**February 15, 2008 FEMA EM Hi-Ed Program Report**

**(1) Arkansas Tech University Emergency Administration and Management
Program \-- A Testimonial:**

> Since I came to Tech three years ago the department has more than
> doubled by any measure; number of majors, number of course hours taken
> by majors, or number of classes offered. This growth is directly
> related to the increasing demand for appropriately educated emergency
> management professionals....
>
> Two very positive initiatives are in the works in the technology area.
> The first is the formation of an Arkansas HAZUS User Group with Tech
> as a charter member of the group. This will significantly increase the
> visibility of the technology side of our programs at both the state
> and national emergency management levels. A second major thrust is
> involvement in the New Madrid earthquake modeling and simulation
> analysis.
>
> We are in the process of establishing a relationship with the
> Mid-America Earthquake Consortium where Tech will be a key partner in
> the earthquake threat assessments the Consortium is conducting for
> FEMA. (Ed Leachman, *Emergency Management News*, ATU EAM Program,
> October 2007.)

**(2) Bibliography of Emergency Management & Related References
On-Hand:**

Since the last post relating to the Bibliography, a revised version has
been posted to the FEMA EM Hi-Ed Program website -- EM References
section \-- <http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/highref.asp> \-- and an
update of that version will soon be provided to the webmaster to upload
to the website sometime next week.

**(3) Catastrophic Disaster Planning Initiative for the NMSZ Slide
Presentation:**

Jefferson, Theresa. *Response and Recovery Issues: Catastrophic Disaster
Planning Initiative for the New Madrid Seismic Zone Arkansas Risk and
Response Forum*. George Washington University, Institute for Crisis,
Disaster and Risk Management, November 13, 2007. Accessed at:
<http://eam.atu.edu/earthquake_pres/14Jan_AR_RandR_tj.pdf>

**(4) DHS FY 2009 Budget Request -- Secretary Michael Chertoff Senate
Testimony:**

Department of Homeland Security. *Testimony of Secretary Michael
Chertoff before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs, \"FY 2009 Budget Request.\"* Wash., DC: 14 Feb
2008. At:
<http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/testimony/testimony_1203022523404.shtm>

Excerpts:

>  
>
> "Six years after September 11, 2001, we are moving beyond operating as
> an organization in transition to a Department diligently working to
> protect our borders and critical infrastructure, prevent dangerous
> people and goods from entering our country, and recover from natural
> disasters effectively.  The total FY 2009 budget request for DHS is
> \$50.5 billion in funding, a 7 percent increase over the FY 2008
> enacted level excluding emergency funding....
>
>  
>
> ***FEMA Vision -- Phase II:***  The Budget requests a total of \$164.5
> million to support FEMA's Vision - Shape the Workforce program.  Phase
> II of FEMA's transformation will strengthen that agency's ability to
> marshal an effective national response, deliver service of value to
> the public, reduce vulnerability to life and property, and instill
> public confidence.  The Budget also requests a total of \$209 million
> to support FEMA's disaster workforce, including transitioning
> four-year Cadre On-Call Response Employees (CORE) from temporary to
> permanent full-time personnel to achieve the level of readiness and
> response capability required in response to Presidentially declared
> major disasters and emergencies. 
>
>  
>
> ***Disaster Readiness and Support:***  The Budget includes \$200
> million in a new Disaster Readiness and Support Activities account. 
> This account will fund advanced readiness initiatives that assist FEMA
> in preparing for future disasters and will allow FEMA to perform
> critical administrative functions that support the timely delivery of
> services during disasters....

 

***            Record FEMA Staffing Levels: *** For the first time in a
decade, FEMA attained a

95 percent staffing level and strengthened regional   

            capability through the creation of over 100 new positions in
FEMA's ten regional

offices.\"

**(5) DHS Fiscal Year 2009 Congressional Budget Submission Available --
All 3574 Pages:**

This version of the 2009 budget submission does not have a Table of
Contents. Will post the page numbers for some sections. The page numbers
refer to the numbers that appear in my web browser -- not the numbers on
the pages.

