**May 2, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project
Activity Report**

\(1\) DISASTERS WAITING TO HAPPEN:

NOAA. \"Area Where Hurricanes Develop Is Warmer, Say NOAA Scientists.\"

NOAA News Online, May 1, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2622.htm]{.underline}](http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2622.htm)

Schleifstein, Mark. \"Panel: Catastrophic Storm Not Assessed.\" New
Orleans Times-Picayune, May 2, 2006. Accessed at:

<http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1146551038249870.xml>
\[The article notes current National Hurricane Center estimates of New
Orleans-area hurricane return rate: Category 5 storm, 1 in 75 years;
Category 4 storm, 1 in 40 years; Category 3 storm, 1 in 25 years; other
than Cat 3-5 tropical storms, 1 in 3 years. Now consider the dictum that
there are only two types of levees \-- those that have failed and those
that will fail.\]

Times Record (AR). \"We Are Not Prepared For Disaster.\" May 2, 2006.

Accessed at:
[[http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2006/05/01/how_we_see_it/opinion01.txt]{.underline}](http://www.swtimes.com/articles/2006/05/01/how_we_see_it/opinion01.txt)

\[Excerpt: \"Brackin {Director of Ark. Emerg. Mgmt.} said he would like
to prepare for a New Madrid earthquake by doing more planning and having
an emergency management employee in each county, but of course, funding
is a problem. The state asked for a \$57,000 federal grant that would
have helped fund a geologist position and do some planning, but the
request was turned down\...\" Comment: So did the reader get that? The
reason that a geologist cannot be hired to help work on New Madrid
earthquake planning for the State of Arkansas is not that the State of
Arkansas is not coming forth with the funding, but that the Federal
government is not paying for the position.\]

\(2\) EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE COMPACT (NATIONAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION):

Suburban Emergency Management Project: \"EMAC Governance and Operations:

Curiously Convoluted, Yet Do They Work?\" SEMP Biot #354, April 29,
2006, 6 pages. Accessed at:
[[http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_354.html]{.underline}](http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_354.html)

\[Contains links and references.\]

Suburban Emergency Management Project: \"How EMAC Contributes to the
Legitimacy and Salience of Emergency Management Providers.\" SEMP Biot
#353, April 28, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_353.html]{.underline}](http://www.semp.us/biots/biot_353.html)
\[Contains links and references.\]

\(3\) EMER.MGMT. & HOMELAND SECURITY/DEFENSE HIGHER EDUCATION
CONFERENCE, JUNE 6-8, 2006:

Received and reviewed paper entitled \"Innovative Local Funding for
Disaster\" by Dr. James F. Smith, Professor of Environmental Studies,
American Military University, which will be summarized in one of the
\"Reports\" Breakout Sessions. Forwarded Dr. Smith\'s paper to the EMI
Webmaster for upload to the \"Conference Papers\" tab in the Conference
box at the top of the EM HiEd Project website. Made couple more agenda
modifications \-- best to check the copy on the website from time to
time

\-- as it does change.

\(4\) FEMA:

Davies, Frank. \"Hurricanes Coming - Can FEMA Handle Them?\" Orlando Sun
Herald, May 2, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/14479917.htm]{.underline}](http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/14479917.htm)

\[Excerpt: \"\'The call for abolishing FEMA was just laughable,
bordering on irresponsible,\' and it undermined other good
recommendations, said James Carafano, author and security expert with
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.\"\]

Dionne, E.J., Jr. \"How To Save FEMA.\" Washington Post, May 2, 2006.

Accessed at:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101274.html>
\[Excerpts: \"Does saying \"Napra\" \[National Preparedness and Response
Authority\] instead of \"Fema\" make you feel better?\.... there is
something maddening about the Washington tendency to go for complicated,
bureaucratic fixes for what are essentially human failures. These can
often be remedied by taking an agency\'s mission seriously and
appointing good people to carry it out\.... moving the once-successful
FEMA into DHS may have been partly responsible for the downgrading of
FEMA\'s mission. DHS had to worry about terrorism, so how could it take
hurricanes seriously?\.... It\'s perfectly clear from the appointments
Bill Clinton made that he took FEMA\'s work far more seriously than did
President Bush. That explains the agency\'s decline better than any
analysis of bureaucratic flow charts. If there is a bureaucratic
question here, should we ask whether creating a Department of Homeland
Security and tossing FEMA inside it has made us safer?\.... Doesn\'t the
logic of the story suggest moving back to a time when FEMA worked? Why
not just liberate it from DHS, as Sens. Trent Lott, Barbara Boxer,
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Tom Davis have suggested, and make sure
that competent people run FEMA? An independent agency run responsibly
beats innovative acronyms almost every time.\"\]

Miami Herald (Editorial). \"Florida\'s Big Stake in Planning For
Disaster,\" May 2, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/14476855.htm]{.underline}](http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/14476855.htm)

\[Excerpt: \"In Florida, where hurricanes are an annual menace, we know
what works when it comes to dealing with natural disasters. Congress
should understand that no plan can succeed without these essential

ingredients:

\* Professionalism at all levels of the leading response agency,
starting at the top.

\* Direct access to the proper state and national command authorities.

\* An institutional structure with clear lines of authority and
effective means of communication.

