Attended the March for Our Lives event downtown with Kerstin, Melina and Sammy the Climate and Non-Violence Dog. Because who in their right mind could actually believe that the current situation is acceptable? And who could possibly believe that we can’t do better?
March 24, 2018
As emergency managers, there are two things we know about disasters, and one thing we don’t.
We know that another disaster is coming. We don’t know when.
But we also know that tomorrow we will have one less day to prepare than we have today.
Yet too often we behave as if we have all the time in the world. We don’t really act like a tornado or a train wreck or a flood might happen this week. Rarely do we think, ‘If a disaster is going to happen tomorrow, what is the one thing I should do today to prepare?’
Dealing every day with the potential consequences of disaster, we can become desensitized to the importance of our work. Our planning and training activities can become routine, we can become complacent, and our performance can become uninspired. As a result, we can be less prepared.
To maximize our level of preparedness, emergency managers must replace complacency with a sense of urgency. We need to take steps to ensure that we ourselves, our staffs, and our partner agencies make the best possible use of the time we have to prepare for disasters. Once a disaster happens, the time for preparation is over.
Fortunately, there are steps we can take to instill a sense of urgency in ourselves, our staffs and our partner agencies. These steps aren’t difficult, but they do require constant effort and attention. Here are ten tips for establishing and maintaining a sense of urgency within your agency and within partner agencies:
Creating and maintaining a sense of urgency is not easy. The nature of processes, organizations, and relationships is to seek stability. Ironically, success also diminishes urgency. We might feel that we have done a great job, so we must be doing everything right.
We’ll never be as prepared as we would like to be. There will always be something else we wish we had done. But doing our jobs with a sense of urgency day in and day out will ensure that we are as well-prepared as possible.
http://www.armadausa.com/News.aspx
Mar 7, 2018
During a social media discussion of President Trump’s proposed infrastructure plan, a commenter remarked that “the $150 billion in unmarked cash that Obama sent to Iran would’ve made a good size dent in the infrastructure budget.”
There is a lot of misinformation about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but this particular nonsense is easily refuted. The fact is, it wasn’t unmarked cash, it was Iranian assets that had been frozen under previous sanctions regimes, and we didn’t have access to it. We could not have used it for infrastructure or anything else. It was their money. And while the exact amount is unknown, it will probably be between $100 billion and $150 billion. It was returned to Iran as part of the multi-national agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear weapons program. To date, they are in compliance with the agreement, although they still behave in ways that are problematic. Those activities, however, were never part of the agreement
February 26, 2018
In post-Parkland discussions, a common argument against stricter regulation of firearms is that many more people are killed in auto crashes caused by drunk drivers than in mass shootings, yet there is no movement to “ban cars.”
Yet that argument is fundamentally flawed, as I noted in a comment to a Facebook post:
| Driving and alcohol consumption are both highly regulated. You need to take both written and driving tests to get a driver’s license and you are required to have liability insurance. If you prove to be an irresponsible or unsafe driver, the state can take your license away. Your car also must pass safety inspections and be registered each year. Alcohol cannot be purchased by minors and vendors that sell alcohol to inebriated persons are liable criminally and civilly. Police routinely run sobriety checkpoints to identify drunk drivers. And actually, alcohol was banned once in the US and it is banned today in certain counties. Isn’t it possible that similar regulations regarding the purchase of firearms might help reduce gun violence? |
I suspect that many people in this country – though not many NRA member, perhaps – would support a proposal to regulate firearms in the same way that driving and drinking are regulated. Clearly, these regulations have not eliminated drunk driving crashes, but the fact that they are not 100 percent successful doesn’t mean that they are not reducing the incidence of drunk driving deaths.
February 18, 2018
During recent testimony, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Brock Long told Congress that state and local communities must do a better job of preparing for disaster response and must stop looking to FEMA as a first responder.
