored local needs and allocations, until recently, were not based upon an assessment of risk.

The movement toward national standards has been progressing. The National Fire Protection Association began to develop a set of standards for public and private emergency management programs in the early 1990s. The standards, NFPA 1600, have been endorsed by professional organizations, government agencies, Congress, and the 9-11 Commission. Because NFPA 1600 is designed for both governmental and nongovernmental organizations, the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) was created to adapt the standards for state and local government programs.  EMAP is a voluntary accreditation process to encourage the adoption of effective practices. As of November 2005, the emergency management programs of the District of Columbia, Florida, Arizona, North Dakota, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Jacksonville/Duval County (FL) are fully accredited and Illinois, Montana, and East Baton Rouge Parish (LA) are conditionally accredited.  The standards include program attributes, such as program management, finance and administration, and direction, control, and coordination. More importantly, the standards are for whole programs, rather than for single agencies. EMAP defines emergency management “programs” in very broad terms that include all the public, private, and nonprofit organizations that might be involved in hazard management and disaster operations. Rather than simply accrediting agencies, EMAP focuses on all the actors and stakeholders necessary to assure that the functions are carried out. EMAP is expanding to include Homeland Security functions and there are several bills before the U.S. Congress to require the adoption of standards for Homeland Security programs to assure the effective allocation of resources.

Conclusions

During the 1990s, there was a paradigm shift in American emergency management from government action in response to crises and disasters to community action with government assistance. Local self-reliance was encouraged. The focus was on hazard mitigation, rather than disaster response and recovery. Investments were made in programs to make communities “disaster-resistant” and “disaster-resilient.” Mitigation was also linked to sustainable development. Government programs became more cooperative and collaborative. FEMA and other agencies helped build consensus on the need to reduce hazards and offered incentives to adopt mitigation programs, rather than simply trying to force compliance through regulation.

The creation of DHS altered the American emergency management system significantly and, in many respects, for the worst. Organizational structures became more hierarchical.  Organizational processes were centralized. Financial and human resources were shifted to counter-terrorism programs. Some state and local governments set up their own Homeland Security offices, usually tied to their police departments and sometimes apart from their emergency management offices. Intergovernmental and inter-agency coordination became an even more serious problem. Local needs and priorities were secondary to DHS priorities. In many respects, emergency management became a peripheral mission within Homeland Security, despite the fact that the same networks of disaster relief organizations are needed during natural and unnatural disasters [4].

William L. Waugh, Jr., is Professor of Public Administration in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.  He serves on the Certified Emergency Manager (CEM) Commission that oversees the national credential for professional emergency managers and on the Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP) Commission that develops standards for and accredits state and local emergency management programs. He is the author of Living with Hazards, Dealing with Disasters (2000). 

Notes

1. See Frances E. Winslow, “Intergovernmental Challenges and California’s Approach to Emergency Management.” In Disaster Management in the U.S. and Canada, eds. Richard T. Sylves and William L. Waugh, Jr., 101-125. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publishers, 1996.

2. See Chuck Barnham, “Community College Roles in North Carolina,” FEMA Higher Education Conference, National Emergency Training Center, Emmitsburg, Maryland, June 8-10, 2004.

3. See William L., Jr Waugh, Living with Hazards, Dealing with Disasters. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe Publishers, 2000.

4. See Waugh and Richard T. Sylves, “Organizing the War on Terrorism,” Public Administration Review, Special Issue (September 2002): 145-153; Waugh, “Terrorism, Homeland Security and the Emergency Management Networks,” Public Organization Review 3 (December 2003): 373-385; Waugh, “Terrorism and the All-Hazards Approach,” Journal of Emergency Management 4 (March/April 2005): 8-10.