The following is the executive summary from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service detailing the proper Federal Response to a Natural Disaster based on a review of the Federal statute passed in 1988 establishing the process.
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Overview of the Process for a Federal Response to a Natural Disaster
In an effort to provide better understanding of the process, the following document is intended to be a brief overview explaining how the federal government responds to natural disasters.
In 1988, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, was enacted to support State and local governments and their citizens when disasters strike. This law establishes a process for requesting and obtaining a Presidential disaster declaration, defines the type and scope of assistance available from the Federal government, and sets the conditions for obtaining that assistance. All incidents are handled at the most immediate organizational and jurisdictional level – local and State agencies are the primary response and recovery units for any disaster. Police, fire, public health and medical, emergency management, and other personnel are responsible for incident management at the local level. The National Guard, State Police, and other responding state agencies are coordinated by the Governor. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is tasked with coordinating the Federal response.
1. Pre-Disaster
* The Department of Homeland Security Operations Center monitors potential major disasters and relays warnings to States. When advance warning is possible, DHS may deploy and also request deployment of other Federal agency liaison personnel to a State Emergency Operations Center.
o Equipment, supplies, and Federal personnel may also be pre-positioned just outside the affected area to provide immediate response as requested by the Governor.
2. Initial Response
* Immediately after an incident, local jurisdictions respond using available resources and notify State elements. During this response, localities should assess the situation and apprise the State of further needs.
* The State begins a review of the situation, mobilizes State resources, and informs the DHS/FEMA Regional office of actions taken.
* The Governor activates the State Emergency Operations Plan, declares a state of emergency and requests a State/DHS joint preliminary damage assessment to determine if a Presidential declaration is justified.
* The Governor must also provide an estimate of the Federal assistance that will be required.
3. Post-Emergency Declaration Response – Federal Organization
* DHS establishes a Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) staffed by their regional personnel to coordinate field activities and deployment of an Advance Emergency Response Team.
* The Advance Emergency Response Team then assesses the impact of the event, gauges immediate State needs, and makes preliminary arrangements to set up operational field facilities.
* If regional resources are overwhelmed, DHS may employ a National Emergency Response Team comprised of 16 federal agencies which becomes FEMA’s primary vehicle for coordinating Federal activities.
* A Federal Coordinating Officer is appointed by the Secretary of DHS on behalf of the President to direct the National Response Team.
4. Federal Response/Recovery
* Primarily, FEMA provides operational and/or resource coordination for Federal support assisting States and localities in their response and recovery efforts. In general, States are compensated by reimbursable programs as dictated by the Stafford Act.
* FEMA also acts as the sole coordinator of the involved Federal agencies, and FEMA emergency volunteers, tasking them with specific missions examples include: DOD assets for search and rescue, medical assistance, and transportation of commodities; Army Corps assets for channel clearing, dredging, debris removal, and flood control; DOT assets for transportation needs, HHS assets for health and disease control, Red Cross for evacuee housing and care.
* As the need arises, FEMA also becomes a contractor procuring services from private vendors to assist in cleanup and recovery efforts.
* FEMA acts as the provider of most public and private assistance as dictated by the Stafford Act. The Stafford Act lays out the conditions for which public and private assistance may be available. http://www.fema.gov/rrr/dec_guid.shtm provides an overview of available Federal disaster assistance programs.
THE DECLARATION PROCESS
The Stafford Act (ยง401) requires that: “All requests for a declaration by the President that a major disaster exists shall be made by the Governor of the affected State.” A State also includes the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia are also eligible to request a declaration and receive assistance.
The Governor’s request is made through the regional FEMA/EPR office. State and Federal officials conduct a preliminary damage assessment (PDA) to estimate the extent of the disaster and its impact on individuals and public facilities. This information is included in the Governor’s request to show that the disaster is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and the local governments and that Federal assistance is necessary. Normally, the PDA is completed prior to the submission of the Governor’s request. However, when an obviously severe or catastrophic event occurs, the Governor’s request may be submitted prior to the PDA. Nonetheless, the Governor must still make the request. (Emphasis added)
As part of the request, the Governor must take appropriate action under State law and direct execution of the State’s emergency plan. The Governor shall furnish information on the nature and amount of State and local resources that have been or will be committed to alleviating the results of the disaster, provide an estimate of the amount and severity of damage and the impact on the private and public sector, and provide an estimate of the type and amount of assistance needed under the Stafford Act. In addition, the Governor will need to certify that, for the current disaster, State and local government obligations and expenditures (of which State commitments must be a significant proportion) will comply with all applicable cost-sharing requirements.
Based on the Governor’s request, the President may declare that a major disaster or emergency exists, thus activating an array of Federal programs to assist in the response and recovery effort. (Emphasis added)
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-Bruce (GayPatriot)
You mean that is all she had to do and the feds would have come in and helped? Who would have known such a thing had escaped her. Actually, it didn’t. She declared the state of emergency on August 26th. Besides previous discussions with the President through late the week before and the weekend, he received her official request for assistance on the 28th (also linked below). Where’s the beef sir?
