Tag State Preparedness Report

Reviewing The 2018 National Preparedness Report

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

The 2018 National Preparedness Report was released last week.  For the past few years, I’ve provided my own critical review of these annual reports (see 2017’s report here).  For those not familiar with the National Preparedness Report (NPR), it is mandated by the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA).  The information is compiled by FEMA from the State Preparedness Reports (SPR), including the Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) data submitted by states, territories, and Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) – funded regions.  The data presented is for the year prior.  The SPRs and NPR examine the condition of our preparedness relative to the 32 Core Capabilities identified in the National Preparedness Goal.

Overall, the NPR provides little information, certainly nothing that is really shocking if you pay attention to the top issues in emergency management.  Disappointingly, the report only covers those Core Capabilities identified for sustainment or improvement, with no more than a graphic summary of the other Core Capabilities.

Core Capabilities to Sustain

Operational Coordination was identified as the sole Core Capability to sustain in this year’s report.  I’ve got some issues with this right off.  First of all, they summarize their methodology for selecting Core Capabilities to sustain: ‘To be a capability to sustain, the Nation must show proficiency in executing that core capability, but there must also be indications of a potentially growing gap between the future demand for, and the performance of, that capability.’  To me, what this boils down to is ‘you do it well, but you are going to have to do it better’.  I think most EM professionals could add to this list significantly, with Core Capabilities such as Planning; Public Information and Warning; Public Health, Healthcare, and EMS; Situational Assessment; and others.  Distilling it down to only Operational Coordination shows to me, a severe lack of understanding in where we presently are and the demands that will be put on our systems in the future.

Further, the review provided in the report relative to Operational Coordination is pretty soft.  Part of it is self-congratulatory, highlighting advances in the Core Capability made last year, with the rest of the section identifying challenges but proving little analysis.  Statements such as ‘Local governments reported challenges with incident command and coordination during the 2017 hurricane season’ are put out there, yet their single paragraph on corrective actions for the section boils down to the statement of ‘we’re looking at it’.  Not acceptable.

Core Capabilities to Improve

The 2018 report identifies four Core Capabilities to improve:

  • Infrastructure Systems
  • Housing
  • Economic Recovery
  • Cybersecurity

These fall under the category of NO KIDDING.  The writeups within the NPR for each of these superficially identifies the need, but doesn’t have much depth of analysis.  I find it interesting that the Core Capability to sustain has a paragraph on corrective actions, yet the Core Capabilities to Improve doesn’t.  They do, instead, identify key findings, which outline some efforts to address the problems, but are very soft and offer little detail.  Some of these include programs which have been in place for quite some time which are clearly having limited impact on addressing the issues.

What really jumped out at me is the data provided on page 9, which charts the distribution of FEMA Preparedness grants by Core Capability for the past year.  The scale of their chart doesn’t allow for any exact amounts, but we can make some estimates.  Let’s look at four of these in particular:

  • Infrastructure Systems – scantly a few million dollars
  • Housing – None
  • Economic Recovery – Less than Infrastructure Systems
  • Cybersecurity – ~$25 million

With over $2.3 billion in preparedness funding provided in 2017 by FEMA, it’s no wonder these are Core Capabilities that need to be improved when so few funds were invested at the state/territory/UASI level.  The sad thing is that this isn’t news.  These Core Capabilities have been identified as needing improvement for years, and I’ll concede they are all challenging, but the lack of substantial movement should anger all emergency managers.

I will agree that Housing and Cybersecurity require a significant and consolidated national effort to address.  That doesn’t mean they are solely a federal responsibility, but there is clear need for significant assistance at the federal level to implement improvements, provide guidance to states and locals, and support local implementations.  That said, we can’t continue to say that these areas are priorities when little funding or activity is demonstrated to support improvement efforts.  While certain areas may certainly take years to make acceptable improvements, we are seeing a dangerous pattern relative to these four Core Capabilities, which continue to wallow at the bottom of the list for so many years.

The Path Forward

The report concludes with a two-paragraph section titled ‘The Path Forward’, which simply speaks to refining the THIRA and SPR methodology, while saying nothing of how the nation needs to address the identified shortcomings.  Clearly this is not acceptable.

