**August 10, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project
Activity Report**

\(1\) DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY:

Goldfarb, Zachary A. \"Is DHS Site Really Ready? Science Intern Thinks
Not.\" Washington Post, August 10, 2006. Accessed at:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/09/AR2006080901706.html>

Sieff, Martin. \"Analysis: Can The DHS Be Fixed.\" United Press
International, August 9, 2006. Accessed at:

<http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060809-013725-2946r>

\[Excerpt: \"There is general agreement in the halls of the U.S.
Congress that the Department of Homeland Security is a disaster area.
But what can be done about it?\"\]

\(2\) DUTCHESS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, NY \-- DEVELOPING EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
ASSOCIATE DEGREE:

Communicated today with Andy Mihans who is working with Dutchess
Community College in NY to develop an Associate Degree in Emergency
Management. Mr. Mihans notes that \"We have completed all of the
beginning legwork regarding the surveys, etc and have now begun to put
the actual program together\.... I am also beginning to contact other
colleges to work out potential transfer agreements.\" Agreed to review
proposed program outline.

\(3\) GLOBAL WARMING:

King County Executive Ron Sims. \"News Release: King County and Climate
Scientists Write The Book on Coping With Global Warming.\" King County
Government, WA, August 2, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/news/2006/0802warming.aspx]{.underline}](http://www.metrokc.gov/exec/news/2006/0802warming.aspx)

\[Note: In a comment on this Press Release, Eric Holdeman, Emergency
Management Director for King County, WA, writes: \"In the infantry we
often talked about shooting the closest tank, since that was the one
more likely to do you in, but at some point we need to fight what use to
be called the \'deep battle\', so that you didn\'t keep having tanks
coming at you. I think of global warming as that \'deep battle\' that we
all can contribute to. First by understanding the future consequences
and then doing our individual parts to prevent, mitigate and become
prepared to respond when the global warming tank is close at hand.\"

New York Times. \"California Leads On Warming.\" August 9, 2006.

Accessed at:
[[http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/09/opinion/edcalif.php]{.underline}](http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/09/opinion/edcalif.php)

\[Excerpt: \"Tony Blair, the British prime minister, who worries about
global warming more than any other world leader, has finally found an
important American ally: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
Last week, the two agreed to collaborate on cleaner-burning technologies
and to explore an emissions-reduction program that would combine
mandatory controls on greenhouse gases with market incentives to reduce
the costs of compliance.\"\]

\(4\) HAZARDS MAPPING AND MODELING \-- UPPER DIVISION/GRADUATE-LEVEL
COURSE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT:

Received detailed six-page review of the draft \"Hazards Mapping and
Modeling\" college course, from Kenton Friesen, Coordinator, Community
Disaster Management, Winnipeg (Canada) Regional Health Authority. After
reviewing the comments, forwarded these to the lead course developer for
this project, Dr. John Pine, Director of the Disaster Science and
Management Program at Louisiana State University. There are
approximately 15 reviews being conducted on the draft course. When the
review process has run its course we will have a review comments meeting
with Dr. Pine, probably in September, to determine specific
modifications to make in the production of a final course deliverable,
based upon review comments.

\(5\) HOMELAND SECURITY:

Bauer, Brad. \"Arrests Tied To Terrorism.\" Marietta Times (GA), August
9, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/new22_89200683934.asp]{.underline}](http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/new22_89200683934.asp)

\[Excerpt: \"TracFones being bought in bulk at area retail stores are
suspected of being shipped overseas and used to detonate roadside bombs,
officials said. On Wednesday, two men suspected of having ties to
terrorism were arrested in Marietta after purchasing several phones at
area stores. The two men\... admitted to buying more than 600 phones in
the Mid-Ohio Valley over the past few weeks. Several of the
pay-as-you-go cell phones and \$11,000 in cash were found during a
search of their vehicle. \... Maj. John Winstanley said the sheriff\'s
office has received notices from the US Department of Homeland Security
warning individuals are purchasing the phones for terror related
activity.\" He said the FBI and DHS \"have been notified and are
assisting in the investigation.\"\]

Beckner, Christian. \"National Fragility and Homeland Security.\"
Homeland Security Watch, August 9, 2006. At:

<http://www.hlswatch.com/2006/08/09/national-fragility-and-homeland-security/>

\(6\) KATRINA:

News Release from \"Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of
Homeland Security\" Website:

WASHINGTON, August 8, 2006 - Christopher Cooper and Robert Block,
authors of \"Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland
Security\", today release on their website a group of important
government documents previously unavailable to the public detailing the
history of the bungled emergency response to Hurricane Katrina.

Key among them is the US Senate staff interview \[119 pages\] of Gen.
Matthew E. Broderick, the former head of the Homeland Security
Operations Center, the main information clearing house of the
department. The center and Gen. Broderick played a pivotal role during
the disaster, becoming a stovepipe of vital information that impeded
relief efforts. Gen. Broderick was responsible for advising both
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the White House of the
scale of the disaster. The failure of the Homeland Security Operation
Center is a main revelation of \"Disaster\", which is available today in
stores throughout the country. Highlights of Gen Broderick\'s statements
to Senate investigators include:

He did not know New Orleans was vulnerable to a major hurricane despite
the fact that DHS had included a hurricane strike in New Orleans in its
National Planning Scenario of 15 worst catastrophes along with a nuclear
attack on a major city and the sabotage of the US food supply by
terrorists.

