FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual - Comments Requested

The FEMA Damage Assessment Operations Manual is part of a greater effort to provide a user-friendly, streamlined post-disaster damage assessment process that builds on the existing knowledge and expertise of State or Tribe and local partners to identify damage after a natural or man-made disaster. Eligible Tribes and U.S. territories are considered the same as States for application of FEMA programs; the Manual is aimed at clarifying FEMA damage assessment guidance, promoting standardized information collection, and assisting in the development of requests for federal disaster assistance. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is seeking comments from state, local, tribal, and territorial emergency management practitioners on the draft FEMA Damage Assessment Operating Manual. The manual establishes national damage assessment standards developed from historic lessons learned and best-practices already in use by state, local, tribal and federal emergency management agencies. The manual is built using a framework that encourages local information collection, state or tribal verification, and federal validation. Previous versions of such manuals have focused exclusively on the federal role. This document better highlights and provides guidance to state, local, and tribal governments on their role in the assessment. The draft manual is posted here. Comments should be added to the comment matrix, and submitted by Nov. 14, 2015.

The document appears to provide a very thorough user guide for handling disaster assessments. The book is 160 pages long and includes the following (from the Table of Contents):

• Introduction
• Concept of Operations
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Evaluating Damage and Impact for FEMA Public Assistance
• Evaluating Damage and Impact for FEMA Individual Assistance
• Damage Assessment Methods
• Integration of Geospatial Analysis and Technology
• Integration of Mobile Technology
• Appendices A, C, D = Checklists
• Appendices E, F = Matrices
• Appendix H = Process Charts

Overall the document is a useful starting place; however, it does appear to have some gaps in chapter content, formatting, etc. But, then again, the document is out for review and comment.

This could be a useful tool for the student of Disaster Assessment and Recovery due to the checklists and discussions about the more contemporary use of GIS and cellphones for data gathering.

You are encouraged to take time and at least page through this document and offer your thoughts, ideas and feedback. Perhaps someday you will be using this manual for your own disaster assessments.

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Mr. Gisli Olafsson -- A True and Proven Crisis Leader

I am currently a student in the University of Washington Masters of Infrastructure Planning and Management (IPM) program.  This quarter I am taking IPM501, Comprehensive Emergency Management.  As part of this course one of our required readings is an excellent crisis leadership book by Mr. Gisli Olafsson entitled The Crisis Leader.

We were very fortunate to "virtually meet" Mr. Olafsson on an Adobe Connect lecture on July 29th where Mr. Olafsson took 90 minutes to highlight his experiences as an urban search and rescue leader including his experience as a team leader for Iceland's International Urban Search and Rescue team (ICE-SAR) immediately after the tragic earthquake hit Haiti in 2010.

Overall, Mr. Olafsson is a very compelling and experienced emergency response manager and leader with some excellent -- albeit tragic -- stories from his experiences responding to disasters around the world.  In his lecture he raised some excellent comments and ideas about the role of leadership during a crisis.  Some of the key ideas and comments he raised are captured below:

CL = Y + T + R

The equation above is one way Mr. Olafsson tried to explain what crisis leadership includes and entails.  The terms are first interpreted as:

CL = Crisis Leadership

Y = You

T = Team

R = Response

In summary he used this equation as a way to help capture some key aspects of personal leadership.

Y = You

You need to know yourself -- you need to know how you react under times of stress and crisis and how you deal with events -- including those events with substantial amounts of death and destruction.  You need to understand your emotions, fears and how to deal with these psychological arrows so you can be an effective leader.

Mr. Olafsson pointed out that key to the "You" aspect is to realize that you need to trust your team and their capabilities in order to control and even block your fear.  You need to be prepared for the task at hand by knowing your own strengths and weaknesses.  You also need to be physically and psychologically fit to endure the long hours and stressful conditions.

T = Team

Paramount elements for leadership success includes being resilient (also referred to as "Semper Gumby" as a reference to the very flexible cartoon character).  Secondly, you need to always be preparing through planning and exercising.. 

Mr. Olafsson noted that as a rule of thumb from a World Bank document on Natural Hazards Unnatural Disasters that for every hour or preparation spent you can expect to save six hours of effort; similarly for every dollar spent you can expect to save six dollars.

You want to build your team so that you are a "...leader of leaders..." where the team members are empowered to not only do their job but also to fill the role as a leader as required for the situation and based on their technical specialties/expertise.  Don't be a micromanager but lead your "leaders" so they are effective and the job gets done.

R = Respond

Response to a crisis is a key reason why you are at the disaster.  But, you are surrounded by many challenges ranging from the disaster itself to the weather to the debris field to the emotional survivors and even to the smell.  First you need to focus -- block the external stimuli and do your task at hand.  Secondly, take advantage of the intelligence and help that can be provided by the local population affected by the disaster.  Apparently FEMA in the U.S. refers to this concept as "Survivor-centric Response."

Responding requires a team with solid morale.  As noted in Chapter 25, "Team Morale," Mr. Olafsson states, "No matter which way it starts out , one of your crucial roles as a leader is to ensure that you keep morale high, even during the most difficult times.  Your ability to do that depends on a number of things including:

• Your rapport with team members...
• Your ability to read others...
• Your ability to understand how the situation is affecting people..."

Conclusion

If you are a leader of any sort -- but especially one placed -- or potentially placed -- into an emergency situation or worse yet a disaster, I would highly recommend you take time to read, digest and contemplate the excellent and field-proven advice offered in this book by Mr. Olafsson.  As a 40+ year leader myself, I found his advice to be "...right on..." and useful for my professional and personal leadership roles.

Mr. Olafsson's website is:  www.thecrisisleader.com and he can be followed on Twitter @gislio

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Cities Under Threat from Natural Disasters -- A Risk Assessment

In a report issued by the Swiss Reinsurance Company (cover and link below), an integrated view of the risks posed to cities around the world was offered.  The report notes that "...the growing concentration of people, assets and infrastructure also means that the loss potential in urban areas is high and rising."

http://media.swissre.com/documents/Swiss_Re_Mind_the_risk.pdf

The report summary also notes that "...physical prevention measures alone do not suffice to build a resilient city, since damage from the most severe catastrophes cannot be fully averted.  An important part of resilience is how well urban societies are able to cope with financial consequences of a disaster..."

One Tables 3 and 4 of the report (below) are a summary of their findings relative to the top 10 global cities affected by the five perils of river flood, earthquake, wind storm, storm surge and tsunami.

With the continued conversation about climate change affecting sea levels and the comments noted above regarding storm surge it appears that flooding catastrophes are risks cities need to plan and prepare for.

At a minimum you may want to at least read the Preface, Introduction, and glance at the tables prepared to gain a sense of the Swiss Re approach and conclusions.  The key conclusions are:

• Asia's cities are the most at risk from natural disasters
• Saving lives is and should be the highest priority in risk mitigation efforts
• Investments to infrastructure are vital to strengthen the resilience of metropolitan areas
• Investments in infrastructure would also help cities cope better with natural disasters and other shocks such as human pandemics and acts of terrorism. 

Anyway, as an "infrastructure geek" I found this review interesting and consistent with the other lessons learned from Super Storm Sandy, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan and the recent typhoon in the Philippines.

Storm Photos - Our Infrastructure Under Duress

I just saw this slide show today including some interesting photos of post-storm damage and the important and courageous individuals who "fix" the problems.

Thanks to the public servants, utility workers and the volunteers who help restore our infrastructure back to "normal."

Have a good week, everyone and stay safe!