Since FEMA was created in 1979, the agency has consistently described its role as a coordinating agency, bringing together all federal agencies in support of state and local governments, who are responsible for disaster and emergency response. The National Response Framework, issued by FEMA in 2008 and updated in 2013, describes a tiered system for disaster response, in which the primary responsibility for response and recovery operations is vested in municipal or county governments. When local resources are insufficient, assistance is provided by neighboring jurisdictions through mutual aid, or by the state. When state resources are insufficient, state officials can request assistance from FEMA.
Emergency managers understand this. But over time, as FEMA has become heavily involved in high-profile disasters, the public – and many non-emergency management local officials – have begun to view disaster response as a federal responsibility.
So, Mr. Long is certainly correct in pointing out to lawmakers that FEMA is neither structured, resourced, prepared, nor equipped to serve as a first responder during disasters or large-scale emergencies.
Most local officials do understand their critical role, but many find it difficult to devote resources to preparation for worst-case scenarios that likely will never occur. Most local safety forces are already stretched thin just handling the day-to-day calls for service that they receive. There is little time for disaster response training and little funding for specialized disaster relief equipment. One result is that federal grant funding, which increased significantly after the 9/11 attacks, has become the main source of emergency management funding for many local emergency management agencies.
In an era of increasing federal deficits, this is an unsustainable practice. While Emergency Management Performance Grant funding has remained steady, funding for the Homeland Security Grant Program has declined form $861 million in 2009 to $402 million in 2017.
And Administrator Long is correct, state and local emergency management agencies will need to live with reduced funding or identify local sources.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-fema/fema-chief-questions-agencys-role-urges-more-local-response-idUSKBN1DU2KT
http://www.govtech.com/em/emergency-blogs/managing-crisis/Who-Should-Pay-for-070113.html
December 16, 2017
The re-floated battleship, USS Nevada, enters Drydock #2 at the Navy Yard.
The submerged remains of the USS Arizona and the twisted wreckage of the USS Utah are visible to Pearl Harbor visitors today. But while it is still possible to detect evidence of the ferocious attack, few signs remain of the desperate efforts of ship crews, shipyard workers, and other military and civilian personnel to rescue survivors, control shipboard damage, and kick start the long process of recovery and salvage.
2335 U.S. military personnel were killed in the attack, including 1177 members of the Arizona’s crew. An additional 68 civilians died in the strike by Japanese naval warplanes. Twenty-one U.S. ships were sunk or damaged, including all eight of the Pacific Fleet battleships that were there. Five U.S. battleships were sunk, yet three of the sunken battleships were raised and returned to service during the war following a massive salvage effort that was greatly aided by the Japanese failure to attack the Yard’s drydocks, cranes, and shops.
Salvage operations began before some shipboard fires were fully extinguished. While damage control teams continued to search for survivors, fight fires, stop flooding, and shore up damaged compartments, Navy Yard workers, ship crews and repair teams from tenders began repair and salvage work. Within a week the Navy Yard created a Salvage Division to oversee the massive effort. In the next two years Navy and civilian divers would conduct more than 5,000 dives, totaling more than 20,000 hours, much of it in the pitch-black interiors of sunken ships, where divers recovered bodies, ammunition, documents, and other critical items.
Once the sunken ships were re-floated, teams of sailors could enter and clean the oil and mud-caked spaces. But the work was grisly and dangerous, and much had to be done wearing gas masks. No other protective gear was provided, other than coveralls and rubber boots, and even those were only supplied for work in the foulest compartments. The dewatered spaces were a filthy tangle of sodden clothing and bedding, dissolving paper, rotting food, and smashed equipment. When debris and excess equipment were removed and the ships were cleaned of oil and mud, permanent repairs could be made at the Navy Yard or in shipyards on the U.S. west coast.
Shortages of personnel, materials, tools, supplies, and critical equipment – including pumps – slowed the salvage work at Pearl, but eventually six sunken ships, including three battleships, were raised and repaired in time to rejoin the fight against Japan.
