Tag Hurricane Sandy

Grassroots Recovery with a National Impact

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

This morning I took some time to browse through the variety of TED talks to see if anything struck some interest with me.  First of all, if you aren’t familiar with TED, they host a variety of free talks and presentations on various topics.  They get some great speakers and the presentations are short… usually 10-20 minutes.  Most of the topics are about something new and innovative – their tag line is ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’, and they certainly abide by that.  Sometimes I watch their presentations because the subject area interests me, and other times I watch it to see some innovative or refreshing presentation skills.

The TED presentation I watched this morning is titled: Caitria and Morgan O’Neill: How to step up in the face of disaster.  It’s a short, 10 minute presentation which I highly recommend.  Their background is on the TED page, but in short these two sisters, both in grad school, experienced an F 3 tornado in their hometown in Massachusetts.  From their explanation, it seems that there wasn’t much organization or leadership in their town relative to supporting volunteers.  If you’ve been in emergency management for a while, you’ve probably experienced this.  There are a wealth of volunteers who want to help in the event of a disaster, but they must be organized and supported.  Often times local governments either don’t have the resources to deal with spontaneous volunteers or simply don’t want to – they may not want the trouble, the liability, or would prefer that another organization, often times someone like the American Red Cross, to deal with them.

The main trouble is that most jurisdictions don’t plan for volunteer management.  A volunteer management plan is a plan that should absolutely be part of the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CEMP) of any jurisdiction.  Yes, not for profits often times do take on this role, especially with a localized disaster and if they have the capability to do so, but in the event of a regional disaster they simply don’t have the people to dedicate to this task – and it’s not something that’s easily done or simply managed.  The bottom line is that local jurisdictions are responsible for taking care of their people, and this is one more way to make it happen.

The O’Neill sisters, learning from their home town experiences and leveraging their educations and other experiences, eventually put together a company called recovers.org.  They have applied simple but effective methodologies to manage resources, including volunteers, in the event of a disaster.  They have traveled across the country applying their system and seem to be quite successful in doing so.  One of the things that encourages me the most about them is that they advocate community preparedness.  They know that for any system to reach its potential of effectiveness, it must be integrated into preparedness efforts, not just show up after the disaster.  It seems they have a product and service that can be applied to any jurisdiction and would work well with existing structures, like a VOAD, and with volunteer management and recovery planning efforts.  The information on their website indicates that they are busy helping communities impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  It’s great to see local efforts and innovation in emergency management!  Best of luck to Caitria and Morgan O’Neill.

To Marathon or not to Marathon?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

New York City reels in the wake of one of the most terrible natural disasters to ever strike that virtual city-state.  Hurricane Sandy destroyed homes and lives less than a week ago, also less than a week away from the NYC Marathon.  Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the race will go on.  People are outraged and infuriated.  But why?  Businesses have reopened.  Wall Street has resumed trading.  Yes, people in and around the city have been horribly impacted, some have even lost their lives.  But why remain still?  The NYC Marathon is the largest in the world.  It’s big, it’s over the top, but it’s NYC folks. 

Just as those homes and lives must be rebuilt, so must the spirit of New York City.  The NYC Marathon is part of that spirit.  Runners converge on the city from around the world – trips that at this juncture can’t be canceled.  Large sums of money had already been spent on preparations, marketing, and management of the event – long before Sandy was even conceived over the Atlantic.  The marathon will bring people from around the world to spend their money there and to see the city that has been called the Capital of the World. The marathon winds through each of the city’s five boroughs.  The runners should take in both the marvels that are New York City, as well as the devastation that was Sandy.  Let them be humbled that the greatness of New York City, New York State, and the United States of America will not be shattered by the ‘superstorm’.

Yes, the devastation from the hurricane is horrible.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t move forward.  People have expressed concern over the allocation of resources to the marathon and not to recovery efforts.  Folks, NYPD has almost 35,000 officers.  FDNY has almost 14,000 firefighters and EMTs.  New York City Department of Transportation employs almost 4,500.  There are plenty of resources to go around.  There are recovery activities going on in the city that are also augmented by state and federal assets, as well as the private sector.

I say the NYC Marathon is good for the economy, it’s good for the image of NYC, and it should be an inspiration for recovery from Hurricane Sandy.  ING, the marathon’s sponsor, has even dubbed it ‘The Race for Recovery’.

Didn’t I Say to Be Smart and Use Common Sense?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure I said that in my last post…

Don’t let this be you.  Seriously.  Accountability is a four letter word to some, and it will come back at you if you don’t stay smart and use common sense.  With landfall of Hurricane Sandy imminent, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie issued a mandatory coastal evacuation order to get citizens out of harm’s way – a smart move given the dangers the storm posed including massive walls of water from storm surge.  For some reason, Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford established shelters in his city, wasting time, valuable resources, and giving citizens a false sense of security when they were very much in danger.  The result was Governor Christie having to send National Guard forces in to rescue these poor folks.  The very public verbal beating that Governor Christie gave Mayor Lorenzo was brutal to say the least.  Governor Christie is one man I would not want to make enemies with.

Hurricane Sandy strikes Atlantic City.

One of my favorite Star Wars quotes is from Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, where Liam Neeson’s character, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn stated ‘There’s always a bigger fish’.  Remember this.  Everyone has to answer to someone else.  Even chief elected officials have to answer to someone – city councils, tax payers, etc.  I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a call for accountability in this case.  We also can’t lose sight of what’s right.  In emergency management, saving lives is always the #1 priority… always!

My heart goes out to victims of Hurricane Sandy.  For those of you who experienced little or no impact, please consider volunteering or donating to relief efforts.  I’d like to suggest The Salvation Army.   Donations may be made to the Salvation Army through www.salvationarmyusa.org or through 1-800-SAL-ARMY. Donors may contribute $10 via their phone bill by text messaging the word STORM to 80888 and confirming the donation with the word “yes.”