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FEMA and the Monumental Blueprint Aiding Puerto Rico

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) handling all emergency aid operations in and around Puerto Rico is akin to a world-class chess player chronically analyzing what’s on the board and anticipating pros/cons of the next maneuver. All moving parts in and en route to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are controlled by Department of Homeland Security’s FEMA professionals and their program called NIMS.

As cross-sections of parties pertinent to the ongoing search, rescue and recovery effort in Puerto Rico fire shots across each other’s bows, the monumental blueprint managed by FEMA known as the National Incident Management System (NIMS) optimizes every single person and each piece of equipment while reassessments and response amendments are made.

“NIMS is a comprehensive, national approach to incident management that is applicable at all jurisdictional levels and across functional disciplines” while addressing “a full spectrum of potential incidents, hazards and impacts, regardless of size, location or complexity.”

As defined by FEMA, “NIMS is a comprehensive, national approach to incident management that is applicable at all jurisdictional levels and across functional disciplines” while addressing “a full spectrum of potential incidents, hazards and impacts, regardless of size, location or complexity.”

Effectively, NIMS is an all-inclusive disaster-response program employing people while deploying apparatus and humanitarian provisions to sustain life and reestablish a safe environment.

Before 9/11/01, I never heard of NIMS. Frankly, FEMA was not in my vocabulary either. But the Twin Towers buckling and cascading to rubble opened up the door to how inexplicable national crises require fastidious controls and troubleshooting, and this now-former street cop took a hard lesson.

Retrospective

As was emphasized in the 9/11 Commission Report and the NYPD’s own self-assessment in a post-9/11 era, logistics, intra- and inter-agency workings needed improvement. Constructively cited, police, fire and emergency medical personnel telecommunications were largely rendered ineffective…and one hand did not know what the other hand was doing, or even where for that matter.

In a report published by Forbes, first responder assets virtually went in blind: “The lack of interoperability in communications came to the public’s attention during 9/11 and also during Katrina. It cost lives, not only the lives of citizens but the lives of a number of first responders, as well.” Indeed, thousands perished in the attack on the Twin Towers, leaving us to wonder how many could have been saved if public safety had the ability to assess real-time emergency-response initiatives.

Succinctly, mass chaos existed and coordination was hampered by the magnitude of what transpired at the hands of terrorists, resulting in what became known as “Ground Zero.”

The 9/11 Commission delegated by Congress exposed the “various missed opportunities to thwart the 9/11 plot. Information was not shared, sometimes inadvertently or because of legal misunderstandings. Analysis was not pooled. Effective operations were not launched. Often the hand-offs of information were lost across the divide separating the foreign and domestic agencies of the government.”

Essentially, agencies and respective personnel were not working in conjunction which allowed the sinister undercurrents to go relatively unchecked, rendering us vulnerable to an airborne attack we never quite conceived. We should have seen the radar blip, but didn’t react accordingly. We were scattered about the playing field and dropped the ball, is what the Commission believes.

Despite how well game-plans look on paper, the practical aspects always require a coordinator much like a baseball team manager scrutinizes all moving elements on the field, tweaking changes as the plays act out. A baseball manager’s dugout is HQ for logistical control. So, too, is FEMA setting-up wherever a national disaster requires coordination via the NIMS playbook. Playing the role of quarterback, FEMA and its NIMS playbook attempt to answer the shortfalls delineated in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Engineered since September 11, 2001 and launched March 2004, NIMS is FEMA’s brainchild to “improve coordination and cooperation between public and private entities in a variety of incident management activities” while also providing “a common standard for overall incident management,” effectively implementing empirical response to terrorist actions and massive forces of nature…such as Hurricane Maria grinding the landscape of Puerto Rico.

9/11 Springboard

In the post-9/11 climate, law enforcement agencies across the nation were mandated by the federal government to train every police officer and all civilian police personnel in the NIMS playbook. My head was spinning with studies of chemical codes typically centered on diamond-shaped placards on commercial trucks: what kind of liquids or gases were transported by a tanker, what could happen if it exploded, and the horrific consequences impacting humans was all new to me and many public safety advocates.

I learned about federal agencies I never knew existed. I found out we had a larger national response family and that each one had highly specialized traits and skills on its duty belt. I even had to shake the universal numerical codes used by police in exchange for “common language.” An example was the NYPD code “10-13” which stands for “Assist police officer” was entirely different than Florida’s police code for that same message. Therefore, cross-jurisdictional codes are like Greek-speak, generating a clot in communications. Moreover, nomenclature of cops does not bode well with members of the clergy or linemen or IT gurus in the context of FEMA coordinating everyone in attaining the same objective. Common language resolves that glitch.

FEMA contacts all state governments and assesses how many police, fire, paramedic and SAR operators it can dedicate to the restoration operation, enabling measured control of logistical pieces.

As was done in Houston, Texas in response to Hurricane Harvey, FEMA contacts all state governments and assesses how many police, fire, paramedic and SAR operators it can dedicate to the restoration operation, enabling measured control of logistical pieces. As was the case in Hurricane Charley-ravaged Bowling Green, Florida in August 2004, my agency’s cops were deployed to handle police duties and SAR functions until FEMA said we were no longer needed there. Florida’s assets were tendered via the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).