42 U.S. Customs and Border Protection

475 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

764 Transportation Security Administration

1020 Federal Law Enforcement Training Center

1091 FEMA Operations, Management, and Administration

1200 FEMA State and Local Programs Support

1241 FEMA Assistance to Firefighter Grants

1267 FEMA Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program

1287 FEMA United States Fire Administration

1306 FEMA Disaster Relief Fund

1332 FEMA Disaster Readiness and Support Activities

1352 FEMA Disaster Assistance Direct Loan Program Account

1373 FEMA Flood Map Modernization Fund

1398 FEMA National Flood Insurance Fund

1440 FEMA National Flood Mitigation Fund

1459 FEMA National Pre-Disaster Mitigation Fund

1478 FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter

1496 FEMA Cerro Grande Fire Claims

1513 FEMA Strategic Context for FY 2009 Budget

1545 U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services

1678 United States Secret Service

1862 United States Coast Guard

2364 Science and Technology Directorate

2591 Domestic Nuclear Detection Office

2728 National Protection and Programs Directorate

3051 Office of Health Affairs

3113 Office of Health Affairs Biodefense Countermeasures

3142 Office of the Secretary and Executive Management

3397 Analysis and Operations

3425 Office of Inspector General

To access DHS FY 09 submission go to:
<http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_fy2009.pdf>

**(6) DHS Management Challenges -- Congressional Testimony of DHS
Inspector General:**

Department of Homeland Security. *Statement of Richard L. Skinner,
Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Before the House
Subcommittee on Appropriations*. February 13, 2008, 23 pages. At:
<http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/testimony/OIGtm_RLS_021308.pdf>

\[Excerpt: "As required by the *Reports Consolidation Act of 2000*, we
update our assessment of management challenges annually. Our latest
major management challenges report covers a broad range of issues,
including both program and administrative challenges. In total, we
identified **nine categories of challenges** including:

> • Catastrophic Disaster Response and Recovery,
>
> • Acquisition Management, • Grants Management,
>
> • Financial Management,
>
> • Information Technology Management,
>
> • Infrastructure Protection,
>
> • Border Security,
>
> • Transportation Security, and
>
> • Trade Operations and Security. (p. 2)

....

"Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to highlight briefly other critical
challenges that the department needs to keep a close eye on over the
next twelve months as the country prepares for a national election and
transitions to a new administration.

> • Border Security and the SBI Program,
>
> • Coast Guard's Deepwater Acquisition Program,
>
> • Security Over Cargo on Passenger Planes,
>
> • CIS' Backlog of Immigrant Applications, and
>
> • FEMA Preparedness.

"These initiatives are in a critical stage of their development and,
therefore, require unwavering management attention. Although the
department is making a good faith effort to formulate and execute
meaningful performance plans to address the management challenges
associated with these initiatives, the ability of the department to
sustain these efforts is fragile at this point in time because of the
early stage they are in and the disruptions that may accompany the
transition to the new administration in less than a year. It is
imperative that the department formulate comprehensible performance
plans with unambiguous milestones and metrics to gauge or measure
progress, ensure transparency and accountability, and help guide program
execution.... **[FEMA Preparedness: ]{.underline}**We are currently
reviewing and evaluating FEMA's preparedness for effective disaster
response, including any catastrophic events. This review is the second
in a planned series of scorecard assessments to determine the extent of
progress made and the status for selected functions and activities
within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). For this scorecard
review, we identified **nine key program functions** critical to
successful preparedness efforts:

-   Overall Planning;

-   Coordination and Support;

-   Interoperable Communications;

-   Logistics;

-   Evacuations;

-   Housing;

-   Disaster (Surge) Workforce;

-   Mission Assignments; and

-   Acquisition Management.

