The New York Times article discusses the White House report regarding the federal response to Hurricane Katrina; this reports follows the House of Representatives’ report issued a week earlier. Fran Townsend, the President?s domestic security advisor, is quoted as saying, ?The Homeland Security Department and its Federal Emergency Management Agency will continue to be the lead federal players in disaster response efforts, but the Pentagon may take over the commanding role during catastrophes of extraordinary scope and nature.?
The report makes the case that the federal government and military must be prepared to assume a larger role when local and state response agencies are overwhelmed and cannot provide the effective response expected by the public. However, what is not explained in the 217-page report is how the military and federal agencies will shift from what is now a ?pull system? to a ?push system.? Currently, in federal domestic disaster relief operations, DoD provides support to civil authorities based upon specific requests from local and state authorities. This ?pull system,? a 21-step process that takes the secretary of defense’s approval for a military force to reach the disaster site, is an overly bureaucratic process to say the least.
To adopt a ?push system,? numerous legal and national institutional questions must be resolved; e.g. Posse Comitatus, the 127-year law that bans federal forces from performing domestic law enforcement duties. Our foundation of response to incidents, emergencies, and disasters is based upon local public safety and health agencies being responsible for protection of the public and will craft the response to the disaster or terrorist attack. These public safety members live and work in the impacted areas and will be best able to address the immediate requirements presented as the response unfolds. If the disaster or attack overwhelms local and state capabilities, they will also be able to provide local knowledge or intelligence to insure federal resources are applied to the most needed areas. Additionally, the local government must remain in charge of the response and recovery efforts because when the federal resources pack up and go back to Washington DC, it will be the local officials that must answer to their citizens about the effectiveness of the response.
Additionally, federal military resources are not never-ending. They are fully engaged in combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan , performing the missions they were designed and funded to perform. As noted in the 379-page House committee report; ?We cannot expect the Marines to swoop in with MRE?s every time a storm hits. We train soldiers to fight wars. You can?t kill a storm.?
When the White House report was released on February 23, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff did not attend Townsend’s briefing; he did, however, issue a one-paragraph statement, praising the report and its effort to create ?a more seamless federal disaster management system.?
There are many lessons to be learned from the response to Hurricane Katrina, at all levels of government and within the agencies at each level. In applying the recommendations that are derived from lessons learned, we must remember that Hurricane Katrina was the largest and most powerful storm to hit the US in 100 years. Rather than giving the military a ?commanding role? and abolish the foundation of incident response in the US by adopting a federal ?push system,? we need to fix what was broken and strengthen the weak areas. As Clark Kent Ervin , the former Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, is quoted as saying: ?If you are going to have a Department of Homeland Security, then we need to figure out whatever is inhibiting its effectiveness and provide what it lacks, not simply parcel out responsibilities from various agencies where they came from.?
