FEMA Official Sees Improved Emergency Communications Since Katrina
The communications industry has made real progress since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four years ago, Rex Whitacre, chief of IT operations at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said after speaking Tuesday at the AT&T Business Continuity Forum. Whitacre said the biggest change is that FEMA has “pushed control” to local and state governments as much as possible, so the agency now plays a coordinating and support role.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
“If there’s one thing that we can take out of this, it’s basically we have to communicate and talk with each other,” Whitacre told a standing room-only crowd at the AT&T event on Capitol Hill. “If we look back at Katrina, many people brought things to the fight. Everybody had good intentions, everybody tried to do the right thing. But the problem was … people didn’t talk to each other or they couldn’t communicate because of interoperability” problems.
Whitacre told us significant progress has made since Katrina. The storm led to an FCC task force report and a report ordered by FEMA on improvements needed in disaster response and emergency communications. The agency since has helped 28 states develop plans for dealing with disaster, and the 10 disaster emergency communications specialists that FEMA hired are reaching out to the remaining states.
Whitacre conceded that telephone companies and other industry first responders may still face challenges gaining access to disaster sites, one of the biggest industry complaints following Katrina. “That’s always a challenge because every state does it somewhat differently in terms of how they grant access,” he said. “Several states have made tremendous progress in that area, like Florida, Texas, and I'm sure there are many others. But what we don’t have is a national credentialing plan.” Getting everyone credentialed is “a massive undertaking,” he said.
Whitacre noted during his speech that FEMA, with 3,500 employees, is much smaller than AT&T, with 300,000. But even major players need help from the government in responding in emergencies, he said. “AT&T is a huge company, huge resources, but they're kind of at the mercy of the locals and the feds as to getting access to the site, security, to make sure their people are secure … and fuel,” he said. “Those are the three basic needs [companies] need help with.”
Whitacre said FEMA’s approach has changed, with Administrator Craig Fugate making clear since he started in May that the agency will play a “support” rather than a “command and control” role in relation to the states in addressing disasters. Fugate has been “very clear to say we would be much more successful if the states and locals could handle everything and we could just cut the checks, mail the checks to the individuals that have suffered,” Whitacre said.
AT&T is running what it bills as its largest network disaster recovery exercise ever over several days this week at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington. “With hurricane season underway, the importance of ensuring communications combined with the need to be fully prepared is critical for both government and business,” said Kevin Peters, executive vice president of AT&T’s Global Network Operations, who also spoke at the forum.