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Keynote Remarks by Senator Moore to the National Task Force on Community Preparedness and Response
Delivered at the Northeast Regional Meeting of the NTFCPR at the John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University, Cambridge
March 31, 2006 - Galveston Mayor Lyda Thomas, this morning, told us that Clara Barton’s visit to Galveston after the devastating flood of 1902 was the first major relief effort of the new American Red Cross. Miss Barton, who was born in my Senate district in North Oxford, Massachusetts once remarked:

"You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it."

The need that we must meet in communities across America today is the need to be prepared by potential disaster. Meeting this need presents us with a tremendous challenge!

Although many of the participants at this conference hold executive positions or serve in the executive branch of government, I would encourage you to reach out to state legislators as a partner in preparedness.

A pervasive theme of debate in the halls of America’s state legislatures, as well as the message from the Kean/Hamilton 9-11 Commission is: How prepared are we for a terrorist event or another catastrophic natural disaster? 

If the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have faded somewhat in the collective memory of the American people, the hurricanes of 2005 that left unprecedented destruction in the Gulf States, reminded us all of our continuing vulnerability. These tragic events, unprecedented in magnitude, also exposed flaws in federal, state, and local disaster response. The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi called special sessions to deal with the crises there in late 2005. These, and other states are confronting disaster readiness the current session and beyond.

Emergency preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation are, for the most part focused at the local and state levels of our government. Individual citizens, families, neighborhoods and local officials are, clearly, our first responders, especially for the first seventy-two hours after disaster strikes.

State legislatures have an important responsibility in ensuring that executive agencies have effectively prepared for both homeland security against terrorist attack, and emergency preparedness for natural disasters or public health emergencies. Of course, state legislatures are also symbolic targets for terrorist attacks as focal points of democracy, and therefore have to ensure the security of state capitols and legislative chambers. In addition, state legislators want to ensure that neither terrorism nor natural hazards interrupt the economy of their states or threaten the safety of people or critical infrastructure.

With the hundreds of millions – perhaps billions – of federal, state, and local dollars being spent to make our state and local jurisdictions better prepared to respond to terrorism, natural hazards or pandemic flu, state legislators have an important role in protecting the people they represent. If states, and communities, aren’t prepared for one of these events, with its attendant loss of people and property, state legislators know that they will be asked, “What did you do to try to help to prevent this disaster, or at least to make sure that our state was prepared for it?” It won’t be good enough to blame FEMA or the state’s governor.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has established a Task Force on Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness which has begun to take a broad look at emergency preparedness in their states. Our effort will be to provide information and guidance to state legislators and legislative staff to help them be active participants in preparedness and response planning.
In states where disasters have occurred in recent years, legislators are already looking for answers of how to make their constituents less vulnerable. In the coming months, the NCSL Task Force on Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness will be working to encourage all legislators, even in areas not especially prone to terrorism or natural hazards, to take an active role in emergency preparedness policies. 

Specifically, I believe that our NCSL Task Force can serve as a resource in the development of the National Template for Community Preparedness and Response, and I will share your work at this conference with the Task Force when it meets next Thursday in Washington. 

When I first learned of your efforts to develop a template for community preparedness, I was concerned that we might be developing guidance to help communities write still another disaster plan that is put away in the file and forgotten. In Massachusetts politics, there’s an old saying the “if you can speak, don’t write; if you can nod, don’t speak; and if you can wink, don’t nod.” The phrase is intended to warn that the written word can come back to bite us. The same might be true of a written disaster plan. A written, hard copy, plan may not serve us best because of the many changes in personnel, phone numbers, etc. and because it needs to be all hazard to deal with any threat we might face.

Consequently, I was relieved to hear that we’re talking more about virtual plans and virtual supply depots that will stay current. After all, we know that food supplies, medicine, and other supplies have a definite life and it would be expensive and wasteful to have depots located in every region. Rather we should maintain a virtual depot of contacts who can respond in short order with the supplies, personnel, and equipment that we need.

