The Homeland Security Blog

Check it out! “Disaster Response in the Gulf: A New Data-Sharing Platform is Put to the Test” is this month’s featured cover story of Mission Critical Communications. In early June, I went down to four states in the Gulf to support this effort and the story perfectly captures how folks such as the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness in Louisiana are benefitting from participation in Virtual USA. You have to read this story – see pages 31 – 35.

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Protection and National Preparedness, have announced that the availability of the National Dialogue on Preparedness has been extended to September 10, 2010.

The National Dialogue on Preparedness is an OpenGov initiative hosted by DHS and FEMA for the Local, State, Tribal, and Federal Preparedness Task Force. Congress mandated that the Task Force develop recommendations on how to improve preparedness for natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or other man-made disasters. The Task Force is seeking help to inform its recommendations. Your opinion is valuable as the Task Force considers what works, what needs improvement, and where there are trends and consistency in thinking – or not – on these core questions:

- How do we collectively assess our capabilities and gaps?

- Which policies and guidance need updating and what process should we use to update them?

- Which grant programs work the most efficiently and which programs can be improved?

We urge you to visit http://preparedness.ideascale.com to participate in the dialogue. Make certain that the Task Force has considered all ideas from across the nation – submit an idea, comment on posted ideas, submit recommendations, and support the Task Force by sharing the initiative with your employees, colleagues, members, or constituents.

Due to an unprecedented heat wave this summer and the drought it caused, western and central Russia has been overrun with wildfires since late July. Hundreds upon hundreds of fires dot the region, covering tens of thousands of hectares. Deaths in Moscow have doubled this summer due to the combination of record heat and the smoke from the vast fires that fills the city. More than 3,000 people have been made homeless, and nuclear weapons have had to be removed from the country’s primary nuclear weapon facility in Sarov before they were engulfed.

Over 10,000 firefighters have been called to fight the blazes. This number proving insufficient, the Russian army has also sent thousands of troops to join them and calls for volunteers continue.

Making a very difficult situation even worse, nobody knows what’s going on. Due to the Russian government and media being highly atomized, information as basic as the locations of all active fires is unknown. Key players aren’t talking, so all too often, evacuations and mobilizations are late and poorly managed.

Prime Minister Vladmir Putin had disbanded a national system of forest protection and fire services in 2006, leaving responsibility for the forests and drained peat bogs with their owners. As a result of poor management by private owners, when firefighters went into the field, they found many trucks were broken down, water ponds filled with sludge, and roads in poor repair.

Despite it all, the fires are finally abating, due to dropping temperatures and the efforts of Russian firefighters.

The Russian wildfires are a worst case: widespread devastation, little intelligence or coordination, a shortage of equipment. In the United States, we’re better positioned, but major disasters are still a risk. What is most needed in a disaster as massive as this one? What is most likely to fail? What don’t we have in place now that would be the most help?

At the All Hazards Training Center, we train and consult in a myriad of safety and security areas. Those areas include both counter-terrorism and assisting in the protection of college campuses and schools. Recently, we’ve started to consider those two areas as overlapping circles.

Americans are accustomed, sadly, to a series of ‘lone gunman’ events at schools and college campuses throughout the US. Such incidents are most often discovered to be the work of a single, troubled person (as with Virginia Tech in 2007) or a small band of vengeful, suicidal criminals (as with Columbine). While they don’t meet the FBI definition of ‘terrorism’, campus tragedies like these may be considered as such by lay people. Perhaps that’s because the public lumps such incidents into simple categories, and most people aren’t aware of the true definition of the word.

Regardless, college campuses are a target-rich environment for those who we might commonly define as terrorists. Those who organize to strike public places might soon conspire to attack an institution of higher learning as a symbol of their cultural or political enemy.

The Jeanne Clery Act of 1998 is a little-publicized federal law that requires colleges and universities to disclose campus crime statistics. The most common beneficiaries of this regulation are knowledge-seeking parents and students, who wish to establish for themselves the safety level of a prospective college. And as a conduit of information for that purpose, the Clery Act is invaluable.

The downside is that the publication of campus crime information can also help a terrorist group profile a college as a likely target. Schools with higher crime rates can logically be assumed to be those with more flaws in their security services and routines.

Colleges and universities are the lifeblood of public discourse and research. To serve that purpose well – for the campus community to really think – a certain feeling of comfort and freedom is essential. Those conditions, however, may allow for unfettered access to any number of busy administration buildings and classrooms. Non-residents often easily enter even residence halls, where gateway security may be most common.

