U.S. Disaster Plan Takes Lessons From Katrina, Calif.’s Wildfires

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Streamlined document called ‘essential tool for emergency managers’ in public and private sectors

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a new comprehensive disaster plan for the country that officials say promises a response more like what occurred after California’s recent wildfires and tornadoes in the South than what happened after Hurricane Katrina.

“[I]t’s a whole new era, a whole new culture, in how FEMA, how the Department of Homeland Security, is going to respond to disasters. It is going to be a partnership,” said Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator R. David Paulison in unveiling the plan along with DHS officials.

Officials said that the new plan, called the National Response Framework (NRF), is a result of repeated federal, state, local and private sector requests for a streamlined document that is less bureaucratic and more user-friendly than previous plans.

The NRF focuses on preparedness and encourages a higher level of communication among federal, state and local officials as well as the private sector. It explains the structures and tools used by first responders and emergency managers at all levels of government.

It is intended for federal department and agency heads, state governors, mayors, tribal leaders, city managers and the private sector.

The final documents reflect the nearly 5,700 comments received from participants in the process.

“The National Response Framework is an essential tool for emergency managers at all levels,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “It helps define the roles, responsibilities, and relationships critical to effective emergency planning, preparedness and response to any emergency or disaster.”

Chertoff said the new plan goes beyond the original National Response Plan that was promulgated right at the end of 2004.

“After Katrina, we took those lessons and immediately put them into a revision. … But we also took the opportunity to take a step back and look more comprehensively and exhaustively at what our doctrine is with respect to response, and then to put together a framework that would work for everybody who’s involved in the process at all levels of government,” he said.

He said the NRF outlines circumstances where the federal government exercises a larger role in emergency management, “including incidents where federal interests are directly involved and catastrophic events, where a state may require significant federal support.”

“I think the framework makes it very clear. First of all, it’s going to be initially local and state, but we are going to be able to lean forward much more readily in terms of assistance — pre-positioning assets. We have now had the opportunity over the last couple of years to work with a lot of the jurisdictions on their individual plans, so we have a better sense of what their game plan is when there is a hurricane or a similar disaster.”

Chertoff cited the recent California wildfire response as an example of what the country might expect under the new framework.

“The best example of how it’s going to work in practice is if you look at what happened with the wildfires in California last year, where we were able to position ourselves forward much more readily,” Chertoff said. “Our planning and work with the Department of Defense enabled us to bring all of the federal assets to bear, including Interior Department and Agriculture Department, DOD, and DHS. And our relationships with the state of California allowed us to fit in basically seamlessly with their admittedly very highly skilled emergency response system so that we could leverage their capabilities as much as possible.”

Paulison said that when there is a disaster, FEMA now puts people at the local emergency management center.

“Even with the tornadoes we just recently had in the South, which did not end up with a federal declaration, we had people at the state emergency management center in several states around the southeast United States to make sure we understood what the needs were and understood what the communications piece were; we could share that information. And we’re back here at headquarters where we could have our supplies ready if we had to roll them.” Paulison said effective disaster response depends upon involving the private sector as well as the public sector.

“They’re part of the system of how we’re going to respond,” he said of private firms. “All of the supplies that we have do come from the private sector, so we need to involve them early.”

The NRF will go into effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. DHS is posting 23 supporting documents to the NRF Resource Center (www.fema.gov/nrf).

“This is a living document. This is not the final word on national response; it is meant simply to take us to the next level. But we fully anticipate and frankly expect that we will be getting comments of real-life lessons learned which will be embedded in future versions of this,” Chertoff said.