**August 9, 2007 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project
Report**

\(1\) CASE STUDIES IN RISK AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT COLLEGE TEXTBOOK:

Reviewed, belatedly, the first section of the final chapter to go into
the \"Case Studies in Crisis and Emergency Management\" upper division
college textbook being written by and under the supervision of George
Haddow at George Washington University. The final chapter (#11) is on
\"Business Community Response in Hurricane Katrina.\" The first of the
three case studies is on the Weyerhaeuser response to Hurricane Katrina

\-- and it reads quite impressively. I hope to get to the remaining two
case studies dealing with Chevron and Wal-Mart expeditiously. After
review comments have been successfully incorporated into a final
document this chapter will be forwarded to the EMI Webmaster for upload
to the EM HiEd Project Website section \"Free College Courses, Books and
Materials,\" where it will go into the Books subsection. In the
meantime, the first 10 chapters of this book can be accessed freely at:

[[http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/emoutline.asp]{.underline}](http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/emoutline.asp)

\(2\) CATASTROPHE READINESS AND RESPONSE COLLEGE COURSE DEVELOPMENT
PROJECT:

Received today for review from Human Technology, Inc., a Project
Management (Work) Plan (33 pages) for the development of a 3 semester
hour college course on \"Catastrophe Readiness and Response. From the
\"End Products\" section: \"The end product of this project will be a
fully developed 15-week college course, complete with assigned readings,
lectures developed with PowerPoint slides, in-class exercises,
discussion topics, and sample tests/exams. It will also include a
suggested bibliography for additional reading. This course will be
compatible with the learning and performance expectations for graduate
students and upper-division undergraduates in U.S. colleges and
universities.\" The target audience for this project is current and
future students in college and university undergraduate and
graduate-level emergency management education programs. Upon my approval
of the forwarded Work Plan the course development project will go into
production phase \-- over an approximately 2-year time-frame.

\(3\) CATASTROPHIC HEALTH EVENT PREPAREDNESS:

Monica Schoch-Spana, Crystal Franco, Jennifer B. Nuzzo, and Christiana
Usenza on behalf of the Working Group on Community Engagement in Health
Emergency Planning.

\"Community Engagement: Leadership Tool For Catastrophic Health
Events.\"

Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and
Science, Volume 5, Number 1, 2007, pp. 8-25. Accessed at:

<http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/resources/publications/2007_orig-articles/2007_article_pdfs/2007-04-04-communityengagementleadershiptool.pdf>

Schoch-Spana, Monica. Community Engagement: Leadership Tool For
Catastrophic Health Events. EIIP Virtual Forum Presentation Transcript,
August 8, 2007.

Accessed at:
[[http://www.emforum.org/vforum/lc070808.htm]{.underline}](http://www.emforum.org/vforum/lc070808.htm)

\(4\) EM HI-ED CONFERENCE 2007 \-- BOOK PROJECT:

Talked today with Jessica Hubbard, a graduate student at George Mason
University, whom Gerry Hoetmer at PERI (Public Entity Risk Institute)
has brought on-board at PERI to work on a project to attempt to develop
and publish a book comprised of selected papers delivered at last
June\'s 10th Annual FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education
Conference. Dr. Hoetmer and PERI have engaged in this project from the
perspective of a long-time commitment to supporting emergency management
professionalization. Jessica plans on beginning the process of
contacting people who developed papers for the conference to determine
their interest in being considered for inclusion in the potential book
and then to further determine their interest in possibly revising or
expanding upon their papers in order to \"translate\" them into book
chapters. Jessica can be reached at: <jessica@riskinstitute.org>.

\(5\) FEMA:

Savage, Charlie. \"Lawmakers Weigh Cutting FEMA Duties - Long-Term
Efforts Would Be Transferred.\" Boston Globe, August 9, 2007. Accessed

at:

<http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/08/09/lawmakers_weigh_cutting_fema_duties/>

\[Excerpts: \"Lawmakers and Bush administration officials are
considering stripping the Federal Emergency Management Agency of its
responsibility for long-term recovery efforts following a terrorist
attack or natural disaster, the latest fallout from the agency\'s
lackluster response to the Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005. Under a
proposal by Senator Mary Landrieu, FEMA would still run the initial
response to future catastrophes \-- getting victims shelter, blankets,
and food. But oversight of recovery efforts, which can go on for years,
would become the responsibility of other federal agencies with expertise
in specific areas: rebuilding housing, fixing roads, cleaning up
hazardous spills, and supervising an area\'s economic revitalization.

\"FEMA wasn\'t built to lead the recovery from a catastrophic disaster
and it is a wholly inadequate tool for that kind of situation,\" said
Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. \"FEMA should stabilize the situation
\-- i.e., establish shelters and get people into them. But at some
point, say 50 to 90 days after the disaster, \[the Department of Housing
and Urban Development\] should take over housing. Why? Because they do
housing.\"\....

The Bush administration has not formally asked Congress to make such a
change. Neither a FEMA spokesman nor a press officer for the Department
of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, would comment on such a
high-level policy matter, although the latter did note that the core
mission of DHS \"is not long-term housing. We are engineered for
all-hazards planning, protection, and response.\"

Informally, however, some Homeland Security officials say they welcome
Landrieu\'s proposal. The department, still stinging from criticism of
its flat-footed first response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, has
been beset by headaches arising from the longer-term recovery
effort\....

If Congress passes legislation to disperse FEMA\'s long-term recovery
role among other departments, it will be something of a reversal from
the agency\'s origins. President Jimmy Carter created FEMA in 1979
because he was concerned that the various federal agencies that helped
local officials deal with disasters were too scattered and needed to be
unified\....

