Essay on "Local Team Response Communication Hitches"

Quoted Instructions for "Local Team Response Communication Hitches" Assignment:

This assignment consists of 3 essay questions. Each essay question will have specific guidelines. Each essay question will be one page long and will include 2 journals references and 1 other reference.

This essay will be only 1 page long. Please include 2 journals references and 1 other reference.

Your assignment is to research, identify and discuss two (2) communications issues that in your opinion had a significantly negative impact on the quality of the response provided by search and rescue (SAR) teams that responded to the Oklahoma City incident. Focus only on the SAR teams. Do not address general police, overall command/control, or any non SAR responses or assets. As I have provided the links for the official AARs, you are to locate and provided (2) appropriate professional journal references as the required references in lieu of citing the official AAR references.

Insure that you use professional journals, not popular magazines, newspapers, etc. Again, I encourage you to review my note on Creditable Sources if that remains an issue that you need to address. References from non-professional journals will not be counted for grade purposes. Again you do not need to provide lengthy details on the general event, keep your focus on the SAR team issues. You may discuss issues relating only to the search site, only local SAR teams that responded or expand your scope outward to areas such as communications issues involving or between all local, state and federal SAR assets. You may discuss any aspect desired as long as it is limited to communications related issues involving those responding SAR units. Communications by the way does not just mean radios, computers, telephones, etc. so you do not have to limit your comments to those areas.

The complete after action report on that event is available, see, http://www.ok.gov/OEM/documents/Bombing%20After%20Action%20Report.pdf

www.ok.gov/OEM/Publications_&_Forms/_Oklahoma_City_Murrah_Building_Bombing_After_Action_Report/index.html

You can view other official studies of the event and/or responses at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/publications/infores/respterrorism/references.html

http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/EOUSA/e0401/final.pdf http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0115.pdf

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This essay will be only 1 page long. Please include 2 journals references and 1 other reference.

In this discussion you are to research and address NRP/NRF issues as they pertain to Hurricane Katrina, 2005. Specifically you are to identify and discuss two (2) issues that in your opinion were significant factors relating to the highly political decision not to implement the entire NRP in response to Katrina. Specifically you are to address the decision not to implement the Catastrophic Incident Annex (CIA). As I am providing multiple links on this issue, your two (2) references should be obtained from professional journals that discuss this decision. Please limit your discussion to impact of the decision not to implement the entire NRP, specifically the CIA which authorizes the federal government to bypass state/local governments in responding to this type of event. Do not discuss the wide range of other events or other issues relating to Katrina. Do not focus on the political aspects of that decision. Also this is NOT a who is a fault for the problems or other issues that occurred in response to Katrina. Focus your efforts and discussion on the Catastrophic Incident Annex issue and the impact of the decision not to invoke the provisions thereof. In this DB you may address the local, state and federal connections or issues concerning this decision but please only as they pertain to the CIA, and only as you find reviewed in official reports or professional journals. The he said/she said issues generally reported in sources such as Wikipedia, blogs, popular media sources, etc. are NOT relevant and are not to be used as references. These sources simply lack depth, lack creditability, etc. In my view the popular reporting on all sides of the issue, as is common with many issues, is more politically motivated than fact based. I want you to examine the factual basis of the results of the decision not the political basis to make the decision.

The reason I have elected to divert from a specific terrorism related event has nothing to do with Katrina, politics or the change in elected officials at any level. It is simply that the current versions of the NRP/NRF were not significantly refined until considerably after the disastrous September 11, 2011 events. Thus we are lacking substantial terrorist related examples involving the CIA and the NRP/NRF format modifications. Katrina is the most current and significant national level event in which the NRP has been implemented in any significant way. It is also an event in which one can locate a wide range of on line references, specifically official after action, professional journal discussions and similar academic quality discussions of the topics.

In 2005, Michael Chertoff, US Department of Homeland Security Secretary 2005-2009, invoked the NRP in response to Katrina. However he elected not to invoke all of the NRP. For a quick review of the time line of Katrina events see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0914_050914_katrina_timeline.html. Please note that there are multiple versions of the NRP based on dates of implementation as well as multiple web sources to review the plan. You may experience some research difficulty due to the shift from NRP to NRF. For the current plan summary see: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/NRP_Brochure.pdf ). For the 2004 entire plan see: http://www.scd.state.hi.us/documents/nrp.pdf . For the 2008 NRF plan and annexes see: http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nrf/incidentannexes.htm. For the DHS news release on the NRP see: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/press_release_0581.shtm.

DHS Secretary Chertoff and President George H. W. Bush received considerable public criticism for the federal response to Katrina. A good bit of that criticism was for not activating the entire plan, specifically the Catastrophic Incident Annex (CIA) which addresses manmade and natural incidents including terrorism. A key element of the CIA is the ability to permit the federal government to circumvent some legal and procedural issues such as the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act which restricts the use of active military forces in domestic law enforcement acts. By invoking the CIA the federal government would not have to wait for States to request assistance. There are a number of aspects to the CIA. Mississippi Governor Kath***** Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin received lesser degrees of criticism for their actions in responding to Katrina and to the CIA aspect of the event. Everyone generally pointed at the other guy and said he/she is to blame. My concern is that you focus not on the finger pointing aspect but on the actual decision NOT to implement the CIA. President Barack Obama received the same type of public criticism for his administration*****s response to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico/Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill.

Please address the CIA issues after you have had the opportunity to conduct appropriate research. One source for a range of official after action reports is the US Air Force, Air University web site, see: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-lesn.htm. One of the DHS after action reports on Katrina is located at: http://www.dhs.gov/xfoia/archives/gc_1157649340100.shtm. There are many other sources to locate official after action reports on Katrina and academic quality discussions of the relevant issues.

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This essay will be only 1 page long. Please include 2 journals references and 1 other reference.

For this DB you are to identify and discuss two (2) issues that in your opinion either are or could become significant negative problems or failure areas in the decision making process that involve *****key players*****. Specifically address the problems associated with the fact that many *****key players***** or key decision makers are elected officials vice career government managers or emergency management personnel. These officials while for the most part very intelligent people and extremely keen to the political or public relations aspects of any significant event are not always technically well versed in the mechanics of the planning or response problem, or all of the elements that must be considered to make *****quality***** decisions. Thus they often tend to respond with *****politically ***** short term decisions responding to events that may or may not require wise long term solutions. Perhaps the old saying about robbing Peter to pay Paul is appropriate. Many have said that one of the most difficult things to remember about dealing with politicians is that by the nature of the beast they cannot plan and thus cannot think beyond the next election cycle. Simply because they may not be reelected. What issues do you believe would be adversely affected by this infusion of the political aspect of problem solving vice having a written, well defined, pre-planned, and frequently tested response plan, or placing the decision process in the hands of emergency personnel, such that an emergency situation required only a minimum discussion of the options by the *****key players*****?

If possible include references involving the decision process of local officials from the area in which you reside where they are the key players of the NIMS process. Again focus on factual issues not opinion issues. Academic/scholarly quality reference material concerning the responses of local officials in a NIMS exercise maybe in extremely short supply. Accordingly you may need to address a local official*****s response in either an actual natural event or terrorist incident. If unable to locate information concerning local officials you may address state or federal level officials. Use official policies, professional journals, or other quality references as your primary sources. Use local media coverage or similar less desirable sources as supporting evidence only if discussions in official AARs is in short supply. Please do the best that you can concerning the quality of reference issue. Attempt to use dot gov, dot edu, web sites which tend to provide more of an official review over dot org or dot com web sites which tend to provide more bias reviews. *****