**October 25, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project
Activity Report**

\(1\) DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY:

From DHS Leading News: \"The Washington Post (10/25, A1, Baker, 748K)
reports, \"Beset by discouraging polls and division within ideological
ranks, the White House is accelerating efforts to woo back disaffected
conservatives and energize the Republican base in a reprise of a
strategy that succeeded in the last two campaign cycles.\" Yesterday,
\"Bush aides invited dozens of radio talk show hosts for a marathon
broadcast from the White House yesterday to reach conservative
listeners.\" The Post noted that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff was
among those on hand to provide interviews, as did USA Today. Discussing
the day on CNN\'s Live From (10/24, 3:19 pm) Glenn Beck said, \"Chertoff
said something very interesting to me. I asked him, I said how
frustrating is it \-- because I do believe that we are on the edge of
something far greater than anyone can even possibly imagine. I asked
Chertoff, I said you have said it, the president has said it, you must
at least have a 72-hour kit of food and water to be able to prepare for
disaster. Nobody is doing it. And he was extremely concerned by that. He
said it\'s one of the most frustrating things that I deal with.\" Beck
said the federal government has \"been saying this since before \-- or
right after September 11th, that you need to have a 72-hour kit.\"

Chertoff \"used it as an example of Katrina. He said if more people
would have had a 72-hour kit, things would have been better. He said we
\-- with the disasters that we\'re looking at now, we may not be able to
respond within 72 hours and the American people must put it on their own
selves to be secure to be safe and be able to have food and basic
supplies of medicine.\"

Asked why he thought the government wouldn\'t be able to respond for 72
hours (Secretary Chertoff) said, \"We\'re not preparing for Hurricane
Katrina. We\'re preparing for something of global implications and
people need to wake up and they need to pay attention to it and
prepare.\"

\(2\) EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT HIGHER EDUCATION CONFERENCE, JUNE 4-7, 2006
\-- SUGGESTIONS:

Glenn Wisbey, the Training Coordinator of the North Carolina Division of
Emergency Management, writes to suggest that one or more sessions be
devoted to community college issues such as:

How to better coordinate what is taught at one collegiate level, with
other levels \-- as in Associate Degree or lower division undergraduate
level, upper division undergraduate level, masters level doctoral level.

Articulation agreements. He writes: \"Who has partnered together to
allow a core set of courses and their credits earned by the student to
transfer 100% from a community college to a university? One of the
biggest issues we have in NC is the fact that credits from courses at a
community college are not accepted by other CC\'s and at universities.

Who else has this issue? Who has over come it and how? These are
critical issues that everyone should know about and address.\" To
communicate with Glenn Wisbey on these topics, he can be reached at:
<gwisbey@ncem.org>

\(3\) JACKSONVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY, AL:

Dr. Fred May, an Associate-Professor at Jacksonville State University
who teaches within both the graduate and the undergraduate Emergency
Management programs there, notes:

\"Our program is growing at an incredible rate\.... Our enrollments have
gone up both at the undergrad and graduate levels. In our 2005-06 Annual
Report we had some 580 graduate students enrolled in courses with new
students continuing to enroll most every week. We also had well over 600
undergraduate students enrolled. In November we will have comprehensive
examinations for 15 of our Master\'s students for December graduation,
and of course our larger group of Master\'s students will be for Spring
graduation and additional for summer graduation\.... {There are} four
fulltime faculty and we are looking to hire yet one more fulltime
faculty member, giving us five\.... The best way to judge our graduate
level growth is by the enrollments in EM 505 {Foundations of EM} which
are usually about 120 grads in Fall and Spring combined and then another
40 in my summer EM 505. So that comes to about 160 new graduate students
per year\.... we are graduating about 40 or more graduate students per
year. Then there are the undergraduate students. In the spring of 2006
BS graduating class had 18 students\...\" Dr. May also noted that JSU
calls upon over a dozen adjunct faculty to support its course load.

\(4\) MATERIALS RECEIVED FOR REVIEW:

Coppola, Damon P. Introduction to Disaster Management.
Butterworth-Heinemann (Elsevier), 2007, 547 pages. Information at:

<http://books.elsevier.com/us//security/us/subindex.asp?maintarget=&isbn=0750679824&country=United+States&srccode=&ref=&subcode=&head=&pdf=&basiccode=&txtSearch=&SearchField=&operator=&order=&community=security>

From website:

\"Serves as the first comprehensive resource dealing with the issues of
international disaster management. Contains numerous case studies,
examples of Best Practices in international disaster management, and a
contact list of the governmental and nongovernmental agencies involved
in international disaster management. Provides a global perspective on
risk, hazards, and disasters that is written both for students within
disaster management programs and for professionals entering the field.