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As for my own conclusion, while I saw last year’s NPR as an improvement from years previous, I see this one as a severe backslide.  It provides little useful information and shows negligible change in the state of our preparedness over the past year.  The recommendations provided, at least of those that do exist, are translucent at best, and this report leaves the reader with more questions and frustration.  We need more substance beginning with root cause analysis and including substantial, tangible, actionable recommendations.  While I suppose it’s not the fault of the report itself that little improvement is being made in these Core Capabilities, the content of the report shows a lack of priority to address these needs.

I’m actually surprised that a separate executive summary of this report was published, as the report itself holds so little substance, that it could serve as the executive summary.  Having been involved in the completion of THIRAs and SPRs, I know there is information generated that is simply not being analyzed for the NPR.  Particularly with each participating jurisdiction completing a POETE analysis of each Core Capability, I would like to see a more substantial NPR which does some examination of the capability elements in aggregate for each Core Capability, perhaps identifying trends and areas of focus to better support preparedness.

As always, I’m interested in your thoughts.  Was there anything you thought to be useful in the National Preparedness Report?

© 2018 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

2017 National Preparedness Report – A Review

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 1 Comment

With my travel schedule, I missed the (late) release of the 2017 National Preparedness Report (NPR) in mid-October.  Foundationally, the findings of the 2017 report show little change from the 2016 report.  If you are interested in comparing, you can find my review of the 2016 NPR here.

The 2017 NPR, on the positive side, provided more data and more meaningful data than its predecessor.  It appeared to me there was more time and effort spent in analysis of this data.  If you aren’t familiar with the premise of the NPR, the report is a compilation of data obtained from State Preparedness Reports (SPRs) submitted by states, territories, and UASI-funded regions; so the NPR, fundamentally, should be a reflection of what was submitted by these jurisdictions and regions – for the better or worse of it.  The SPR asks jurisdictions to provide an honest analysis of each of the core capabilities through the POETE capability elements (Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising).

From the perspective of the jurisdictions, no one wants to look bad.  Not to say that any jurisdiction has lied, but certainly agendas can sway subjective assessments.  Jurisdictions want to show that grant money is being spent effectively (with the hopes of obtaining more), but not with such terrific results that anyone would think they don’t need more.  Over the past few years the SPRs, I believe, have started to normalize and better reflect reality.  I think the authors of the NPR have also come to look at the data they receive a little more carefully and word the NPR to reflect this reality.

The 2017 NPR (which evaluates 2016 data from jurisdictions) identified five core capabilities the nation needs to sustain.  These are:

  • Environmental Response/Health and Safety
  • Intelligence and Information Sharing
  • Operational Communications
  • Operational Coordination
  • Planning

I’m reasonably comfortable with the first two, although they both deal with hazards and details that change regularly, so keeping on top of them is critical.  Its interesting that Operational Communication is rated so high, yet is so commonly seen as a top area for improvement on after-action reports of exercises, events, and incidents.  To me, the evidence doesn’t support the conclusion in regard to this core capability.  Operational Coordination and Planning both give me some significant concern.

First, in regard to Operational Coordination, I continue to have a great deal of concern in the ability of responders (in the broadest definitions) to effectively implement the Incident Command System (ICS).  While the implementation of ICS doesn’t comprise all of this core capability, it certainly is a great deal of it.  I think there is more room for improvement than the NPR would indicate.  For example, in a recent exercise I supported, the local emergency manager determined there would be a unified command with him holding ‘overall command’.  Unfortunately, these false interpretations of ICS are endemic.

I believe the Planning core capability is in a similar state inadequacy.  Preparedness lies, fundamentally, on proper planning and the assessments that support it. While I’ve pontificated at length about the inadequacy of ICS training, I’ve seen far too many plans with gaps that you could drive a truck through.  I’ve recently exercised a college emergency response plan that provided no details or guidance on critical tasks, such as evacuation of a dormitory and support of the evacuated students.  The plan did a great job of identifying who should be in the EOC, but gave no information on what they should be doing or how they should do it.  The lack of plans that can be operationalized and implemented is staggering.

The NPR identified the top core capabilities to be improved.  There are no surprises in this list:

  • Cybersecurity
  • Economic Recovery
  • Housing
  • Infrastructure Systems
  • Natural and Cultural Resources
  • Supply Chain Integrity and Security

Fortunately, I’m seeing some (but not all) of these core capabilities getting some needed attention, but clearly not enough.  These don’t have simple solutions, so they will take some time.

