Government Practices Disaster Response
By: Jake | May 12, 2008 | Category: General
I didn't get there by helicopter, but I did participate in the government's Continuity of Operations (COOP as we call it) exercise last week. Instead of choppering in, I drove out to our COOP location in Virginia at 6 in the morning to get all kinds of crazy scenarios thrown at me.
My task during the exercise was to maintain basic operations at the National Contact Center, where citizens call for information about government programs and services. I also monitored fake news broadcasts and press releases to keep agents aware of what was going on so they could handle calls, emails and web chats appropriately. Most importantly, I surveyed the center to tell us what the public was asking about.
The exercise involved terrorist attacks in the Pacific Northwest, a hurricane bearing down on the Mid-Atlantic and a potential terrorist threat to DC, so I was busy. But I wasn't as busy as I was during Hurricane Katrina.
During Katrina and its aftermath the contact center got hundreds of thousands of inquiries from survivors and their families looking for assistance and those looking for victims. It was hard to keep up with the answers to these questions. So each day began with an inter-agency call, where I told Federal web managers what people were asking us about in the contact center so they could prepare appropriate services. Though I did what I could, the government knows its response to Katrina can be improved. That's one reason the federal government did such a massive exercise this year (COOP is done every year).
Even though in a real emergency you don't know what or whom you will and won't have available, I noticed a lot of collaboration between agencies during this exercise. I also noticed a lot of backup at agencies with people in regional offices able to handle primary functions usually done in the D.C. area. Of course there were some hiccups. Our emergency phone alert system which is supposed to call and email us when a COOP situation is enacted never chimed in on my office cell phone.
I got to give feedback at the end of the exercise and now it is your turn. How can the Federal government improve response during emergencies? Some people have chimed in with some interesting ideas, so be sure to read what they are saying in the comment section.
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jake
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What is current status at all levels of govt re: making sure your phones, computers, radios and all other communication devices are ABLE TO TALK TO EACH OTHER?
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Get rid of the layers of people and let things be handled from the bottom up, not the top down. It is amazing that some states get it and others want the Feds to do it all for them. Let the states take some responsibility for their own care, they are the ones closest to the problem anyway.
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I think these issues are a symptom of how our government was set up the founding fathers--ie, no centralized power. Katrina showed the government it needs to work better together across all levels to respond to emergencies better.
During the excercise, the USA.gov people were reaching out to web manager's and other public information officials in the states affected in the exercise.
As far as the bottom-up idea that John Quigley talks about, that's what I try to help with by reporting what we are hearing at the contact center. People on the ground should do this as well and though I am not involved in the emergency response/first responders realm, I'm betting they are working on this too.
Bluehawk,
They were testing our communications capability at the exercise. During one part the power and phone lines were down so they were testing our ability to communicate by Blackberry Pin. We also have a couple of people with GITS cards and even for the most harrowing situations, our office has a satellite phone. I don't know if that's the practice around government, but I don't think we're the only ones. There is a federal program out there that works on interoperability of communications between emergency crews. It's called SAFECOM. You can read more about it here:
http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/
Thanks for your ideas everyone. Please keep them coming.
Jake
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I just wish so much that at the very least, in this amazing time of technological prowess, we could at minimum ensure the ability of our officials to have interoperability.
If nothing else, 9/11 and Katrina surely demonstrated amply how critical that one little piece of the puzzle is, and, for heaven sake, with all we have invested in corporate R&D for there not to be almost total interoperability is purely negligent... mainly on the part of those who manufacture and program the devices government uses to communicate with. One would think they'd see it as their civic duty to make it EASIER and SIMPLER for your devices to cooperate!
I believe that government, and our President, received far too much criticism for the handling of Katrina when, essentially, a key element of the difficulties was this painfully obvious shortfall.
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