The most-veteran folo readers — you handful who were here pre-Scruggs — know my admiration for the work of John Robb, whose blog Global Guerillas you see on the blogroll. I just peeked in there to find a discussion that may interest a lot of us (and not — given that it’s tornado season — just those in the hurricane zone).
Robb normally studies the emerging modes of decision-making related to warfare, but yesterday he took up a somewhat similar topic, regional disasters of the natural kind, specifically Katrina. He briefly discussed and linked to a 23-page case study by George Mason University’s Steven Horwitz on post-Katrina decision-making by both private and public institutions. This is Horwitz’s executive summary:
Many assume that the only viable option for emergency response and recovery from a natural disaster is one that is centrally directed. However, highlighted by the poor response from the federal government and the comparatively effective response from private retailers and the Coast Guard after Hurricane Katrina, this assumption seems to be faulty. Big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart were extraordinarily successful in providing help to damaged communities in the days, weeks, and months after the storm. This Policy Comment provides a framework for understanding why private retailers and the Coast Guard mounted an effective response in the Gulf Coast region. Using this framework provides four clear policy recommendations:
- Give the private sector as much freedom as possible to provide resources for relief and recovery efforts and ensure that its role is officially recognized as part of disaster protocols.
- Decentralize government relief to local governments and non-governmental organizations and provide that relief in the form of cash or broadly defined vouchers.
- Move the Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
- Reform "Good Samaritan " laws so that private-sector actors are clearly protected when they make good faith efforts to help.
If disaster situations are to be better handled in the future, it is important that institutions are in place so that actors have the appropriate knowledge to act and incentives to behave in ways that benefit others. The framework and recommendations provided in this paper help to provide a good understanding of the appropriate institutions.
Think this might be something that (ahem), say, a state’s new Public Safety Commissioner should have brought to his attention? In any case, I’d be interested in foloers’ thoughts on and/or recollections of post-disaster situations — whether Katrina, Jackson-a week-ago, or any other — and how you rated various institutions’ performances in them.
Points immediately jumping to my mind here:
1. It’s impossible to imagine a government as ineffectual as Bush’s, so let’s not necessarily re-calibrate everything with that baseline. (On the other hand, there’s Louisiana to consider . . . )
2. I’m certainly not the expert Horwitz or Robb is, but the trend of their statements seems mighty like the Hood-to-Scruggs handing-off of public responsibility to private hands (which might not be acceptably-clean ones), so the potential for self-interested manipulation bothers me.
Facinating. And did not realize Coast Guard was part of Homeland Security. Wonder why they were effective and FEMA was not (hmmmm).
Katrina post-op:
Church groups that came down provided the help. And some are still coming down. Kept hearing about all the money Red Cross was raising and everyone wondered what they were doing with it and where they were. From bringing water, food, helping folks put tarps on roofs, the churches by far were the primary relief help. Finally saw Red Cross about a month later.
Did need military for security – locals or private could not have provided that support. Would have preferred less number of Humvees armed with machine guns stationed at Menge Avenue in the Pass. 4 or 5 is a little overkill on a two lane road next to a nursing home, but am probably splitting hairs on that one.
I had good luck with FEMA, but felt I was exception and not the rule when discussing with friends. My FEMA rep was staying at the Pass Christian Fire Station and they were sharing army cots with the police and fire folks. So, there were some good ones at ground zero and trying to make a difference.
Of course power companies, as usual, were awesome, and a perfect case study for how to respond.
Sounds to me like when there is leadership that has actual knowledge of emergency response like the Coast Guard, agencies are effective. Putting it all in private hands scares me as much of it was put in private hands – Red Cross, the FEMA trailers, debris clean-up. Think just leadership that knows something about emergency response would be a step up. Hopefully, the response was better in Jackson recently and in other states with flooding and tornadoes.
That must have been one bad-ass nursing home, partial coastal.
Agree with Lotus’ points in the comments, especially regarding the idea that we would be so much better off letting the private sector doing the heavy lifting. It’s to their credit that Wal-Mart, among others, came through when NOLA needed help, but that doesn’t excuse FEMA for not being the coordinator and facilitator it was meant to be. No organization I can think of has the kinds of communications and transportation resources that the Federal government has at its disposal. That they weren’t deployed in a reasonable manner had more to do with putting incompetents in charge than it did with there being some intrinsic advantage to being a private organization. Both types of organizations screw up when their leaders are incompetent or feckless.
If Dr. McCoy was right about how engineers love to change machinery, it’s equally true that politicians are in love with changing organization charts when things go south. I think it’s a good idea to resist such notions until they’re proved to be necessary. Change creates confusion and screwups, too.
There might be some merit to the idea of giving “good samaritans” added protection. I’d like to hear from the lawyers in this crowd on that one.
TRAINING. That’s why nothing got better until the military showed up. Not only in NO w/ Honore, but in Gulfport after the Nat’l. Guard (never thought I’d give the weekend warriors this much credit) BUT HATS OFF ! My beachfront neighborhood wasn’t secured (looters) until 3 days after the storm. The Miss. Nat’l. Guard was manpower poor thanks to ffffffing Iraq (spec the same thing true in LA).
The Coast Guard was effective because search and rescue are their primary mission after security. Also, like the Army, Navy, et al., it is a military organization whose civilian leadership sets policy but does not command. FEMA on the other hand is a purely civilian bureaucracy with political appointees running the chain of command. Because the political appointees tried to replace anyone who was not a faithful Bushee, as they did in every other government agency, experienced career employees exited in droves. The result is the noticeable decline in the quality of government services across the board.
Got it right, soms. My point, per xactly! FEMA isn’t trained for that kind of security deployment, and really not civil crisis deployment. Those employees are paper pushers not on-the-ground crisis intervention troops. There was a great deal of paper pushing, too, and I’ll give them creds for doing what they could in an unprecedented situation. That said, I think most of those employees would agree they were not TRAINED for this kind of on-the-ground “bureaucracy in action” (an oxymoron?). ‘Bless all our hearts…
Nonprofits were able to fill gaps because they generally steered clear of government bureaucracy and from private for-profit contractors. Their scope is limited by capabilities, resources, and authority.
Private sector flexibility in the form of no-bid, cost-plus contracts failed as poorly and inefficiently as anything the government did directly. At some point the government has to take responibility for restoring the public infrastructure so everyone else can do the rest. We needed much better coordinated leadership to approve and implement plans to restore water, sewer, streets, schools, etc.as quickly and efficiently as possible. That job was/is too big for FEMA and its one building/project at a time orientation.
Researcher 7
Infrastructure Problems?
Mississippi Development Authority
Mississippi
Gulf Coast Regional Infrastructure Program
Recovery Action Plan Amendment 2
Per Draft Plan dated June 7, 2006;
“The Mississippi Development Authority (MDA)
is the State’s designated agency responsible for administering CDBG funds. With regard to the Gulf Coast Regional Infrastructure Program, MDA will manage the accountability of funds, while the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality will provide technical oversight and project management.”
MDA and DEQ will work with HUD to develop procedures for mitigating instances of fraud abuse, and /or mismanagement…….Additionally, the auditor of the State of Mississippi will have an investigative team assigned to investigate suspected instances of fraud……
There are 7 pages to this 7/07/06 Draft Plan!
Washingtonpost.com
Saturday, April 12, 2008
“Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S.”
“…….tracking hurricane damage”
PLEASE READ the article and follow up comments!