August 26th Declaration of Emergency:
http://gov.louisiana.gov/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973
August 28th Request:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10152.htm
Shh! You’ll destroy his world. These “gay conservative” bloggers live in a world where each other assure things are as they see it, and truth seems to make them upset! It’s like a big circle jerk and truth is your mom walking in on you and your friends. It’s a self congratulatory, self reassuring, and self delusional process. (Not that the liberal side doesn’t have its own self-masturbatory blogs, but we’re here, we can discuss this place now).
Joey — Sorry… I was confused for a sec….. I thought you were reading an ad for the annual Human Rights Campaign Black Tie Gala. My bad.
Have you actually READ her request for aid under the Stafford act that you have linked???? Read it and tell me what that had to do with the evacuation BEFORE the storm.
And again, tell me that you read, in her letter that she “has implemented the State of Emergency Plan in her state as part of the request from the feds.
She didn’t. For if she did, this is what her plan states was done:
http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1a.pdf
State of Louisiana
1. Activate EOC and prepare for 24-hour operations.
2. Put State Departments and the ARC on standby alert in
accordance with OEP Implementing Procedures.
3. Put National Guard units on standby alert.
4. Call all nursing homes and other custodial care
organizations in the risk areas to insure that they are
prepared to evacuate their residents.
5. Alert FEMA of the situation and advise that the State may
need Federal assistance.
6. Establish communications with risk area parish EOCs and
test all communications means, including conference call
procedures.
7. Prepare a proclamation of emergency for the State so that,
when needed, State resources can be mobilized to support
risk area evacuation and host area sheltering operations.
8. Have DSS review and update State shelter list.
01/00 III-3
9. Implement procedures for establishing special needs
shelters.
10. Issue a standby alert to host parishes (See Part V, Shelter
Operations) to review their shelter status and prepare to
host evacuees.
11. Prepare proclamations for the State to intervene in local
situations if local governments fail to act, in accordance
with RS 29:721-735.
12. Initiate media contacts to disseminate public information
on potential evacuation and shelter operations.
13. Activate EAS system to disseminate hurricane advisories
and evacuation and shelter information.
14. Have any current road obstructions cleared on an
emergency basis.
15. Coordinate with DOTD to get traffic count information
reported to the State EOC from the counters on major
evacuation routes.
2. Recommended Evacuation:
a. Risk Area Parishes:
1. Put EOC on 24-hour operations.
2. Mobilize parish/local transportation to assist persons who
lack transportation or who have mobility problems.
3. Announce the location of staging areas for people who need
transportation. Public transportation will concentrate on
moving people from the staging areas to safety in host
parishes with priority given to people with special needs.
4. Coordinate public information releases and
announcements with other parishes and the State to
insure that consistent, correct information is given out.
Now, given that she did not implement her plan, nor did she call up the available National Guard (first responders) available to her, I contend that she, in her total and abject failure to do her job, killed 836 people.
Need proof she failed?
Are you insinuating that she did none of these things. On a cursory glance I see she performed 5 and 7, and I’d be willing to bet she did the overwhelming majority of that list if not the whole thing. I am not one that believes the state and local government acted flawlessly and only the federal government is to blame. If any one thinks that any of the three chief executives (president, governer, mayor) are free from blame, they are deluding themselves. Lets not forget that Barbour, the GOP governer of MS, also called the federal response pathetic although he later thanked everyone at that level for their efforts (as did Blanco and Nagin). Because the issue with the response goes across state and political lines, I don’t think you can explain away the fed’s blame, although I’m sure you’ll try.
I tend to look at preparations issues, considering there were 836 deaths in NOLA alone.
Now, if you can show me where anyone in LA tried to evacuate people through transportation to higher ground (out of the path of the storm), please present it. I have found no proof at all.
I hold all levels accountable too. But the hue and cry that immediately came out of the mouths of LA officials was that it was the feds problem. And didn’t the media jump on that and hardly question local/state officials actions? Absolutely they did, and turned the less intelligent among us in that direction. And unfortunately, there are many.
In fact, had the local officials followed their responsibility to evacuate those who could not mobilize themselves, although the event would be a disaster, it would not have been a scene of tremendous human loss and suffering.
And why did the state officials turn away the Red Cross on Wed. following the storm, who were prepared to bring in water and food to those at the Superdome (the refuge of last resort)? The sickening answer can be found here:
RED CROSS TURNED AWAY
It has never been, or will it become, the responsibility of the federal government or any of it’s agencies to evacuate people prior to a hurricane. That responsibility lies within the state officials parameters.
Unless, of course, governors wish to abdicate their responsibilities to their citizens through federalization? I fail to see one governor willing to do so, including Blanco before, during or after this storm.
Oh, and as to #7? What state resources did she call into play? The only shelter opened was the Superdome. No food/water/cots or security and this ‘shelter’ was the shelter of last resort in the state and city plans. With a letter from her on August 26, 2005, nothing was done to move them out of the city? That is as far as her efforts went?
Unacceptable.