Written from a global perspective on risk, hazards, and disasters,
Introduction to International Disaster Management provides
practitioners, educators and students with a comprehensive overview of
the players, processes and special issues involved in the management of
large-scale natural and technological disasters. The book discusses
special issues encountered in the management of international disasters,
and explains the various private, non-governmental, national, and
international agencies that assist in the preparedness, mitigation,
response and recovery to national and regional events.\"

Chapter 1: The Management of Disasters

Chapter 2: Hazards

Chapter 3: Risk and Vulnerability

Chapter 4: Mitigation

Chapter 5: Preparedness

Chapter 6: Response

Chapter 7: Recovery

Chapter 8: Participants - Governmental Disaster Management Agencies
Chapter 9: Participants - Nongovernmental Organizations Chapter 10:
Participants - Multilateral Organizations and International Financial
Institutions Chapter 11: Special Considerations

\- Introduction

\- Coordination

\- The Media

\- Institutional Capacity Development

\- Political Will

\- Compound Emergencies

\- Donor Fatigue

\- Corruption

\- State Sovereignty

\- Equality in Humanitarian Assistance and Relief Distribution

\- Climate Change, and the Environmental Impacts of Disasters

\- Early Warning

\- Linking Risk Reduction and Development

\- Terrorism

\- Global Disasters: SARS, Avian Influenza, and Other Emerging Epidemics

\(5\) RECOVERY:

Kahan, James P. et al. From Flood Control to Integrated Water Resource
Management: Lessons for the Gulf Coast from Flooding in Other Places in
the Last Sixty Years. RAND Corp., October 23, 2006, 68 pages. Accessed
at: <http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP164/>

\[Abstract: \"The loss of life and devastation in the Gulf coast region
of the United States following the hurricane season of 2005 has led to
considerable debate about what should be done and not done in recovering
from the damage and mitigating the consequences of future floods. This
document reports the experiences of four major floods since 1948 (two in
the United States, one in the Netherlands, and one in China), to draw
lessons for the Gulf coast restoration effort. The authors conclude that
(1) attending to history leads to mitigating the potential damage of
floods even when major floods are few and far between; (2) the critical
concept of integrated water resource management policy -- particularly
its implication that flood damage control includes conceding land to the

water from time to time - is necessary but may be difficult to accept;
(3) delineating roles and responsibilities clearly in advance produces
better outcomes; and (4) out of disaster can come improvements to the
social and physical infrastructure that go beyond flood protection.\"\]

From Press Release at:
[[http://www.rand.org/news/press.06/10.23.html]{.underline}](http://www.rand.org/news/press.06/10.23.html)
\-- \"In addition to noting the benefits of a coordinated emergency
response in which responders have clearly defined roles, the study notes
from past experience that officials in many flood-prone areas eventually
choose to surrender some of the land back to the water by forgoing

development of floodplains or letting reclaimed lands revert to their
natural state. \'After a flood, the temptation is to rebuild and
recreate what was previously there, but that\'s not always the best
idea,\' said James P. Kahan, a RAND researcher who is the lead author of
the study.\"

\(6\) RECOVERY \-- NEW ORLEANS:

Francis, Norman C. \"Safer, Stronger, Smarter - Louisiana, New Orleans
Are Following New Building Codes, Flood Elevation Guidelines.\" USA
Today, October 25, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061025/oppose25.art.htm]{.underline}](http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061025/oppose25.art.htm)

\[Excerpt: \"The question that should be answered in cases like ours is
not whether to rebuild Louisiana, but how to do so safely\.... Nobody
lives risk-free in this world\.... What good is levee protection if
homeowners are not allowed to build behind them?\... We are answering
these questions as we buy out houses in flood-prone areas and help
families elevate in compliance with the best flood guidance available.\"
Note: Norman C. Francis is chairman of the Louisiana Recovery
Authority.\]

USA Today. \"New Orleans Plan: Rebuild in Flood Zones, Hand You the
Bill - U.S. taxpayers Shouldn\'t Help Create the Next Catastrophe in the
Big Easy.\" October 25, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061025/edit25.art.htm]{.underline}](http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061025/edit25.art.htm)

\[Excerpt: \"The definition of insanity, according to Benjamin Franklin,
is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Ben, welcome to New Orleans. Nearly three-quarters of 14,534 New
Orleanians who\'ve applied for federal grants say they\'ll rebuild their
Hurricane Katrina-damaged homes in flood areas - even though city

restrictions are unlikely to protect their homes if the levees fail
again, USA TODAY\'s Anne Rochell Konigsmark reported last week\.... So
let\'s see. Federal taxpayers will be subsidizing reconstruction in
flood areas, underwriting the insurance on those homes and will no doubt
have to bail out the flood insurance program if the homes get wiped out