U.S. Navy photo: https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/wars-and-events/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor-raid/post-attack-ship-salvage/salvage-work-on-uss-nevada–december-1941—april-1942.html
Casualty figures from Pearl Harbor Visitor’s Center website: https://visitpearlharbor.org/faqs/how-many-people-died-at-pearl-harbor-during-the-attack/
For a full accounting of the Pearl Harbor salvage operation, see Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor, by Daniel Madsen, Naval Institute Press, 2003.
December 7, 2017
Churchill in 1940
Today is the 143rd birthday of Winston Churchill, quite possibly the most influential statesman of the twentieth century. It is no exaggeration to say that in 1940 Churchill’s determination, perseverance, and faith in the strength of the British people saved the United Kingdom and possibly western liberal civilization from a dark age of subjugation.
At the end of 1940 Churchill and the British stood alone. The British Army, virtually unarmed following its escape from Dunkirk, faced a vastly superior Wehrmacht across the slender ribbon of the English Channel. France was defeated, Europe was prostrate, Russia was in league with Germany, and Japan was gathering its forces to drive the European powers out of Asia. Churchill famously told his people that their only war aim was ‘victory.’ But the only path to victory was the terrifyingly slim prospect that a wary United States and its enormous industrial capacity would enter the war.
Isolationist, unprepared, distrustful of British imperialism, suspicious of British motives: in 1940 America was no stalwart ally. Many Americans, if not most, preferred to see Britain and Europe go down rather than join the war against victorious Germany.
Churchill understood the terrible dangers that Britain faced and the narrowness of the nation’s path to salvation. But he brushed aside calls for negotiations with Hitler and rallied his people to defiance and eventual victory, although that victory came at a staggering cost. The war broke Britain’s finances, stripped it of its empire, and left the United States and the Soviet Union ascendant in the post-war world.
A full recounting of Churchill’s war record is a startling litany of disasters, setbacks, and frustrations. Dunkirk, Singapore, Greece, Tobruk, Dieppe. Again and again British troops were beaten, convoys were decimated, London set ablaze; and for another desperate year the Americans equivocated. But Churchill didn’t waver. The immediate post-war years brought no relief, as an impoverished Britain was forced to endure years of rationing and the loss of its empire, one former colony at a time. Yet even after Britain began to recover, Churchill remembered the darkest days of 1940 with a mixture of satisfaction and nostalgia.
In 1950, at age 76, as he was writing his history of the Second World War, he was asked which year of his life he’d want to live over. “Nineteen-forty, every time,” he replied. “Every time.”
“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free, and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.”
– Winston Churchill in the House of Commons in June 1940, following reports that France was giving up the war
“Nineteen forty” quote from The Last Lion, Defender of the Realm; Manchester and Reid; Little,Brown,and Company; NY 2012 / https://www.amazon.com/Last-Lion-Churchill-Defender-1940-1965/dp/0345548639
Excerpt from “Their Finest Hour” Speech to the House of Commons / https://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/their-finest-hour/
Photocredit: http://todayinhistory.tumblr.com/post/50336927775/13th-may-1940-blood-toil-tears-and-sweat
November 30, 2017
Religious institutions cannot rely on God to protect their congregations from armed attacks, say religious leaders. That’s why more than 200 leaders of religious organizations and public safety officials from throughout Greater Cleveland attended yesterday’s Emergency Planning Workshop for Faith-Based Leaders and Executives at the Community Center in Middleburg Heights.
Bruce Hennes of Hennes Communications discusses Crisis Communications Planning at the Faith-Based Security Summit on November 20, 2017
Churches have a responsibility to protect their congregations, said Pastor Herman Matherson of Akron’s non-denominational House of the Lord. God works through people and it is people that must take proactive steps to protect themselves, he said. Paul Gewirtz of Young Israel in Beachwood agreed and said his organization is “very protective” of the safety of its members.
More than fifteen speakers from public safety, emergency management, and public health agencies, as well as faith-based institutions stressed the importance of having plans and being prepared. Many effective practices like assigning trained volunteers to monitor parking areas and building entrances can be implemented at little or no financial cost. If funds are available, physical security enhancements like improved lighting, placement of landscaping, installation of barriers and the use of video surveillance systems can be effective as well. The key, though, is to identify an institution’s vulnerabilities, carefully assess the risks, and develop realistic plans and procedures to reduce those risks.