Page 10 of the NPR provides a graph showing the distribution of FEMA preparedness (non-disaster) grants by core capability for fiscal year 2015.  Planning (approx. $350m) and Operational Coordination (approx. $280m) lead the pack by far.  I’m curious as to what specific activities these dollars are actually being spent on, because my experience shows that it’s not working as well as is being reported.  Certainly there has been some positive direction, but I’m guessing that dollars are being spent on activities that either have negligible impact or actually have a negative impact, such as funding the development of some of the bad plans we’re seeing out there.

I’m curious as to what readers are seeing out in real life.  What capabilities concern you the most?  What capabilities do you see successes in?  Overall, I think everyone agrees that we can do better.  We can also get better and more meaningful reports.  This NPR was a step in the right direction from last year’s, but we need to continue forward progress.

© 2017 – Timothy Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

In a POETE State of Mind

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 2 Comments

One of the searches that has most often brought people to my blog over the last couple of years has been POETE.  In case you forgot, POETE stands for Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising.  If you conduct an internet search for POETE, there are very few relevant results.  Along with a few of my blog posts, there are a couple of articles published by others, and a few FEMA documents that include obscure references to POETE.  Sadly, there is nothing available that provides (official) guidance, much less doctrine.

Why is it that such a great tool has so few tangible references?  Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to that.  I hope that will soon change.

POETE was most widely indoctrinated several years ago as an analysis step within the State Preparedness Reports (SPRs), which are annual submissions completed by every state, UASI (Urban Area Security Initiative-funded program), and territory.  Note: The SPR templates and guidance are generally not publicly posted, as they are sent directly to the points of contact for each jurisdiction – thus they generally don’t come up in internet search results.

The SPR is a step beyond the THIRA (Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis), which is a very in-depth hazard analysis.  The SPR examines each jurisdiction’s level of preparedness for hazards, referencing the 32 Core Capabilities.  Each Core Capability is then analyzed through the lens of POETE.

As a conceptual example, let’s use the Operational Communications Core Capability.  The POETE analysis will examine the jurisdiction’s preparedness by examining:

  • Planning (are plans adequate? Have they been tested?  What improvements need to be made?);
  • Organizing (are there organizational barriers to success? What human operational communications resources are available?  Are there gaps?  Have teams been exercised? What improvements need to be made?);
  • Equipment (does the jurisdiction have equipment necessary for operational communications? What needs are there relative to the resource management cycle?);
  • Training (what training has been provided? What training gaps exist?  When/how will they be addressed?);
  • Exercises (what exercises have been conducted that include the operational communications Core Capability? What were the findings of the AAR/IPs?  What future exercises are scheduled that include this Core Capability?).

Along with answering a few questions on each element, jurisdictions are asked to rate their status for each POETE element for each Core Capability.  If they look at their reports submitted historically, they can see the measure of progress (or lack thereof) with each.  They also have a tracking of identified action items to help them improve their measure of preparedness.

While this analysis can be quite tedious, it’s extremely insightful and informative.  Often, stakeholders have conceptual ideas about the state of preparedness for each Core Capability, but absent conducting this type of in-depth analysis, they rarely see the details, much less have them written down.  Documenting these helps with recognition, awareness, tasking, tracking, and accountability.  It’s a valuable activity that I would encourage all jurisdictions and organizations to conduct.

What else can POETE be applied to?  In the past few years, POETE is being included in DHS preparedness grants.  They often want applicants to identify key tasks within the POETE structure, and awardees to chart progress along the same lines.

I’ve advocated in the past to use the POETE structure in improvement plans, which are a step beyond after action reports from exercises, events, and even incidents.  Having key activities identified across each POETE element for the Core Capabilities analyzed is extremely helpful, and ensures that issues are being identified comprehensively.

Using the POETE concept across all preparedness efforts helps to tie them together.  By documenting each element for each Core Capability, you will have full visibility and reference to your current status and what needs to be improved upon.  It helps drive accountability, a comprehensive approach, and reduces duplication of efforts – especially in larger organizations.  While implementing such a program will take some investment up front to begin to identify, organize, and chart progress and establish an organizational system to do so, I feel it’s an investment that will pay off.