again. The program collected only \$2.2 billion last year in premiums
but will pay out more than \$20 billion in Katrina claims, leaving
taxpayers on the hook for the rest. Worse, the program encourages
development in areas subject to flooding - not just in New Orleans, but
everywhere -- by offering insurance at bargain rates in areas where
private insurers fear to tread. That increases the population in
vulnerable areas, leading to

more costly disasters. It is an absurd use of taxpayers\' money, to
which New Orleans is adding an expensive new twist\.... encouraging
rebuilding in the most flood-prone areas is foolhardy\.... The 3-foot
rule, adopted Sept. 1 by the New Orleans City Council, makes little
sense and is a poor substitute for a comprehensive rebuilding plan. An
extra yard of

elevation isn\'t needed in areas that didn\'t flood after Katrina, and
it\'s too low in areas that saw as much as 20 feet of water\.... if
local authorities allow residents to rebuild in the most dangerous
areas, it should be at their own risk. Asking taxpayers around the USA
to

subsidize, underwrite and bail them out again fits Franklin\'s
definition of nuts.\"\]

\(7\) UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE:

Communicated with Stephen Carter, Academic Director, Fire Science and
Emergency Management, at the University of Maryland University College,
who notes, in relation to their plans to develop and implement an
Undergraduate Bachelors Degree in Emergency Management, that\... \"We
are on schedule\...for the development of the undergraduate Emergency
Management major. The formal presentation to the School of Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee will be in early November. By January we will have
submitted the request for approval to the State Board of Higher
Education. The program will be offered in the Fall of 07.\" This new
program will be delivered both in a distance-learning

format and brick-and-mortar classes. For additional information, Stephen
Carter can be reached at: <sscarter@umuc.edu>

\(8\) WAR ON TERROR \-- CANADA:

MacLeod, Ian. \"Anti-Terrorism Act Suffers Second Setback.\" CanWest
News Service, 25 Oct 2006.

<http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=bf039f30-173d-417b-8699-6df5400f0432&k=25031>

\[Excerpt: \"For the second time in less than a week, a court has struck
down as unconstitutional a significant anti-terrorism law, undermining
the government\'s intent to fight terrorism with an extraordinary new
law that distinguished terrorism from ordinary crime. Ontario Superior
Court Justice Douglas Rutherford ruled Tuesday that the section of the
Anti-Terrorism Act requiring authorities to prove terrorism offences are
motivated \'in whole or in part for a political, religious or
ideological objective or cause,\' violates Section 2 of Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. That \'essential element\' of what defines a
terrorist activity \'is not only novel in Canadian law, but the impact
of which constitutes an infringement of certain fundamental freedoms
\... including those of religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression
and association \... and therefore, democratic life,\' he wrote in a
32-page decision. Allowing it to stand would, \'\'promote fear and
suspicion of targeted political or religious groups, and will result in
racial or ethnic profiling by government authorities at many levels.\"\]

\(9\) WAR ON TERROR \-- UNITED STATES:

Giles, Ciaran. \"Gonzales Says U.S. Image Hurt By Actions.\" Associated
Press, October 24, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061024/ap_on_re_eu/spain_us]{.underline}](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061024/ap_on_re_eu/spain_us)

\[Excerpt: \"U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales {in Spain}\....
blamed the country\'s deteriorating image on misunderstanding in Europe
about what the U.S. is doing to fight terrorism.\"\]

\(10\) LOOKING FOR WORK?:

Glenn Wisbey\'s communication in the EM HiEd Conference note above,
causes me to think that it might be helpful if someone collected and
organized into one place, information on the EM HiEd Project website,
mostly in the EM HiEd Conferences tab, on Associate Degree level issues
and topics. Questions and issues such as his have been addressed in
previous conferences and some (a little) of what was said has been
captured in documentation posted to the agenda\'s for most of the
previous conferences. We anticipate receiving a fiscal year 2007
operational budget in the fairly near future, and hope to have some
Micro Purchase Work Order funding \-- small \"contracts\" that can go
for up to \$2,500 ceiling. Would be open to communicating with someone
who might be willing to collect, organize, and perhaps expand on this
information via a micro purchase work order. Would then create a \"tab\"
on the website for posting the collection.

B.Wayne Blanchard, Ph.D., CEM

Higher Education Project Manager

Emergency Management Institute

National Emergency Training Center

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Department of Homeland Security

16825 S. Seton, K-011

Emmitsburg, MD 21727

\(301\) 447-1262, voice

\(301\) 447-1598, fax

wayne.blanchard@dhs.gov

[[http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu]{.underline}](http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu)

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