\* Ample resources.\"\]

NBC Tonight Show (5/1, 11:40 p.m.) During his monologue, Jay Leno said,
\"After a US Senate probe, a recommendation was made that FEMA be
abolished and replaced with a totally new agency. However, they said
many of the FEMA employees can join and work for the new agency. So
apparently, it was the name that was the problem.\"

United Press International. \"Unions Want FEMA Out Of DHS.\" May 1,
2006. Accessed at:
<http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060501-021958-4486r>

\(5\) KATRINA LEVEE FAILURE INVESTIGATION:

American Society of Civil Engineers, External Review Committee.

\"External Review Panel Progress Report.\" Washington, DC: ASCE, May 1,
2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.asce.org/static/hurricane/erp.cfm]{.underline}](http://www.asce.org/static/hurricane/erp.cfm)

\[Excerpt from 11-page report to LTG Carl Strock, Chief, U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, on the March 10, 2006 COE Interagency Performance
Evaluation Task Force 2nd Interim Report on the status of its
investigation of the New Orleans Protection system: \"It would be
helpful to point out to readers that this effort is the first attempt
\[ever\] to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of an entire levee
system on this scale\....One question for the \[COE\] is: Why was the
risk not formally assessed prior to Katrina?\"\]

\(6\) PANDEMIC:

Brown, David. \"Business Plan For A Pandemic? - Most Firms Haven\'t
Prepared for Possibility Of A Global Outbreak.\" Washington Post, May 2,
2006. Accessed at:

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101608.html>
\[Excerpt: \"More than half of U.S. companies think there will be a
global flu epidemic in the next two years. Two-thirds think it will
seriously disrupt their operations as well as foment social unrest.

But two-thirds also say they aren\'t prepared. One-third of executives
surveyed say nobody in their organization has been appointed to plan for
a pandemic; another one-quarter couldn\'t or wouldn\'t answer the
question\..... The government does not require companies to have
pandemic response plans, customers don\'t demand them, and many boards
of directors doubt they are necessary.\" {This is despite projections
that upwards of 40% of workforce would stay home during pandemic.}
\"\....Current models, based on seasonal influenza and the three
20th-century flu pandemics, suggest that a new and highly contagious
virus strain would spread across the United States in about five weeks.

It would affect communities for six to eight weeks before receding.

There would probably be at least two waves, separated by months.\"\]

CNN.com. \"Report: U.S. Bracing For Massive Flu Disruptions.\" May 2,
2006. Accessed at:
<http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/05/02/us.birdflu.ap/index.html?eref=yahoo>

Pickler, Nedra. \"Government Drafts Pandemic Flu Plan.\" May 2, 2006.

Accessed at:

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060502/ap_on_he_me/bird_flu_plan;_ylt=AixK6XuA3VV1e0lFFbmg1qWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3czJjNGZoBHNlYwM3NTE->
\[Excerpt:

\"Employers should have plans to keep workers at least three feet apart,
colleges should consider which dormitories could be used to quarantine
the sick, and flight crews should have surgical masks to put on coughing
travelers under a draft of the government\'s pandemic flu plan obtained
by The Associated Press.\"\]

\(7\) PERIODICALS:

Received latest edition of \"Risk Analysis,\" Vol. 26, No.2, April \--
amongst contents:

Yacov Y. Haimes. \"On the Definition of Vulnerabilities in Measuring
Risks to Infrastructures,\" pp. 293-296.

Gerd Gigerenzer. \"Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire: Behavioral
Reactions to Terrorist Attacks,\" pp. 347-352.

Received \"Continuity Insights,\" Vol. 4, No. 2, March/April \-- amongst

contents:

Editor-in-Chief Buffy Rojas. \"Wal-Mart: Beyond Business Continuity
Basics,\" pp. 11-13.

John Copenhaver. \"On Speaking the Language,\" pp. 60-61.

Robert Kakao (CI Publisher). \"Everything I Need To Know, I Learned From
Katrina,\" p. 62.

\(8\) PREPAREDNESS:

Environmental News Service. \"Federal Agencies Issue Joint Strategy To
Cut Fire Risk.\" May 1, 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2006/2006-05-01-09.asp]{.underline}](http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2006/2006-05-01-09.asp)
\[The joint Dept. of Agriculture and Dept. of Interior report,
\"Protecting People and Natural Resources: A Cohesive Fuels Treatment
Strategy,\" can be accessed at:
[[http://www.fireplan.gov]{.underline}](http://www.fireplan.gov/)

Weiss, Todd R. \"Iridium Trumpets Latest Satellite Phones For Emergency
Response.\" Computer World Online, May 2, 2006. Accessed at:

<http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/story/0,10801,111058,00.html>

\(9\) WYOMING COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM:

May 2, 2006 \-- Received email from John Heller with the Wyoming Office
of Homeland Security & Emergency Management noting that \"On Friday,
April 28, 2006, the Wyoming Community College Commission approved an
Associate of Science degree in Homeland Security. This degree, and all
the courses, are approved for all seven community colleges in Wyoming.
The proposed program includes fourteen courses, which are under
development by several different Wyoming Community Colleges at this
time. This was a cooperative effort by Director Joe Moore of the Wyoming
Office of Homeland Security and Dean Stan Torvik of the Laramie County
Community College. Three of the courses in the program were piloted at
Laramie County Community College this academic year and several more
courses are scheduled for pilot delivery this fall.\" For additional
information, John Heller can be reached at: <jhelle@sate.wy.us>

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, N-430

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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