**February 21, 2007 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Report**

\(1\) MILITARY ROLE IN DISASTER:

Kettl, Donald F. \"Senator Warner\'s Posse: A New Federal Law Gives the
Military A Domestic Function It Hasn\'t Had Before.\" Governing.com,
Feb.

2007\.
[[http://governing.com/articles/2poto.htm]{.underline}](http://governing.com/articles/2poto.htm)
\[Thanks to Claire Rubin for providing this item.\]

\(2\) PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE:

Flynn, Stephen E. \"Flynn: U.S. Not Prepared For The Next \'Big One\'.\"
CNN.com, February 20, 2007. At:

<http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/20/flynn.commentary/index.html?section=cnn_latest>

\[\"Americans have failed to learn the most important lesson of 9/11 and
Hurricane Katrina: We need to make building resiliency from within our
borders as urgent a priority as confronting dangers from without.

\"There would have been thousands of more victims in New York on
September 11 if the city had not made significant new investments in
emergency management and if the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey, which owned the World Trade Center, had not conducted regular
fire drills, improved the emergency lighting and applied
photoluminescent markings on stair treads and handrails in the
stairwells of the twin towers. It was New York\'s investment in
resiliency after the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing that made
that tragic day in 2001 far less tragic.

\"Today, New Orleans would have long ago recovered from Hurricane
Katrina had the city\'s flood control system not been so badly
neglected. But throughout the 1990s, the funds that might have been used
to repair and strengthen the levees and flood walls were routinely bled
off for other projects. In 2004, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
asked for \$22.5 million to make emergency repairs to the storm
protection system in New Orleans, the White House cut that figure to
\$3.9 million. It was New Orleans\' lack of resiliency in the face of a
foreseeable natural disaster that produced a catastrophe that has
practically destroyed a great American city.

\"Building resiliency requires three things. First, we must anticipate
likely man-made or natural disasters. Second, we must be willing to take
prudent actions in advance of these disasters that lower our exposure to
their potentially catastrophic consequences. Third, we must be able to
mobilize a speedy response and recovery after disasters occur.

\"An estimated 90 percent of Americans now live along the coast, near
flood zones and earthquake fault lines, or in other locations that are
at a high or moderate risk of being hit by a major natural disaster. But
since 9/11, we have been acting as though the only serious threat we
face is terrorism and that the only way to manage that threat is by
military efforts abroad. When an aggressive offense against terrorists
is our only defense, homeland security and planning for natural
disasters end up as lesser priorities.

\"This is insane. Sure we should be confronting our enemies when we have
the intelligence to tell us where they are and what they are up to. But
our intelligence apparatus is badly broken and the terrorist threat is a
rapidly mutating. We need only look to the 2004 train bombings in
Madrid, Spain, and the 2005 attack on the London subways to remind us
that the al Qaeda threat is not confined to the Middle East and that all
acts of terror cannot be prevented.

\"More importantly, Americans are far more likely to be caught in the
cross hairs of a major natural disaster such as an earthquake, flood,
forest fire or a hurricane than an attack by terrorists.

\"No act of modern warfare, with the possible exception of a nuclear
exchange between major world powers, has the potential to threaten as
many lives and cause as much disruption to the global economy as the
H5N1 avian influenza would if it makes the evolutionary leap that allows
it to spread among humans as quickly and as lethally as it has among
birds. Of the just over 100 documented human infections between 1997 and
2005, the mortality rate was 54 percent. With a flu outbreak leading to
a projected 80 million illnesses in the United States, millions of
Americans would be in need of hospital care, but our entire national
inventory of staffed hospital beds is just 970,000.

\"Acts of terror and disasters cannot always be prevented, but they do
not have to be catastrophic. The key is being willing to invest in
things that are not particularly sexy, such as public health, emergency
planning and community preparedness.

\"It requires that we repair frail levees, pipelines, dams and the
electrical grid. And we also need to learn from disasters and near
misses. Californians adopted a new construction code after the 1906 San
Francisco earthquake. New Yorkers took evacuating skyscrapers seriously
after the World Trade Center was attacked in 1993. Adequately preparing
for foreseeable events is the only way for the United States to step
back from the edge of disaster.\"

{CNN Editor\'s note: Stephen Flynn is the author of \"The Edge of
Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation.\" A retired U.S. Coast Guard
officer, Flynn is a homeland security expert and a senior fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations.}\]

\(3\) UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS \-- EMERGENCY ADMINISTRATION AND
PLANNING PROGRAM NEWSLETTER:

Just received the February 2007 edition of \"The Mitigator,\" the
newsletter of the EADP program at the University of North Texas \-- the
oldest emergency management academic program in the U.S. Contains an
article of FEMA Director David Paulison\'s recent presentation at a
function arranged by the UNT Chapter of the International Association of
Emergency Management Students. Can be accessed at:

[[http://www.unt.edu/eadp/Mitigator-Feb07.pdf]{.underline}](http://www.unt.edu/eadp/Mitigator-Feb07.pdf)

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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