Institutions of higher learning are perfect emotional targets, too, since they are populated by young adults, who most still think of as “kids.” Any disaster at a large or well-known university will attract the highest level of media attention.

Colleges do have tools for terrorism defense, however. The US Department of Education website lists the most logical means of terrorism prevention and deterrence for post-secondary schools, from building stronger alliances with law enforcement to increasing video surveillance. Trouble is, many colleges face serious budget shortfalls now and in the near future. So security upkeep is difficult.

But colleges can do one thing on the cheap that might well deter terrorist groups from targeting their campuses: put a ‘beware of dog’ sign in the yard.

When a school makes security plans or improvements of any kind, those actions should be trumpeted as loudly as any significant research finding. College administrators are happy to brag about everything from a recent football victory to the construction of a new classroom building. At Findlay, we remind them to also boast of tight, smart security, and of a culture of security consciousness that stretches across their campus community. Like the homeowner who uses a window sign to portray his common beagle as a trained Doberman, colleges should publicly depict their plans to protect against terrorism as ironclad.

Naturally, we would never advocate creating a false security curtain. All institutions of higher learning need to be constantly vigilant and defensive against all forms of crime and terrorism. But they should never be quiet about their efforts. They must let the world know – with a loud noise – that they are on guard.

Everyone is likely familiar with the phrase “usual suspects.”  These are the ones the TV cops round up following a heinous crime because the detectives are familiar with their escapades.  But the term also applies to the “off the top of my head” response in listing people and organizations when searching for likely partners for special projects.  The key to gaining cooperation to address wildfire issues – in this case, before smoke is in the air – is to identify the specific issues that create the problem and not merely the issues that appear as the symptoms.

The engagement of residents and non-traditional stakeholders in solving a “fire problem” could include insurance professionals, land use planners, builders and developers, in addition to the “usual suspects” in the fire service and forestry agencies.  In fact, I suggest that the essence of the “problem” of home loss due to wildfires is not a fire problem at all.  It’s essentially a land use planning problem.  It’s only a fire problem when there’s a fire – sort of like realizing a home is in a flood plain when only the roof is above water.  Can’t we plan better with the idea for living compatibility with nature, whether the issue is fire, flood, or some other threat?

Technology can be an effective method to educate and engage both the usual suspects and those we “should have thought of.”  For example, geographic information systems (GIS) can be extremely effective for demonstrating the complexities of certain issues of wildfires and the presence of homes among the trees.  Besides the locations of homes in hazardous areas, GIS maps can assist lay people in grasping the relationships among slope of the surrounding terrain; number and quality of roads; the distances involved between emergency services and homes; and so on.

One of the more profound moments I’ve witnessed in years of using GIS for teaching spatial relationships has been the “ah-ha” realization why certain solutions may not be feasible.  For example, developing a plot of land for residential use depends on factors such as soil (type and stability), the proximity to environmentally sensitive areas (water supplies and watersheds), the presence or proximity of cultural sites or endangered habitats; and many others.  When a solution is offered, spatial analysis can help the professionals and lay people discard one solution and work toward a mutually agreeable one.

The use of streaming video, online education courses, and communications (social networking) are other methods to deliver information and generate feedback and ideas.  Organizations that shy away from (or refuse to consider at all) social networking will continue to rely on tradition to solve the problems of the present and the future with solutions of the past.  What’s that called when we do the same thing over and over and yet expect different results?

Coming up next blog: The right combination.

The use of codes and standards may not readily come to mind as a technological solution, but the development of sound codes and ordinances is founded on science and technology. In the case of wildfires, extensive research, modeling, and observation have shown that wildfires do not behave like floods that flow through residential areas, consuming homes in their path. Neither do these fires “select” homes to destroy as would a monster or, as they are more often characterized, a terrible dragon raging through subdivision after subdivision, consciously deciding which home is destroyed and which is allowed to survive.

The all-too-familiar wildland/urban fire is technically an exposure fire. Thinking of historic conflagrations such as Boston, Chicago, as well as Atlanta and San Francisco (consequences of the Civil War and the 1906 earthquake, respectively), the communication of flames and heat in wildfires is not the issue of the forest fire consuming hundreds of homes at once but with the change in the type of fuels involved. A wildfire (or wildland fire by definition) is a fire supported and spread by vegetation (fuel), driven by wind (oxygen), and generating sufficient energy (heat) to spread. (Yes, the fifth grade lesson of the “fire triangle” still applies). The home losses around the world every year occur as a result of the change in the primary fuel of the wildfire from vegetation (trees and grasses) to structural elements (homes). That’s what gets folks all excited and confused. The change in fuels is the opportunity to reduce damages and losses by building homes and structures that can withstand exposure to a wildfire. And that opportunity lies in part with the adoption of effective codes and standards for building homes in fire prone areas.

