Task Force Leader Plan for Disaster Recovery

Task Force Leader has many primary responsibilities ensuring the cities safety in case a disaster happens.  Hurricane Katrina is an example of what could, can, and did go wrong without being adequately prepared.  Underestimating the force of Hurricane Katrina, the city failed to adequately prepare for the widespread or simultaneous catastrophes of high winds, not isolated to only one town or city.  There is no plan you can draw up and say this will be good enough.  Task Force Leader must look at all the what if’s, i.e., Homeless people, pet’s single-family parents, and elderly, to name a few.  Homeless people will be the most challenging to help because the majority of them have no physical address, no way of contacting relatives.  I would visit all the homeless shelters and arrange for them a secondary safe-haven for them to relocate along with providing meals. Arranging with the local veterinarians about creating a plan to save abandon stray pets.  Task Force Leaders cannot prevent or anticipate all disasters; they can only prepare and practice for them.   Disaster response traditionally handled by State and local governments and with the support from the federal government.  According to government, plans created for responding to major disasters such as hurricanes, much of what is set down on paper comes from the knowledge gained through previous experience, and the mistakes, especially in the first few hours and days after the disaster, undoubtedly will be examples of what not to do.   [1] Kevin Lavery (October 09, 2009).  The need for flexible Federal intervention and Federal role in catastrophic contingency planning becomes clear [2] The White House, Proclamation by the President (September 8, 2005).  I would make a checklist of all the possible things that would be challenging; Drill checklist will consist of Disaster Drills, Communication Outages, Recovery Location, Transportation, Financial Facilities, Generators, Infrastructures, and Needed Necessities. Disaster Drills; the most critical function considered, practice disaster drills whenever time permits, and conduct action assessment afterward to see what went wrong, why it happened, and how to fix it going forward.  Assessments after each disaster will help ensure that each simulation improves.  The practice drills should be worse-case scenarios, realistic as possible, and include critical function areas   Drills should involve no communication, down powerlines, washed-out roads, collapsed bridges. Communication Outages, disruption in conversations will make it impossible to locate any emergency official, missing family members, most if not all landline and cellular will be down.  Consider making a contact list of key government agencies, city officials, nearest out of town family members, buying two-way radios, and satellite phones, these usually work when there’s no cell phone signals.  There are several factors to consider, the service quality availability and setup time will vary with disaster locations.  Available phone circuits will be overloaded, taking additional time to learn to understand and setup), (Operating Range services aren’t always available in rural areas), (Wet Conditions can cause degradation or disconnection of telephone signals)  Recovery Location  have in case family members or employees not able to reach assigned recovery site due to  blocked roadways, falling debris, flooding.  Good idea having an alternate recovery site and routes to get to these locations, Transportation, methods of transportation will be a vital part of surviving, designating and setting up, e.g., carpools, bus services and air connections in case of medivac.  Financial Facilities consider using cash only due to telecommunication outages have disrupted all electronic forms of payments for credit and debit cards, encourage everyone to put aside extra money and to keep it in waterproof bags for this purpose. It will be impossible for homeless people, and families who are barely making end meet.  Generators are essential pieces of equipment (have the city to invest in purchasing portable generators that run on gasoline not electricity for a reliable backup source of power), (fuel and location for these stored at a location where fuel leak, carbon monoxide gas will not harm humans, animals or land, suggest sizeable open parking lot).  Infrastructures, Speaking and setting up visits with financial institutions, and regional coalitions and facilitate critical infrastructure planning efforts in addressing any issues in advance, infrastructures vary depending on the building, type of company, knowing this will better prepare the city to overcome unexpected obstacles.  Needed Necessities Food, drinking water, safe lodging, medicine, clothing, childcare [3] (FFIEC), (2006).  After Hurricane Katrina, it took FEMA forever and a day to get the drinkable water, having an agreement in place with water supplying and food distributor company outside the State of New Orleans to bring water and food in until FEMA can have some delivered, and help to avoid what FEMA experience after Hurricane Katrina.

References

1. [1]. Hurricane Katrina, Plans, Decisions and Lessons Learned Kevin Lavery                 (October 09, 2009) https://www.voanews.com/archive/hurricane-katrina-plans-                                          decisions-and-lessons-learned
2. [2]. The White House, Proclamation by the President: National Day of Prayer and    Remembrance for the Victims of Hurricane Katrina,” news release, September 8,                             2005, /news/releases/2005/09/print/20050908-12html
3. [3]. The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), (2006)   https://www.ffiec.gov/katrina_lessons.htm