"Within each of these functions, we are assessing FEMA's progress and
identified improvements needed in two to five critical action areas."
(pp. 21 & 23)

**(7) DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis Congressional Testimony:**

Department of Homeland Security: *Statement of Charles E. Allen, Under
Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Before the Subcommittee on
Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment*.
Washington, DC: February 14, 2008. Accessed at:
<http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/testimony/testimony_1203028466025.shtm>
Excerpts:

>   The mission of my Office is clear -- it is to identify and assess
> transnational and domestic threats to Homeland security. We provide
> anticipatory, proactive, and actionable intelligence to support the
> Department; State, local, tribal, and private sector customers; and
> the Intelligence Community. The most critical and overarching threat
> to the Homeland remains terrorism -- transnational and domestic -- and
> much of the IC's resources are devoted to this issue. I believe,
> however, that my Office adds unique value by viewing terrorism through
> the prism of threats to the Homeland. This holistic perspective allows
> us to make connections -- if and where they exist -- between terrorism
> and other illicit transnational criminal activities. Moreover, these
> other illicit activities often constitute serious threats to the
> Homeland, and we must address these as well to support our
> Departmental mission and to help secure the Nation....
>
> Last year, we developed our first annual integrated DHS Intelligence
> Enterprise research plan. This drove our flagship publication -- the
> seminal Homeland Security Threat Assessment -- of which I am very
> proud. This assessment represents the analytical judgments of DHS writ
> large and assesses the major threats to the Homeland for which the
> U.S. Government must prepare and to which it must respond. The
> assessment looks out to 2010 and will be updated annually. Moreover,
> it provides us an important analytic framework by which we can
> identify and prioritize our gaps in knowledge and understanding of
> Homeland threats....
>
> A fourth analytic element assesses threats to critical infrastructure,
> both private sector and state owned and operated. We are enhancing our
> existing analytic efforts in partnership with the DHS Office of
> Infrastructure Protection in a center -- the Homeland Infrastructure
> Threat and Risk Assessment Center, or HITRAC -- to assess terrorist
> threats to and vulnerabilities in the 17 critical infrastructures
> identified in HSPD-7. We have completed a baseline assessment for
> every sector; last year, we completed, from a geographical (vice
> sector) perspective, 56 State and territory threat assessments -- the
> first ever infrastructure intelligence threat assessments for each
> State and territory in the Union -- to support State and local
> requirements on terrorist and other threats to U.S. critical
> infrastructure. The Office of Intelligence and Analysis engaged State
> and local partners in working groups to review and contribute to these
> assessments, as well as delivered tailored briefings to a wide range
> of State, local, and private sector customers to enhance their
> awareness and understanding of the threats.
>
> The last analytic element, but certainly not the least, supports a
> full range of customers on chemical, biological, radiological, and
> nuclear (CBRN) threats. We focus on the threat from improvised nuclear
> devices (IND) and radiological dispersal devices (RDD), or "dirty
> bombs." We are also developing a major effort on bioterrorism threat
> analysis to support the Department's role to deter bioterrorism in the
> Homeland. In the bioterrorism area, we are emphasizing the threat of
> infectious diseases -- such as avian influenza \-- to support the
> Department's role in pandemic preparedness. Our concerns do not end
> with infectious human diseases, however, but include infectious animal
> diseases that could devastate our economy, and we are developing
> expertise in this area.\"

**(8) Emergency Management Institute Superintendent -- Cortez Lawrence
Returning:**

Received news this afternoon that Dr. Cortez Lawrence will be returning
as the in-residence Superintendent of EMI. Some months ago, November 14,
2007 to be precise, Dr. Lawrence who had been the EMI Superintendent
since October 2006, took on the assignment of serving as the
Superintendent for both the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) in
Alabama, while remaining Superintendent for EMI until a replacement was
sought here. Dr. Cortez was responsible for the initiation of the
project to investigate the principles of emergency management -- which
led to the creation of the Emergency Management Roundtable and to a
consensus agreement amongst EM stakeholder organizational
representatives on a statement of Principles of Emergency Management.