Religious institutions are vulnerable because they bring large numbers of people together at regularly scheduled times and to maintain a welcoming atmosphere they rarely restrict entrance. But while the frequency of mass shootings in America continues to rise, there is no evidence that shootings at religious facilities are rising disproportionately. While comprehensive data about attacks against religious institutions is limited, research indicates that churches and other faith-based institutions are rarely targeted because of their beliefs. Most shootings that have occurred in churches have been the result of domestic situations. The recent attack at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland, Texas, which killed 26 worshipers, apparently stemmed from a domestic dispute. Church shootings remain extremely rare, but that is scant comfort to religious leaders who feel a responsibility to ensure the safety of their members.
The Workshop provided an overview of all aspects of security planning for faith-based institutions. FBI Special Agent John Breen discussed the threats of domestic and international terrorism and the need for institutions to conduct a realistic security assessment while Cleveland Police Commander Harold Pretel provided specific suggestions for reducing the vulnerability of religious facilities.
The first step, said Pretel, is for organizations to understand their vulnerabilities. Then, he continued, organizations can create tailored security plans to deter, detect, and disrupt violent attacks. Plans should provide for multiple layers of security including active monitoring of parking lots and pedestrian routes and use of security barriers and surveillance equipment.
Pastor Matherson and Gewirtz explained in detail the security practices at their organizations. Matherson’s House of the Lord, which normally attracts more than 1,000 worshipers to its Sunday services, utilizes a multi-layered security process conducted by a 37-member security team comprised of uniformed police officers, lay volunteers, and members of the church leadership. The church coordinates their plans and collaborates closely with Akron Police, Fire, Emergency Medical and Public Health agencies.
Gewirtz’s Young Israel, with a much smaller congregation, relies on highly trained volunteers to monitor parking areas and access to the building by carefully assessing anyone who seems suspicious. A uniformed police officer is available to protect the volunteer, but the responsibility for determining if a person is to be denied entrance rests with the volunteer.
Other speakers discussed hate crimes, ways to manage risks, Ohio’s open carry policies regarding firearms, licensing and hiring of private security guards, and methods for supporting persons with mental health issues.
Dr. Nancy Grant, CEO of Business Survive and Thrive, explained the basic steps to create a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP), which can enable organizations to quickly resume operations following a disaster or emergency that forces them out of their building or prevents key personnel from filling their roles. The key is to integrate COOP processes into everyday operations and develop a COOP mindset, she said.
Bruce Hennes, Managing Partner of Hennes Communications – one of the co-sponsors of the Workshop – discussed the importance of having an all-hazards crisis communications plan in place before an emergency in order to provide accurate information and preserve the organization’s reputation.
In addition to Hennes Communications, the Workshop was co-sponsored by the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, the City of Middleburg Heights, and the Red Cross.
For further information on church shootings, click on the following link:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/us/church-shootings-truth/index.html
November 21, 2017
Adult elephants stand guard while young elephants rest in the shade. Photo by Carl Safina: http://beyond-words.net/
The Trump administration is considering elimination of a ban on importation of elephant “trophies.” Administration officials have offered a somewhat dubious rationale that the fees paid by hunters will support elephant conservation efforts. This seems unlikely, as the amount of revenue expected to be raised is a tiny fraction of the cost of conservation. Some thoughts:
For a thoughtful and riveting account of elephant society, see Beyond Words, by Carl Safina (Holt and Company, NY, 2015).
November 18, 2017
London Skyline WITH Modern office towers
Just returned from a week-long visit to London. Here are six quick impressions:
Green Park
New construction and renovations are occurring all over the city. A few buildings here and there are in poor repair, but with the population rising and property values soaring, we do not recall seeing any vacant buildings or lots.
November 18, 2017