In our efforts to develop a National Template for Community Preparedness and Response during the first seventy-two hours following a terrorism or natural hazards event, we need to keep in mind that the template will be of little value if it cannot be implemented and sustained. Among the realities that must be addressed, and hopefully our participants are addressing, in the design of any successful template are:

 

  • Every citizen and every organization – businesses, associations, etc. needs to think of themselves as first responders. This will take a major national public education effort similar to “Smokey, The Bear,” telling us “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires!” We need to have it drilled into us from an early age that we must be prepared to help ourselves and our neighbors and not wait for any level of government to save us. In Massachusetts, young school children participate in a program of the fire service called S.A.F.E. – Student Awareness Fire Education that as training thousands of children to call 911; to stop, drop, and roll if there’s smoke from a fire, and to have a family disaster plan. Over 200 instances have been recorded when children have helped to save lives from lessons learned in this program. It could well be a model for getting the public to pay attention to terrorism threats or natural hazard risks.
  • Professional first responders, that the template might envision as leading and staffing any response in the first three days, may not be available in adequate numbers because, as in the case of the National Guard or public safety employees who belong to the Guard, they may already be deployed – along with vital response equipment such as communications, medical supplies, vehicles – in some distant locale. Mutual aid from other cities and states needs to be part of the planning and the request for aid needs to be specific and made through the Emergency Assistance Compact among the states.
  • All levels of government have limited resources to support preparation of a planning template as well as exercising and implementing the plans developed, yet planning and training are vital to successful preparedness and response. Dedicated revenues or other resources – not just relying on federal aid, but from all levels of government and from private sources -need to be made available and prioritized for these efforts. We need to find ways to incorporate emergency preparedness planning as part of routine government activities so that investments in preparedness can be justified because they improve government services or public facilities whether or not they are ever needed for disaster response.
  • After about six months after any disaster, it becomes increasingly difficult to get public officials and the public to prioritize preparedness and to invest time, resources, personnel and funds in those efforts. This problem is magnified several fold in states and communities that were not affected by a disaster in recent memory.
  • Congress required every community in the country to have a disaster preparedness and response plan in 1986. Yet, twenty years later, many of these plans are non-existent, out of date, unknown to the public or even public safety officials, and they are frequently untried – they’ve never been tested to see if they work. Most large businesses have continuity of operations plans, but small businesses – the ones most likely to fail if they’re closed for more than a day – have no clue. Businesses helping businesses to develop continuity plans would probably be much more effective than new rules from government officials.
  • While there is considerable political damage that elected officials will suffer when things go wrong in a disaster – as evidenced by the electoral fallout at federal, state, and local levels with the Katrina response and recovery, there is often very little political credit that can be gained from doing the right thing in advance of disaster. Presidents, Governors, Mayors and federal, state, and local legislators usually think in two or four year increments – and the stakes are even higher when term limitation is automatic. There is little political mileage to be gained taking the political heat from raising taxes or fees during your term or shifting spending priorities away from today’s needs for the long shot risk of future calamity in order to invest in preparedness and disaster mitigation that may not save the day for many years after your leave public office. The community preparedness plan needs to give elected officials and the community periodic opportunities to celebrate safety achievements so that the credit for progress can be shared along the way toward a safer community.
  • The built environment is especially problematic in the case of both terrorist events and natural hazards. Despite building and fire codes and zoning ordinances, we often build community infrastructure, public buildings and even our homes and businesses based on today’s costs. We build them in areas and with building materials that may be picturesque or convenient to services, but in areas that are at risk of coastal or riverine floods, earthquakes or slides, forest fires, or other hazards – and when disaster strikes, we rebuild in the same areas, often with government support. When some communities have tried to prevent rebuilding in unsafe areas, residents have successfully taken them to court. Instead of using eminent domain powers to enhance the local tax base, we should be using those powers to make our communities safer from disaster.

These are a few of the obstacles that must be overcome if the template that we are developing is to make our communities – and America – better prepared in the future. Americans before us have overcome such obstacles before whether it was lack of resources or manpower, public indifference to danger or some other factor making our job more challenging.

Some of you may have read David McCullough’s recent book – 1776 – and wondered how we ever won our independence. As the new American army laid siege to the British in Boston from this very spot 230 years ago, General George Washington wrote: “The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.” Our job is to wake up those around us to the threats of terrorism and natural hazards as Paul Revere once did, and give them the tools to protect and defend their communities just as our famed “minutemen” responded so many years ago.

I look forward to the reports of your discussions here with great anticipation and I can assure you that the National Conference of State Legislatures is prepared to partner with you to assist in moving this project forward. For, as President Kennedy once observed, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” It’s also the best time to prepare for a terrorist event or a natural hazard. We know, after all, it’s not a matter of whether disaster will strike our community, but when.

Senator Moore is the Co-Chair of the National Conference of State Legislatures' Task Force on Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness

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