In essence, FEMA’s NIMS program ensures each and every type of first responder is on the exact same page and that central coordination is implemented via a thorough blueprint facilitated by the federal government. FEMA has become the chosen machine churning plenty of gears while also inventorying and oiling all moving parts.

Parlaying NIMS in Puerto Rico

All the resources and moving parts in or on the way to Puerto Rico creates a tremendously cumbersome managerial role and, as discussed, FEMA is the granddaddy of lubing all the component parts.

Granted, there are reports of division regarding resources not getting to Puerto Rico’s citizens fast enough.

Media coverage of San Juan Mayor Carmen Cruz criticizing President Trump (federal government) for not doing enough as people are dying in Puerto Rico also contained a reply from the president rebuking the Commonwealth’s factions and citizens of not doing enough to help themselves.

Nonetheless, FEMA continues to aggregate resources from a multitude of public and private entities as well as military personnel. Mayor Cruz’s chief complaint is lack of sustenance and government inefficiency. The irony is that her scathing remarks against the federal government were made from a media-mic’d podium mere feet away from pallets of bottled water and canned food. The resources are there; in actuality, the island has an abundance of goods for distribution and FEMA agents are carrying-out the mission.

Once President Trump lifted the Jones Act thus allowing more cargo ships to berth and offload products from all over the world, FEMA and the US Coast Guard had to organize all that maritime traffic surrounding the island. Indeed, no small feat. Once the maritime goods flowed from ships and onto the shore, FEMA encountered a logistical issue. Reportedly, trucking unions belched a bit, and the ratio of truckers needed to transport mass-volumes of goods were reportedly in short supply, thereby delaying delivery of supplies and humanitarian aid.

This talks to the heart of FEMA and the NIMS program: troubleshoot unscripted dilemmas as they arise. How could FEMA foresee a labor union uprising and impasse during a national disaster relief effort? Nevertheless, they dealt with the hiccup while simultaneously ascertaining washed-out or caved-in roadways preventing trucks from getting through to folks in-need.

With no time to bicker with transportation delegates in Puerto Rico, the transportation fix was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the AFL-CIO sending truckers to the island to deliver products on roadways specified as safe. When a team is in any way fractured, bring in more second- and third-string operators to accomplish life-sustaining goals.

“Our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico are suffering under unimaginable conditions wrought upon them by Hurricane Maria,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “We are working [with FEMA] to identify ways in which the union and our members can best assist those in need.”

How’d FEMA managers know which roads were safe thus allowing transport of goods? Our aerial assets defined that answer. Aviators with the US Coast Guard, US Customs and Border Protection, US Air Force, Homeland Security and any manner of flight reconnoiter surveyed the landscape and reported to base with go and no-go findings.

The New York Times managed to land a crew of reporters and photojournalists in Puerto Rico recently. Their pictorial and expose on life in Puerto Rico as it stands currently is eye-opening and mind-bending,  summing things up in one particular line: “Puerto Rico has not been forgotten, but more than a week after Hurricane Maria hit, it’s a woozy empire of wreckage.”

Despite naysayers decrying slow and/or uncaring government, federal authorities under the current tutelage of FEMA managers and military commanders continue to lavish Puerto Rico shores with goods and a continuous stream of search and rescue personnel.

Despite the NY Times report, despite naysayers decrying slow and/or uncaring government, federal authorities under the current tutelage of FEMA managers and military commanders continue to lavish Puerto Rico shores with goods and a continuous stream of search and rescue personnel.

Conferences are held among FEMA managers, military leaders, public safety executives, and members of the White House to assess results from round-the-clock humanitarian efforts.

Cops from all over the nation shipped to Puerto Rico days ago, and they are doing what they can at FEMA’s direction:

Given some of Puerto Rico’s mountainous terrain, federal agents deliver cases of bottled water to remote areas whose roads were cut-off by fallen trees, structural debris, and floodwaters at the basins. Aerial reconn provided the factors to FEMA management who deployed US Customs and Border Protection to navigable drop-sites with landing-zone clearances:

Besides its own mobile medical hospital, FEMA has the responsibility to facilitate the US Navy hospital ships and its objectives of tending to people in need of health care.

A September 30 press release reports the status of FEMA and its partner agencies in support of Puerto Rico’s survivors of Hurricane Maria. The statistics are astounding and a testament of what has been done in a brief period of time, despite media reports to the contrary. A lot has been accomplished. Much is being done. Continuous 24/7 efforts are getting results while more and more resources are facilitated by the muscle of NIMS flexed by FEMA.

Like children advancing to the next grade each school-year, FEMA matures and refines NIMS after each national disaster response. Likely, there will be amendments made to the NIMS rule-book stemming from operational efficacy in the ongoing Puerto Rico initiatives.

The magnitude of Hurricane Maria surely took a severe swipe at Puerto Rico, but the undeniable challenges to reestablish the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is in the capable hands of FEMA and its varied contingent of first responders. Comprehensive data-based FEMA updates can be accessed here.

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Stephen Owsinski

Stephen Owsinski is an OpsLens Content Manager and Contributor. Owsinski is a retired law enforcement officer whose career included assignments in the Uniformed Patrol Division and Field Training Officer (FTO) unit. He is currently a researcher and writer. Follow Stephen on Twitter @uniformblue.
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