Avoiding Problems After a Major Disaster Hits Your Home

This week, my post is featured on another blog, the LSLA Newsroom. Please read it there: "LSLA NEWSROOM: Avoiding Disaster After a Major Disaster Hits Your Home."

C-DROMO: Where it fits - When it is needed

Here is a statement on the Volunteer.gov website from late 2008 that helps illustrate the point I am making:

"It is also important for potential volunteers to not self-deploy to the coast of Texas, but instead to wait until there is a clear understanding of what volunteer resources will be needed and where. We are currently urging those who want to help people affected by Hurricane Ike to make cash donations to nonprofit organizations that are active in disaster work."

By the time various organizations inventory what they need, post those on their web sites so they are indexed by the Network for Good system, many local volunteers (who may not even have web access) could have already been working. And some people prefer to give with their hands, rather than money from tight budgets.

We should have trained resources already in place who can work with "self-deploying" volunteers--many of whom may not think to look on some obscure website before heading out to lend a hand--so the volunteers can be organized and assigned rapidly.
Network for Good and Volunteer.gov also have a piece of this solution in place. The C-DROMO program could easily fit under the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Let’s get these pieces in place before the next hurricane strikes the U.S. There is no need to expand government staff for this program, as we can use the structures in place to provide the semi-permanent support for the public volunteers.

C-DROMO: Helping Volunteers Help Others

I have been blogging about the need for a program that anticipates and plans for a surge of "irregulars" after a large disaster. Tentatively dubbed C-DROMO--Citizens Disaster Response Operations Management Organization--the federal agency would be primarily volunteer lead and driven, with little taxpayer support.

There is, in fact, a program in Texas that has SOME of the answer in place. The Texas Citizen Corps (http://www.texascitizencorps.org/) facilitates volunteers who want to be trained to help emergency first responders.This is PART of the solution, but misses the larger aspect: those who want to volunteer, not as assistants to police and medical teams, directing traffic in parking lots and dumping trash, but using the skills they have as tree trimmers, carpenters, cooks, electricians, welders, truck drivers, plumbers, painters, equipment operators, accountants, inventory clerks, switchboard operators, child care workers, and so forth.

More Details on C-DROMO concept

Here are more thoughts on the C-DROMO concept.

Imagine Galveston, Texas, being swamped with offers for help, food, equipment, etc. Would the Red Cross be able to handle it? The local police department? FEMA?

No. We need people who are prepared.

The inititial concept includes preparing people all over the U.S. with:
>Training for selected coordinators in each of five regions Regional Commanders (1 per region) – responsible for:
>>Recruiting Regional Coordinators
>>Overseeing the fulfillment of program objectives in their region
>>Management of resources allocated to their region
>>Strategic planning for the anticipated disasters in the region
>>Liaising with senior government and military leaders in the region to
>>>facilitate coordinated efforts in the event of a major disaster
>Regional Coordinators (1-3 per region) – responsible for:
>>Recruiting and training Local Resource Managers
>>Detailed planning and execution of mock disaster drills in the region
>>Inventory and assess resources, equipment and needs
>>Prepare communication, logistical and materiel management strategies for
>>>rapid, effective deployment if needed
>Local Resource Managers (1 per state in the region) – responsible for:
>>Creating and maintaining essential contact information for all local first
>>>responder organizations
>>Periodic reaffirmation with local government, first responder, and military
>>>officials of the plans of action in the event of a major disaster
>>Execution of local mock disaster drills to rehearse for smooth response to
>>>real events
>>Collection of essential supplies, equipment, tools and informational
>>>materials for volunteers and store appropriately until needed
>>Preparation of skills inventory lists in conjunction with first responder
>>>agencies for each general type of potential disaster in the area to provide a
>>>quick list that can be communicated to local media as a call for volunteers
>>>with special skills that would help the response effort succeed faster
>>Minimal paid staff for program administration
>>Equipment for logistics, communication and materiel management
>>Technical equipment
>>Technology
>>Communications
>>Emergency Power
>>Emergency fuel
>>Funding for rapid transportation of coordinators to the area of need and
>>>short-term food, equipment and shelter until additional supplies arrive

C-DROMO as part of NRF

I was reviewing the FEMA National Response Framework information. Seems to me like the C-DROMO program discussed below would fit nicely there.

From the FEMA site: "The National Response Framework presents the guiding principles that enable all response partners to prepare for and provide a unified national response to disasters and emergencies – from the smallest incident to the largest catastrophe. The Framework establishes a comprehensive, national, all-hazards approach to domestic incident response."

[Of course, there's the whole debate about whether FEMA should be taken out of Homeland Security, as noted in a post on the Washington Post site last year....one argument against, from Government Executive.]

C-DROMO: It is time

In the aftermaths of 9/11 and hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Americans mobilized in the form of thousands of volunteers and floods of donated goods. Local officials and government disaster response personnel were overwhelmed with the number of untrained but well-meaning civilians, many of whom had valuable skills to contribute to the efforts. By the time Ike hit, people were discouraged about trying to volunteer after disasters.

A new program is needed to prepare for the next major disaster. Rather than send volunteers away frustrated and unused, we need trained coordinators who can organize unpredictable numbers of volunteers with unknown skills into an orchestrated army acting in support of the professional first responders and other relief organizations.Why not create a sub-agency of FEMA called the Civil Disaster Response Operations Management Organization, with a mostly-volunteer staff trained by experienced disaster response professionals? This organization would function much like the Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force that trains volunteers how to organize other volunteers and work with First Responders.

Let's put some serious "walk" behind all the small government "talk" while doing something meaningful!