And I might add, that with Hurricane Ivan in 2004, this was how one local put that into perspective then:
http://southernstudies.org/news/fs20040928.htm
PERSPECTIVE – Unnatural Disasters: Poor, Black and Left Behind
by Mike Davis
TomDispatch.com
September 24, 2004
The evacuation of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Ivan looked
sinisterly like Strom Thurmond’s version of the Rapture. Affluent white
people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less —
mainly Black — were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks
and aging tenements to face the watery wrath.
New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by the
storm surge of a class-five hurricane. Civil defense officials conceded
they had ten thousand body bags on hand to deal with the worst-case
scenario. But no one seemed to have bothered to devise a plan to
evacuate the city’s poorest or most infirm residents. The day before the
hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, New Orlean’s daily, the Times-Picayune,
ran an alarming story about the “large group.mostly concentrated in
poorer neighborhoods” who wanted to evacuate but couldn’t.
Only at the last moment, with winds churning Lake Pontchartrain, did
Mayor Ray Nagin reluctantly open the Louisiana Superdome and a few
schools to desperate residents. He was reportedly worried that
lower-class refugees might damage or graffiti the Superdome.
Mr. Mod,
She didn’t do 3, 4, 9, 11, 2-2, and 2-3. I also suspect (limited by my lack of total comprehension of what some of those things mean and by my not having specific detailed information on what she did) that she also did not do 6, 8, 10, and 12.
How much was that bet again?
Concerning the National Guard issues:
Though slow at the beginning, out-of-state Guard help was markedly increasing by the start of the weekend. As of Friday, nearly half the states had Guard members in Louisiana, boosting the total to at least 5,600 from out of state. Hundreds more were on the way.
Michigan, which was ready to help before the storm began, was sending 500 National Guard troops Friday and Saturday to help with water purification in Mississippi and police duty in New Orleans.
Arizona didn’t get a request for military police until Thursday, when it received an urgent message sent to all state National Guards by the National Guard Bureau at the request of Louisiana, said Capt. Paul Aguirre. He said the unit cannot leave Phoenix until Sunday because arriving units must arrive at a pace the receiving end can handle.
Among those headed in were several hundred from Wisconsin, where the governor took the unusual step of declaring a disaster outside his state to activate his Guard.
“This was the first time a governor ever declared a natural disaster in another state and activated to that other state,” said Gov. Jim Doyle, who issued his order Wednesday. “We were ready to be deployed within 24 hours of that order.”
source: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/1-09032005-536259.html
Now, since every governor of every state in the nation knows they have access to all their own NG units as well as those from other states, why did Nagin not request them BEFORE the storm, to have them staged and ready to provide relief efforts? They ARE first responders, that is their job.
The feds assumed local officials would avail themselves, and they were wrong in the state of LA, whose officials completely lacked the comptence necessary to function in face of need.
And Blanco, on Thursday was offered by Bush that the feds would coordinate all relief teams under one leader if she wanted. She waited until Friday to turn down that effort.
Not only did she want to remain in control of all NG forces and her state police, she took her autonomy even further and hired James Witt, former FEMA director to guide the relief efforts.
So, to this day, we still have a complete gamut of ‘leaders’ trying to handle the recover. Blanco, who controls NG units there to assist recovery and her state police; Nagin who controls his delinquent local police (reported on CNN this morning of eyewitness accounts of police looting homes and stores and stashing it in their cruisers and trucks and hotel rooms – way beyond necessities unless you consider watches and personal belongings of others necessities), Lt. Gen. Honore for regular troops, FEMA with others.
Talk about a completely chaotic mess, and unless the feds overstep her authority and indeed, federalize the effort, it’s her call. She’s the ultimate fool.
“And Blanco, on Thursday was offered by Bush that the feds would coordinate all relief teams under one leader if she wanted. She waited until Friday to turn down that effort.”
The news article I saw quoted her as asking if Bush made this same request of the governor of Mississippi, Bush said no. Blanco apparently expected the Feds to go ahead and coordinate and do whatever they were going to do while leaving her in the public possition of being in charge of it all. Being asked to authorize a single coordinating authority other than herself was, apparently, an assumption that she was incapable of the job.
On the surface of it, it appears that she was more concerned for her own reputation than making sure the job got done right. It seems Bush hurt her feelings by suggesting that some other leader was necessary.
If she was going to pass the blame to the feds, why not authorize the federal authority? Why expect them to assume it without her authorization?
I think, sometimes, (actually, I never have before, this is new), that anyone at that level of government should be prior military or else demonstrate the barest understanding of the elements of command. That she apparently saw her own sensibilities as important and the need for a central authority as unimportant is… you know, criminal isn’t that much too strong a word.
Sorry Mr. Liberal.
Katrina made landfall on Monday 29 August. Gov. “I really should have called for the military,” Blanco didn’t ask for the military until the afternoon of Wednesday 31 August. They arrived in New Orleans on Friday 2 September.
Go peddle your Moron.org turd to folks who are willing to eat it.
How do you make an egg laugh?
Tell it a yolk.
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