He and DHS spent the better part of two days trying to confirm whether
the levees had breached, despite ample evidence this had occurred. The
question of breaching was a pivotal fact in determining whether the
situation in New Orleans warranted a stepped-up federal response.

He did not understand that the Super Dome and the Ernest N. Morial
Convention Center, scenes of some of the greatest suffering after the
storm, were separate places, thus denying the government with
information that could have speeded relief to storm victims there.

Also released are previously unavailable White House emails faulting the
flow of information from DHS and transcripts of daily
video-teleconferences with state and federal officials, including one on
August 29, 2005, the day of landfall, when state and federal officials
could have placed the response a proper footing - but for a single,
terrible, and unnecessary miscommunication between Louisiana Gov.
Kathleen Blanco and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin over the
state of the New Orleans levees.\"

Note: Information on the book and links to these and other documents is
accessible at:
[[http://www.disasterthebook.com/news/]{.underline}](http://www.disasterthebook.com/news/)
{Some of it makes for interesting reading.}

Hughes, Polly Ross. \"State Sheds Light On Plight Of Evacuees.\" Houston
Chronicle, August 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4106890.html]{.underline}](http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4106890.html)

\(7\) MATERIALS RECEIVED:

Department of Homeland Security. Emergency Support Function 15 Standard
Operating Procedures. Washington, DC: DHS Office of Public Affairs, July
2006, 119 pages.

\[Note: This is described as an interim document. Purpose statement:

\"This DOP establishes procedures and protocols for Emergency Support
Function 15 External Affairs to support Federal domestic incident
management during an incident of national significance or incidents
requiring a coordinated Federal response. Emergency Support Function 15
integrates Public Affairs, Congressional Affairs, State, territorial,
Local and Tribal Affairs Coordination, Community Relations,
International Affairs, and the Private Sector under the coordinating
auspices of external affairs.\"\]

\(8\) NIMS (NATIONAL INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM):

Moore, Roxann. \"Selbyville Approves NIMS.\" DelmarvaNow (DE). August
10, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.delmarvanow.com/bethanybeach/stories/20060809/2316856.html]{.underline}](http://www.delmarvanow.com/bethanybeach/stories/20060809/2316856.html)

\(9\) PREPAREDNESS:

Grabell, Michael. \"Home Unaware Of Evacuation Agency \-- NTSB continues
hearings on bus fire that killed 23 patients.\" Dallas Morning News,
August 10, 2006. Accessed at:
[http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/stories/0810
06dnmetbusfire2.a6fcfcf.html](http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/stories/0810 06dnmetbusfire2.a6fcfcf.html)

\[Excerpt: \"Assisted-living facilities nationwide are often unprepared
when it comes to transportation for mass evacuations, industry officials
said on the second day of hearings investigating last year\'s bus fire
outside Wilmer. Officials say fatal bus fire points out lack of data The
facilities often don\'t have a bus company lined up for evacuations,
struggle to compete for available buses and are frequently left out of
emergency planning meetings, said Hilary Styron, emergency preparedness
director for the National Organization on Disability. \'This is a
competitive environment for supply and demand,\' she said. If a nursing
home isn\'t working closely with local transportation officials, \'it
will be a rock, paper, scissors game for who gets the asset come
evacuation day\'.\" Later, on a different topic, an NTSB member
participating in a set of hearings on the Hurricane Rita evacuation bus
tragedy wherein 23 elderly died, reacted to the finding that the bus
carrier \"had a federal driver safety score worse than 97 percent of all
bus and truck companies\" as well as significant equipment problems, by
asking \"How many other bus operators are out there who haven\'t been
looked at in 25 years?\"\]

Ziner, Karen Lee. \"Major Disaster Could Hit Ethnic Communities
Hardest.\" Providence Journal (RI), August 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20060810_evac10.1fa0e45.html]{.underline}](http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20060810_evac10.1fa0e45.html)

\[Excerpt: \"\'If Hurricane Katrina taught us anything, it taught us
that the minority communities and lower-income communities are the most
vulnerable,\' says the head of the local Red Cross chapter\....If an
evacuation order is given, the hope is that many will evacuate, Holt
(Red Cross Chapter Executive Director) said. But the reality is, \'many
will stay home\'. They may be reluctant to leave pets behind. They may
have no transportation. They may not get the word in the first place.

But even if they do, they may be too distrustful of authority \-- for
instance in the case of illegal immigrants or people who suffered
persecution in their homelands \-- to heed a warning.\"\]

\(10\) RECOVERY:

Foster, Mary. \"Stress Building in N.O.; Anniversary Could Spark More
Problems.\" Associated Press, August 9, 2006. Accessed at:
<http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-26/1155185359315230.xml&storylist=louisiana>

\[Excerpt: \"Stress is keeping law enforcement officers in New Orleans
and neighboring Jefferson Parish busy these days, as they answer many
more calls than before the storm for domestic abuse, drunkenness and
fights. Involuntary commitments to mental hospitals are up from last
year, and suicides in Orleans Parish have tripled since Katrina.\"\]

Mann, Charles C. \"The Long, Strange Resurrection Of New Orleans.\"

Fortune Magazine, August 9, 2006. Accessed at:

<http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383661/>

\[Relatively long, about 10-page article, with the subtitle: \"Hurricane
Katrina was the biggest natural disaster in US history - and its
aftermath became the biggest management disaster in history as well. A
year later, Fortune lays bare this surreal tale of incompetence,
political cowardice\...and rebirth.\"\]

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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