\"This is \'mission creep,\' \" said Carafano."The fire department
doesn\'t stay there and rebuild your house after a fire. They go back to
the firehouse and get ready to put out the next fire. That is what FEMA
should be doing.\"

\(6\) MILITARY ROLE IN DISASTER RESPONSE:

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The
Military\'s Role in Disaster Response: Progress Since Hurricane Katrina
(Hearing). Washington, DC: July 19, 2007. Committee and Witness Prepared
Statements can be accessed at:

<http://hsgac.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Detail&HearingID=469>

\(7\) NATIONAL RESPONSE FRAMEWORK:

Hsu, Spencer S. \"States Feel Left Out Of Disaster Planning.\"
Washington Post, August 8, 2007. At:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/07/AR2007080702115_pf.html>

\[Excerpts: \"A decision by the Bush administration to rewrite in secret
the nation\'s emergency response blueprint has angered state and local
emergency officials, who worry that Washington is repeating a series of
mistakes that contributed to its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina
nearly two years ago. State and local officials in charge of responding
to disasters say that their input in shaping the National Response Plan
was ignored in recent months by senior White House and Department of
Homeland Security officials, despite calls by congressional
investigators for a shared overhaul of disaster planning in the United
States.

\"In my 19 years in emergency management, I have never experienced a
more polarized environment between state and federal government,\" said
Albert Ashwood, Oklahoma\'s emergency management chief and president of
a national association of state emergency managers\.... Critics contend
that a unilateral approach by Washington produced an ill-advised
response plan at the end of 2004 \-- an unwieldy, 427-page document that
emphasized stopping terrorism at the expense of safeguarding against
natural disasters.

Bruce Baughman, Ashwood\'s predecessor as president of the National
Emergency Management Association and a 32-year veteran of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, said that a draft of the revised plan
released to state officials last week marks a step backward because its
authors did not set requirements or consult with field operators
nationwide who will use it to request federal aid, adjust state and
county plans, and train workers\.... \"Coordination between state and
local governments and the feds . . . seems to be getting worse rather
than better,\" said Timothy Manning, head of emergency management in New
Mexico and a member of a DHS-appointed steering committee that initially
worked on the emergency plan before being shut out of the deliberations
in May\.... Federal officials, Ashwood said, appear to be trying to
create a legalistic document to shield themselves from responsibility
for future disasters and to shift blame to states. \"It seems that the
Katrina federal legacy is one of minimizing exposure for the next event
and ensuring future focus is centered on state and local preparedness,\"

he said\....

Bush officials add that state, local and private-sector partners will
get their say during a 30-day review when the plan is formally released
later this year\....

John R. Harrald, a professor at George Washington University\'s
Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management, cautioned that
shutting out state and local voices during the plan\'s preparation would
be ill-advised. He said that the administration appears \"to be guided
by a desire to ensure centralized control of what is an inherently
decentralized process\... Response to catastrophic events requires
collaboration and trust in a broad network of organizations.\"\"\]

\[One comment from the Listserve of the International Association of
Emergency Managers: \"The title of this story is mis-leading. It should
read: \'States Are Left Out of Federal Disaster Plans\'.\"\]

\(8\) SPECIAL NEEDS POPULATIONS:

Department of Health and Human Services. \"HHS Announces New HIPAA
Privacy Decision Tool for Emergency Preparedness Planning.\" Washington,
DC: HHS Press Release, July 5, 2006. Accessed at:

[[http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2006pres/20060705a.html]{.underline}](http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2006pres/20060705a.html)

\[Excerpt: \"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
today published a new Web-based interactive decision tool designed to
assist emergency preparedness and recovery planners in determining how
to access and use health information about persons with disabilities
consistent with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule\.... The Decision Tool: HIPAA Privacy Rule
& Disclosures for Public Health \-- Emergency Preparedness is readily
accessible on the OCR Web site at
[[http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/decisiontool/]{.underline}](http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/decisiontool/).\]

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)

\* To subscribe to the Hi Ed Activity Reports go to the Higher Education
Project homepage at <http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/edu/>. Scroll to
the fourth paragraph and click on the link to send a blank e-mail to our
list server. You do not need to enter any information on the Subject
line or in the Message area. If you want to remove yourself from this
mailing list, you can send a blank email to
<leave-emi-hi-ed-reports-205686A@lyris.fema.gov> or visit:
[[http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/edu/]{.underline}](http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/edu/)

If you are unsubscribing from a different email address than the one you
originally subscribed with, send your email to <lyris@lyris.fema.gov>
and include the next line of text in the subject line of your message:

Unsubscribe emi-hi-ed-reports <Barbara.L.Johnson@dhs.gov>

**"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."**

\* NOTE:  Users can be dropped from the Hi Ed Activity Report list for a
few reasons.  Make sure your mail box will accept our email.  Sometimes
inboxes are too full to accept an attachment.  If the email "bounces"
too many times you will be dropped from the email listing.   Make sure
the activity reports are not rejected as SPAM.  This will also cause the
email to bounce and again you may be dropped from the listing.  You can
have your Help Desk check your computer settings to ensure DHS emails
are acceptable to your system. Hi Ed Activity Reports are distributed
daily Monday through Friday; if for any reason delivery of the Hi Ed
Activity Reports stops let us know immediately via email at
<Barbara.L.Johnson@dhs.gov>.  Missed Activity Reports can be accessed on
the Hi Ed website at
<http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/activityRA.asp>.