I’m hopeful that the use of POETE continues to see adoption across all of emergency management and homeland security, and that it is further reinforced as a standard through DHS, FEMA, NFPA, and other organizations which hold sway for settings standards and/or requirements.

How does your organization, agency, or jurisdiction use POETE?

© 2017 – Timothy M Riecker, CEDP

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

Measuring Return on Investment in Emergency Management and Homeland Security: Improving State Preparedness Reports

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager 3 Comments

A lot of money is spent within the emergency management and homeland security enterprise.  Looking just at the last couple of years of annual Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) (this is the annual grant provided by the US Federal government to states and urban areas), $1.044 billion was allocated in FFY 2015 and $1.043 billion allocated in FFY 2014.  These billions of dollars only account for a portion of spending within EM/HS.  There are other federal initiatives as well as state, tribal, territorial, and locally funded efforts.  Businesses and NGOs also invest significantly in emergency management, homeland security, and business continuity activities.  But where does it all get us?

Through the past decade or so there have been a few efforts by DHS/FEMA to try to measure preparedness, ideally to identify improvements in our preparedness as the result of the billions of dollars invested.  None of these efforts have really provided obvious and tangible results.  The current measure is through annual State Preparedness Reports (SPRs), which utilize the THIRA process (Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment) outlined in Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG) 201 as a foundation, but with the POETE analysis (Planning, Organizing, Equipping, Training, and Exercising) for each of the 31 Core Capabilities.  (You can find articles I’ve written on the utility and application of POETE here.) The SPR is a good methodology for identifying the current condition of preparedness for each state as viewed through the 31 Core Capabilities.  The POETE analysis helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses within each Core Capability.

The SPR, however, still falls short.  How can we improve it?

1. Include historical data for trend analysis. The SPR largely provides only a snapshot of current conditions.  The format of the SPR does not provide for any analysis of historical data to identify trends (i.e. improvements or otherwise) in the state’s assessed condition of its 31 Core Capabilities.  FEMA regional offices, upon receipt of an SPR, do provide a brief feedback report of the current SPR with a passing mention of the previous year’s submission, but the report provides so little information it could hardly be called an analysis.

A rudimentary table identifying trends for a selected Core Capability is below.  For those not familiar, higher scores rate a higher measure of capability.  In this table, I’ve identified POETE elements which have trended lower from year to year with a RED highlight, and those which have trended higher with a GREEN highlight.  A simple analysis such as this give an at-a-glance comparison.  To make this analysis more comprehensive, I would suggest the addition of narrative for each trend (higher or lower) which explains what has changed to warrant the new ranking.

Historical Comparison of a Core Capability

2. Include a financial analysis for the current year to identify return on investment. An identification and summary of key program area investments for the year will lay the groundwork for a return on investment (ROI) analysis.  ROI will help identify how much bang for the buck you are getting in certain areas.  It’s easy to lose sight through the year from a program management perspective on how much money was spent on certain programs and activities – especially for larger agencies with a layered bureaucracy.  Incorporating this analysis into an SPR is not only good financial and program management, but provides an opportunity to identify where money was spent and to measure, at least on a broader scale, what the results were.  Certainly we have to fund continued operations to simply sustain our capabilities, but we should also be funding, where possible, programs to enhance our high priority capabilities and those needing the most improvement.

Again, as a rudimentary example, we can build on the table provided earlier to identify where funds were spent to see if they made a difference in our level of preparedness.  As with the earlier example, a narrative should be provided for each investment to identify what it was and assess the impact.  This also provides an excellent opportunity to review the investment justification written for grants to determine if the investment met the intended objectives (which should have been to maintain or enhance some aspect of the capability).  Historic investment data can also be included for each year.  This all leads directly to identifying the return on investment – did the investment make a difference and to what extent?

Historical Analysis of a Core Capability with Identified Investments

Ultimately this added data and analysis requires more work, potentially the involvement of more people, and likely more time to complete the SPR.  However, this new process will also result in a positive return on investment itself by helping to identify trends and outcomes.  Financial information is regularly reported to DHS (for those grants that originate with them) in the form of progress reports, but that information is stovepiped and usually not associated with a more comprehensive assessment such as the THIRA/SPR.  Bringing this data together paints a much more accurate picture.

