Applying lessons of Hurricane Katrina

Joint Force Quarterly, Jan, 2008 by Gregory A.S. Gecowets, Jefferson P. Marquis

At ground level, newly created DHS Situational Awareness Teams and U.S. Army North scouts should provide Federal officials with an early understanding of local disaster needs and capabilities. Other measures have been taken (such as the signing of a Standing Proper Use Memorandum for national and commercial imagery) to ensure that IAA information is distributed to proper response agencies

Effect on the gap: warned and unwarned scenario--moves up decision points through more complete situational awareness. Changes provide baseline data for change detection and a means for collection and dissemination.

Coordination and Communications. Disaster coordination structures and communications capabilities have improved to some extent, although interoperability continues to be a challenge. A 2006 change to the NRP allowed multiple Joint Field Offices to be established in the event of a multistate disaster, with one of the JFOs coordinating the overall incident management effort. Another revision to the NRP called for the DOD joint task force headquarters to collocate with the JFO whenever possible. (7) Additionally, DHS assigned five teams (27 officials) to coordinate the Federal Government's role in preparing for, and responding to, major natural disasters during the 2006 hurricane season. For its part, DOD assigned a full-time Defense Coordinating Official and Defense Coordinating Element to each FEMA regional headquarters to assist with planning and logistics movement.

To improve communications and information-sharing, representatives from DHS, DOD, and the private sector have been cooperating on connectivity restoration. One long-term goal is to create a public/private structure for communications reconstitution similar to the Civil Reserve Airlift Fleet. In the meantime, FEMA and U.S. Northern Command have established standardized flyaway communications packages for disaster response elements.

Effect on the gap: warned and unwarned scenario--better regional coordination and communications can be expected to hasten the delivery of response capabilities.

Resources. In 2006, DHS and DOD made a concerted effort to increase the availability of disaster commodities and improve logistics planning and procedures. According to FEMA, the available quantity of meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) has increased four-fold over those on hand prior to Katrina (enough to feed 1 million people for 1 week). DOD helped FEMA to draft a logistics concept of operations, deployed logistics specialists to hurricane regions, and readied its depot infrastructure for the supply, storage, and distribution of Federal relief assets.

To speed the approval process for commonly requested support (for example, helicopters, communications packages, staging bases), generic FEMA mission assignments have been drafted and costs estimated in advance. This concept of pre-scripted mission assignments has expanded beyond DOD-centric capabilities. These assignments are now in place for several of the NRP emergency support functions--the organizational structures that consolidate multiple agencies performing similar functions into a single unit under the auspices of the JFO. Upon identification of local need, the JFO simply fills in incident-specific information and submits the request for sourcing to the Defense Coordinating Officer in the case of DOD requests for assistance.