While codes and ordinances will not stop the flames, their application does help reduce the resulting damages and burdens on those affected. In the event of a large disaster, the affected population could be in the tens of millions of people. The adoption and enforcement (with lots of education) of nationally developed codes and standards provides consistency across jurisdictions, resulting in improved cooperation and mutual assistance among first responders, planners, builders, and administrators.

Coming up next blog: Getting more people on the same page and in the same book.

Congress is now considering a bill that would give security at American ports a much-needed shot in the arm.  The homeland security appropriations bill now in debate would, if enacted, provide $350 million for the port security grant program.  That’s a major jump over last year, increasing spending in that area by $50 million.

The bill also provides finance support for the Coast Guard, as well as funding for increased security grant programs for means of land transit, like buses and trains.

But here at The All Hazards Training Center at The University of Findlay, it is the maritime component of the bill that caught our attention.  Findlay is part of the Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium, and we provide security training and planning for waterway officials in rural areas.  So we watch events in the maritime sector of domestic security.

Many are surprised at the immense traffic of rural inland waterways.  The Port of Huntington-Tri-State, our largest inland port, handles nearly 80 million tons of cargo each year but is barely within 3 hours of any city of a half-million people or more.  And ports and marine terminals are only the most obvious component of marine commerce. River and seaway locks are also a vital part of the nation’s waterway system.

Infrastructurereportcard.org is a fascinating site created by civil engineers that provides their report card for categories of U.S. infrastructure.  The site recently graded inland waterways a frightening D minus, citing the fact that nearly half of all locks are obsolete.  Should a lock or a busy river or lake port, like Duluth, MN, or our nearby Port of Toledo, or the Soo Locks, become a victim of a terrorist attack, U.S. transportation could be altered drastically.  The reverberation would not only cause major changes to the transportation of goods in the immediate days following the attack, thanks to re-routing, but the reaction of maritime security nationwide could greatly slow traffic at all ports and on all rivers.

This week, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg touted the current appropriations bill as crucial to the security of the Port of Newark.  Clearly, a huge maritime facility like Newark is a visible and complex target with ongoing security concerns.  But like many who address the needs of rural responders and security managers, our Findlay All Hazards staff wonders when terrorism will come to an inland target.  It’s our hope that the programs that arise from this new appropriation bill will meet the needs of inland and rural ports and terminals, as well as those of the larger ports of the U.S.

For emergency first responders just starting up a GIS program, there’s generally a lot of effort in locating spatial data. It just so happens that there is a lot of free or low cost spatial data to be found on your state’s GIS website and links from there. But critical infrastructure datasets for planning and responding to transportation emergencies is also available from another site. This set of data deals with transportation – railroads, ports, bridges, airports, and freight terminals – all of which might be the site of your next hazardous materials incident.

If you’re a fire or police department looking for transportation data for emergency planning and response, I suggest a likely source is the US Department of Transportation’s National Transportation Atlas Database for 2009. Updated files for 2010 are coming soon either on the web or DVDs.

On this site, you’ll find several specific databases dealing with all kinds of ground and air transportation, such as hazardous materials routes data from the state departments of transportation, railway networks, navigable waterways, and other data, some gathered from other sources like the Census Bureau. But the value is that a lot of what you might need for transportation emergencies is right here, free, and formatted for use. The downloadable files contain shapefiles, index files, dBASE attribute data, spatial indices, and metadata, all in the familiar ESRI formats.

On July 7 the Homeland Security Policy Institute released a commentary co-authored by the former Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) C. David Paulison and HSPI’s Deputy Director David Kaniewski entitled “The Gulf Oil Spill Disaster: Three Steps to Federal Leadership,” which I think is worth reading. In essence, the authors call on the Obama Administration to make clear the chain of command and framework for the federal government’s response to the oil spill by invoking Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, which would put Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in charge of all interagency efforts and use the National Response Framework as the guidelines for all response activity. Finally, the authors want the President to direct that FEMA play a more central role in the response.

Structurally, creating a chain of command and framework of this sort makes perfect sense to me, and I think it is sorely needed. Currently it seems that no one is really in charge. Is it the Coast Guard, is it British Petroleum, or is it the Secretary of the Navy and former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus in charge of recovery restoration of the region? There is no question that a myriad of federal agencies have been involved in the response, but the only thing that seems clear is that no one is clearly in charge.

