[KyARES] RE: [KYHAM] National Disaster Response Plan Needed?

[Ron Dodson]

>From all I have found in researching the events (I am using the Katrina
mess as a backdrop now in doing the IS-700 classroom training), the
local and state sat back and said, "We are pre-declared, let the feds
deal with it". I watched as both the Mayor of New Orleans and the LA
Governor both verbally confirmed this on CNN one day!  

As an EMA Director of 6 past Presidential Declarations, I can tell you
that there is a form we fill out.  As with the way I have always
encouraged amateurs to order aid, the local and state gov't should do
the same. How much, what kind, when and where.  You can't just get on TV
and scream, "Send me everything you got! I need help!"  

You ask for 1,000 National Guard troops for security, 10 Blackhawk (or
what ever helicopters) if they need FLIR to locate warm bodies you say
so, etc.
You get what you ask for.  From all I can see, no one asked in the right
way.    

I also agree with Tom, that likely, the military's idea of a PLAN is not
the civilian idea of a PLAN. I can also guarantee you if you walk into
any agency in the county you live in and ask WHO has actually read their
county EOP cover to cover, they will look at you like you are insane in
9 out of 10 cases. Many may not even know there is one.    

I am sorely afraid that if we are not terribly lucky, the aftermath of
these events will result in a knee jerk reaction and changes that will
not fix the problems, but only make them worse.

We can only wait to see.

73, 
Ron, KA4MAP



-----Original Message-----
From: kyham-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:kyham-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of N4AOF
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 5:54 PM
To: KyARES at yahoogroups.com; kyham at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [KyARES] RE: [KYHAM] National Disaster Response Plan
Needed?

However the military suggestion that a plan is needed may have some
validity 
to it.  One shortcoming of the NRP (and the FRP before it) is that the
plan 
deliniates who is responsible and lays out a detailed process for the
local 
government to ask their state for help, for the state to ask the federal

government for help, and for the federal agencies to coordinate with
each 
other about who is supposed to help.  But nowhere in the NRP (or the
FRP) is 
there one single word about actually DOING anything.

According to the system mandated by the FRP and continued in the NRP,
only 
the state and local plans have to address any specific actions.  This is
a 
good system because it ensures that each local plan will address the 
specific kinds of disaster that may strike their particular area; and
the 
disaster specific annexes of the state plan are basically a collection
of 
the corresponding annexes of the local plans with the state resources 
allocated.

What this system fails to envision is a disaster where national level 
resources are needed immediately (personally I am not convinced that
federal 
resources were needed "immediately" in Katrina, but that is an entirely 
different discussion).

The difference between the military concept of a plan and the FEMA
concept 
of a plan is that when the military makes out a plan, they write down
what 
they need to DO, along with who does it, when, and how.  If the military
had 
planned a response to Katrina, there would have been a massive detailed
plan 
with hour-by-hour assignements (all of which would have totally ignored 
state & local resources and priorities) and a complete list of
everything 
needed (no one would have read that plan either, except perhaps the one
Army 
Corps of Engineers captain who was tasked to write it).