**December 8, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project
Activity Report**

\(1\) DISASTERS WAITING TO HAPPEN:

Grissett, Sheila. \"Raising The Level Of Protection.\" New Orleans Times
Picayune, 3 Dec 2006. At:
<http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1165132307243860.xml&coll=1>

\[Excerpt: \"\"When I was chief engineer for Shell Oil and we had a
problem in an offshore field, they turned to me and said, \'Go solve the
problem.\' But Dan Hitchings\' {Head of Corps of Engineers Task Force
Hope in N.O.} bosses don\'t do that,\" said Robert Bea, a University of
California, Berkeley, engineer who helped lead a group that studied the
system\'s collapse for the National Science Foundation and the
university\'s research center. \'The Department of Defense, the White
House, the Congress . . . they\'ve all bound Dan Hitchings up in chains
of bureaucratic engineering,\' he said. \'They have so constrained him
that he can\'t do what needs to be done, which is using thoughtful
aggressive action to solve the problems. Dan\'s first challenge is
changing the corps itself, and then Congress\'\.... \'Dan Hitchings
looks for the best, and I plan for the worst,\' Bea said, \'But I firmly
believe, had a Katrina sister attacked New Orleans again this year, we
would have had breaches where we didn\'t have them before because those
areas are now the weak link in the system,\' he said. \'The ones that
broke last time got fixed, but the ones that didn\'t are the ones that
will break next time\'\.... \'Katrina was larger in many ways than the
100-year storm will be,\' {the current design level \-- to be obtained
by 2010} Hitchings said. \'So even then, in 2010, we\'d still get water
with another Katrina\'\.... Longtime corps senior project manager Al
Naomi, who for years has pushed the corps to study and design a system
capable of withstanding nature\'s most powerful storms, said there will
continue to be flooding from Katrina-sized storms until there is a
national commitment to build far greater protection than levees built to
the 100-year standard can provide\.... \'folks need to understand that
100-year-frequency protection is a moving target that changes with the
number and strength of every storm that comes,\' Naomi said. \'They\'re
not going to provide major protection from a Katrina. We\'re not going
to get that until Congress authorizes and funds us to build protection
from major category storms\'.\]\"

\(2\) HOMELAND DEFENSE:

Congressional Research Service (Steve Bowman).Homeland Security:
Evolving Roles and Missions for United States Northern Command.
Washington, DC: CRS Report for Congress (Order Code RS21322), November
16, 2006, 6 pages. At:
[[http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS21322.pdf]{.underline}](http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS21322.pdf)

\(3\) NEW ORLEANS AND LEARNING DISASTER RECOVERY LESSONS FROM JAPAN:

Japanese Lessons in Disaster Recovery for New Orleans. New Orleans Times
Picayune, December 5, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://updates.blogs.nola.com/default.asp?item=366944]{.underline}](http://updates.blogs.nola.com/default.asp?item=366944)
Includes:

Russell, Gordon. \"Japanese Lessons: Threatened by Catastrophic
Flooding, Typhoons and Tsunamis, Tokyo Has Fought Back With Superlevees
and Spillways that can Teach New Orleans Officials a Thing Or Two About
Disaster Management.\" New Orleans Times-Picayune, December 4, 2006. At:

<http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-7/116521444873700.xml&coll=1>

Russell, Gordon. \"Lessons From Abroad: Japanese City\'s Rebuilding
Began With a Plan That Was To Be Imposed On Its Citizens, But Ultimately
Relies On Discussion and Compromise.\" New Orleans Times-Picayune.
December 5, 2006. Accessed at:

<http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index2.ssf?/base/news-7/1165302058225120.xml&coll=1>

\(4\) 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS:

Congressional Research Service (Richard F. Grimmett). 9/11 Commission

Recommendations: Implementation Status. Washington, DC: CRS Report for
Congress (Order Code RL33742), December 4, 2006, 74 pages. Accessed at:

[[http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33742.pdf]{.underline}](http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL33742.pdf)

\[Emergency Preparedness and Response are dealt with pp.51-54 \--
here\'s one BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) \-- \"Four years after
the attacks, some of the concerns raised by the Commission in the final
report appeared to remain unresolved. Problems identified in the
response to Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) indicate that federal and
non-federal preparations for catastrophic incidents require further
improvement.\"\].

\(5\) PANDEMIC TABLETOP EXERCISE:

Department of Health and Human Services. \"Tabletop Exercises for
Pandemic Influenza Preparedness in Local Public Health
Agencies\"(TR-319-DHHS). Washington, DC: HHS, Office of Assistant
Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness. Prepared by David
Dausey, Julia Aledort, and Nicole Lurie, December 2005 and released
December 2006. Accessed at:
[[http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/states/tr319.html]{.underline}](http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/states/tr319.html)

\(6\) TULANE UNIVERSITY \-- APPLIED EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT COURSE, FEEDING
FRENZY AND OTHER STUFF:

Had a long and interesting conversation today with Dr. Nancy Mock,
Director of the Complex Emergency and Disaster Management\"
Concentration, Masters of Public Health Degree, Tulane University \-- a
sort of post-Katrina catch-up. Dr. Mock notes that post-Katrina, while
class size has gone down across the university, the size of all the
disaster management classes has gone up \-- very significant student (as
well as faculty) interest.

The Katrina experience has led to the implementation of a requirement
that all Emergency and Disaster Management courses include a service
learning component. In furtherance of disaster and emergency management
service learning, Dr. Mock has designed and is teaching this semester a
course entitled \"Applied Emergency Management\" wherein every student
in the class works directly with the New Orleans Office of Emergency
Management, helping them with plans and a host of topics \-- the entire
class is involved in this, and Dr. Mock intends to repeat this course
next semester. I asked for a copy of the course syllabus for upload to
the Syllabi Compilation on the Project website. Also noted that I would
be interested in commissioning a short paper on how this project was
arranged, received and worked for students, faculty, and New Orleans
Emergency Management \-- if the EM HiEd Project receives any funding
this fiscal year. We discussed, as well, adding a discussion of this
experience to the agenda of this year\'s EM HiEd Conference, June 4-7,
2006.

As a result of Katrina, the University as in institution is engaging
with the surrounding community much more than in the past \--
specifically in a range of disaster recovery initiatives (which I
thought could well be the subject of another short paper for the EM HiEd
Project).

Was also interesting to hear of the \"feeding frenzy\" in New Orleans
after Katrina \-- not a reference to the press, but to academics
descending on New Orleans to \"conduct research,\" mostly not in any
type of communication with local academics. For additional information,
Dr. Mock can be reached at: <mock@tulane.edu>

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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