**(9) Geological Hazards and the NMSZ Slide Presentation:**

Ausbrooks, Scott, and Erica Doerr.  *Geologic Hazards and the New Madrid
Seismic Zone. * Arkansas Geological Survey, Slide Presentation,
Catastrophic Disaster Planning Initiative for NMSZ, Arkansas Risk and
Response Forum, January 14, 2008, 38 slides. Accessed at:
<http://eam.atu.edu/earthquake_pres/Geological_Hazards_and_the.pdf>

\[Note: There are other presentations and materials from this workshop
accessible at: <http://eam.atu.edu/earthquake.php> \>\]

**(10) George Washington University, Crisis and Emergency Management
Newsletter:**

Received yesterday, too late for an Activity Report posting, the
February 2008 electronic newsletter of the Crisis and Emergency Program,
Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management, George Washington
University, in Washington, DC. This student produced newsletter can be
accessed at: <http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~emse232/>

There are about a dozen contributions to the February edition, as well
as access to Newsletter archives going back to October 2001.

**(11) Guide to Emergency Management and Related Terms, Definitions,
Acronyms, etc.**

A February 7, 2008 version of the Terms and Definitions Guide has been
uploaded to the website at:
<http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/termdef.asp> A February 15
modification will be provided to the webmaster today for upload sometime
next week. In that the printed copy is now at approximately 1,000 pages
-- and takes a few seconds to access \-- we will be making copies
available on a CD ROM -- via emailed requests to
<Barbara.L.Johnson@dhs.gov>

**(12) National Response Framework -- Additional Briefing Materials Now
Available:**

Received a note this afternoon from the NRF Resource Center to the
effect that three NRF "Briefings" are now accessible from the Resource
Center:

Department of Homeland Security. *National Response Framework Overview
for Local, Tribal and State Audiences*. 22Jan08.
<http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/NRFRolloutBriefingLTS.ppt>

Department of Homeland Security. *National Response Framework Overview
for Nongovernmental Organizations*. 22Jan08.
<http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/NRFRolloutBriefingNGO.ppt>

Department of Homeland Security. *National Response Framework Overview
for Private Sector Audiences*. 22Jan08.
<http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/NRFRolloutBriefingPrivateSector.ppt>

**(13) Potential Resources:**

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA UK).
*Contingency Planning in DEFRA*. 13Feb2008 modification. At:
<http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/contingency/index.htm> \[Thanks to
Arthur Rabjohn (CEM) note in the IAEM Discussion Group for this item.\]

**(14) Social Problems Perspectives, Disasters Research and EM:
Intellectual Contexts, Theoretical Extensions, and Policy Implications**

This Dr. Thomas Drabek paper, contributed to the FEMA EM Hi-Ed Program,
has now been posted on our website -- Articles, Papers, and
Presentations section \--
<http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/highpapers.asp>

The End.  Hope all readers will have, or did have, a good weekend.

B. Wayne Blanchard, Ph.D., CEM\
Higher Education Program Manager\
Emergency Management Institute\
National Emergency Training Center\
Federal Emergency Management Agency\
Department of Homeland Security\
16825 S. Seton, K-011\
Emmitsburg, MD 21727\
wayne.blanchard@dhs.gov\
<http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu>

**"Please note: Some of the Web sites linked to in this document are not
federal government Web sites, and may not necessarily operate under the
same laws, regulations, and policies as federal Web sites."**

EMI, the nation's pre-eminent emergency management training
organization, offers training at no charge to emergency managers and
allied professions through its resident classes in Emmitsburg, MD, its
online courses <http://training.fema.gov/IS/> and through development of
hands-off training courses.  To access upcoming resident courses with
vacancies <http://training.fema.gov/EMICCourses/>. 

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