The concept of preparedness is difficult to put in a box.  It’s amorphic and challenging to identify, yet people often ask the question ‘Are we prepared?’  States, locals, DHS, and Congress often have difficulties measuring preparedness and advances in preparedness, especially relative to the dollars spent on it.  The GAO has regularly recommended efforts to better identify return on investment, yet we haven’t gotten there.  The recommendations identified here can bring us much closer to nailing down where we are and where we need to be.  Armed with this knowledge, we can make better decisions for future investments and activities.

Moving forward, I expect to write a bit on each POETE element, with my thoughts on how we can identify return on investment for each.  As always, I’m very much interested in your thoughts on the approach I identified above and how we can better identify return on investment in the realm of emergency management and homeland security.

If you are interested in utilizing this approach to better identify your return on investment for local, state, tribal, territorial, or organizational preparedness efforts (whether or not you do a State Preparedness Report), Emergency Preparedness Solutions is here to help!  Check out our website at www.epsllc.biz or contact me directly to discuss what we can do for you.

© 2015 – Timothy Riecker

Emergency Preparedness Solutions, LLC

WWW.EPSLLC.BIZ

What’s the (next) Big Idea in Emergency Management?

Tim Riecker, The Contrarian Emergency Manager Leave a comment

Innovation.  It seems to be what everyone clamors for.  In emergency management we see people striving for it across the board: in government and in education we try to build the better emergency management mouse trap.  We establish think tanks to find new solutions and the private sector looks for better ways to protect their investments.  But what is it that we are looking for?  What systemic problems do we still face in emergency management that require change? 

There is plenty out there that needs to be improved upon.  There always will be.  Until we can prepare for, prevent, and mitigate disasters to the point that little to no response is ever needed and no loss of life occurs we will continue to strive for better ways of doing things.  I’m guessing that day is a long way off, so we have plenty of work to do.  Before we can innovate, however, we must find cause.  Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.  So what needs exist that must be corrected? 

Certainly our after action reports (AARs) identify areas of needed change.  But those generally only show us gaps in local systems.  Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis (THIRA) likewise shows gaps in local systems.  Does this information ever get fed to higher levels?  Of course it does… in some measure but only some of the time.  States assemble State Preparedness Reports (SPRs) which, in current practice, conduct an analysis of each core capability through each of the POETE elements (planning, organizing, equipping, training, and exercising).  These in turn inform the National Preparedness Report (NPR).  The 2014 NPR was released by FEMA earlier this month, identifying areas for improvement in several of the core capabilities.  This is certainly a resource to help us identify needs, but none of these resources or mechanisms are perfect.  What is missing?  How do we improve them?

Interestingly enough, some opine that we aren’t examining the right data.  The Congressional Research Service suggests that we might need better measures of preparedness, according to their report and this article from FierceHomelandSecurity.com.  The report gives no answers, but poses several questions.  Overall, what can we do better?

Returning to innovation, where do the gaps truly exist?  How do we validate those gaps?  Can we address those gaps with current systems or do we need to create new systems (innovations)?  If it is with current systems, what are the barriers to getting the gaps addressed in the short term?  If it is not with current systems where does the innovation come from? 

Despite having worked in Emergency Management for over fifteen years and having seen, felt, and experienced the myriad changes which have occurred – especially since 9/11 – and with every administration subsequent to the attacks I really hadn’t sat and considered the changes that have occurred.  I’m about half way through an amazing book by John Fass Morton called Next-Generation Homeland Security: Network Federalism and the Course to National Preparedness.  The first 200 pages or so of the book provide a thorough review of civil defense/emergency management/homeland security through decades and over a dozen presidential administrations.  The gravity of it all has left my head spinning.  So many changes – and most simply for the sake of politics.  Much of it seems like wasted effort, but Mr. Morton connects the dots so brilliantly and identifies that D certainly could not have happened if not for A, B, and C… even though C and A were essentially the same.  IT seems that through these years so much has occurred, but so little has actually changed.  I would argue that the practice of emergency management is in a better place now than ever, but what will emergency management look like tomorrow?  Will our continued evolution be through measured change or through innovation?  What makes that determination? 

© 2014 – Timothy Riecker