i may be misunderstanding your reply. what does this mean? i copied it directly from the homeland security website's 'disasters and emergencies' page. Link |
Nice link Kingbee, very interesting and informative I was especially interested in the National Response Plan...
National Response Plan establishes a comprehensive all-hazards approach to enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents. The plan incorporates best practices and procedures from incident management disciplines—homeland security, emergency management, law enforcement, firefighting, public works, public health, responder and recovery worker health and safety, emergency medical services, and the private sector—and integrates them into a unified structure. It forms the basis of how the federal government coordinates with state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector during incidents. |
Key words here are "coordinates with state, local, and tirbal governments and private sector during indicents. From what I am reading, the Department of Homeland Security is going to coordinate with state and local Emergency Services to ensure better planning, preparation and training before a Disaster occurs and better coordination during them.
Sounds good to me, but I fail to find any part of this plan that takes first line responsibility of Emergency Management from the local Emergency Management Offices and the Mayors.
There are many things the federal government can do to help improve Mitigation, Preparation, Response and Recovery Protocols and Operations in the U.S. This disaster shows that the protocols in many jurisdictions are incomplete and the elected officials aren't always willing to follow them when disaster strikes.
I see no problem in the department of Homeland Security doing more to ensure local protocols are complete, and training is accomplished. I also see a big benefit in helping Governors understand their roles and responsibilities after declaring an emergency, so the delay in response that occured in New Orleans doesn't happen again.
Now, these being good things, and the response moving pretty well now... how is all this Bush's fault?
Oh, yeah, you still think that the job of president is to micromanage every aspect of government... I wonder, are you really willing to grant Prs. Bush enough authority to accomplish everything you want to hole him responsible for?
For the most part, I support the guy, and I'm not even willing to to that! I'll stick with letting local leaders establish protocols based on the risks, assets and needs of their jurisdictions... Except for a few dark incidents, it does seem to work most of the time.
P.S... Some of the jurisdictional pissing contests going on between federal, state, local and private recovery organizations as we speak should reinforce the argument that coordination is needed. By rights (and by law) the jurisdictional authority should belong to the states, but once you ask for money from the fed, you also get the baggage.
Let's hope the lessons learned from this situation will be noticed in better protocols, training and planning in all the areas that are lacking!!!