That said, the devil will still be in the details. What will be the policy approach towards recovery and restoration taken by the Secretary of the Navy? It seems to me that whatever the approach towards the restoration effort is undertaken it has to done in close coordination with the recovery efforts as the two are inexorably tied together. How will this be coordinated with the disposition of the $20 billion restoration fund overseen by Kenneth Feinberg? (A related question here is what methodology will be used to guide all the Gulf Coast related response, recovery and restoration efforts – hopefully the notion of resiliency will be a core part of the direction of these efforts).

Moreover, while it makes perfect sense to say that the National Response Framework (NRF) and the principles outlined in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) will serve as the response framework, what will this mean in practice? One of the criticisms of the NRF and NIMS is that they are fine as principles, but there is not a lot of meat on the bone. How will that serve to better coordinate the activities on the ground? What governance process will be brought into the Unified Command? How will they achieve better situational awareness and coordination? While these are clear principles in the NRF and NIMS, implementation is still pretty vague. This in no way suggests that the President not implement the recommendations of Paulison and Kaniewski. It is to say that structural changes alone will not solve the profound issues facing the Gulf. They can, however, lay the groundwork to begin to put the necessary pieces in place.

In my previous blog post, Hybrid 2.0 – How to leverage social media for emergency management and response, I discussed two existing models for the use of social media in open government:

- For use in public communication and collaboration: communication among citizens and with the public, leveraged by government agencies and non-profit organizations like Crisis Commons.

- For use in the enterprise: secure communication between agencies, with employees, etc.

Again, the need for an additional model, what I am now calling Hybrid 2.0, remains increasingly clear for communication relating to public safety, including preparedness, response, and recovery. Non-profits like Crisis Commons, Ushahidi, and other crowd sourcing data collection efforts are proving extremely helpful in leveraging citizen engagement to gather data both for daily use and in emergencies. Additionally, their respective visualization tools are making it easier to understand trends and gather situational awareness surrounding specific issues and events. The success of projects like these is a direct result of the increasingly popular concept of collective intelligence and open source technology.

I believe the emergency communications landscape can be divided into three main stakeholders: the citizen, public systems, and government. Each stakeholder pulls and pushes data and information through a variety of channels and for a variety of reasons, specifically:

The citizen: Leverages public tools including social media, websites, SMS, etc. to communicate with other citizens, to gather information from public systems via publically available visualization tools, and to report to the government via 911, 311, or other government-provided reporting systems.

Public Systems: Operated by non-profits, non-governmental organizations, etc., public systems provide a means for collecting and aggregating information and data while simultaneously providing results via visualization tools that are openly available on the internet and through social media.

Government: Communicates internally through closed and/or proprietary systems for official response while communicating with the public via social media and more traditional alert/notification systems like the Emergency Broadcast system, sirens, email lists, SMS, etc., and collect/aggregate data for the purposes of response via 911, 311,etc.

While each stakeholder leverages different tools for different purposes, the intended outcome is often one in the same: communication and education (preparedness), situational awareness, response, and recovery.

Now imagine if emergency organizations, whether government or non-government, could leverage the data collected via crowd sourcing from both citizens and public systems, for use in situational awareness, preparedness, response, and recovery. Furthermore, imagine if by partnering with public systems, government agencies could identify and correct misinformation faster than before while using fewer resources (see Real Live Misinformation in Action – Oil Spill Rumors at Govloop.com). The implications of doing so are so great that I believe it is now necessary to develop a paradigm from which to model future public-private partnerships in emergency management.

Again, in developing such a paradigm, I must address the associated challenges:

- Veracity of content;

- Resources required to manage data collection and analysis;

- Resources required to authenticate collected data and resulting analysis;

- Security of information leveraged for official response efforts;

- Integration of awareness, alert, and notification communication channels; and

- A lack of policy addressing the implementation, management, and maintenance of all of the above.

To successfully address each of these challenges, an additional layer is necessary; one that bridges government and non-government efforts by supporting each. This is the Hybrid 2.0 model.

The Hybrid 2.0 model must combine internal solutions, behind a firewall for internal communication and operations, while simultaneously integrating and leveraging external, public solutions for outreach and communication. Additionally, the Hybrid 2.0 model must include data that is collected both via official and public channels. The Hybrid 2.0 model must provide a means for authentication and verification of all messaging and data collected from public systems, to ensure that all data collected is accurate before analyzed and disseminated.

Should the Hybrid 2.0 model become an additional stakeholder, or simply a collaborative effort between two or more existing stakeholders, only time will tell? In the mean time, I believe government agencies will begin to utilize crowd-sourced data and publically available visualization tools more and more. The value of the data is far too great to ignore.