|
Napolitano Calls for Increased Readiness, Resiliency |
|
|
|
|
by Mickey McCarter
|
|
Wednesday, 30 September 2009 |
Government is increasing its preparedness through new tactics
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urged government, communities and citizens to become more ready and resilient to face disasters ranging from terrorism to natural disasters to diseases in a major policy speech at the American Red Cross in Washington, DC, Tuesday.
Napolitano emphasized measures undertaken by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as Citizen Corps in boosting readiness and resilience over the first nine months of the Obama administration.
Among those accomplishments has been the introduction of no-notice training drills, Napolitano announced. To date, FEMA has held one such drill, where senior leaders must respond to an unfolding disaster scenario presented to them much like a student would face a pop quiz in class.
"Under the leadership of FEMA Administrator Fugate, we are holding no-notice disaster exercises to ensure that our senior leadership is ready to respond swiftly and effectively to a range of disasters at a moment's notice," Napolitano stated. "That's very different from the past, where all exercises were scripted out well in advance so it felt like we were planning out a Shakespearean drama rather than an actual disaster."
Dating back to her years as governor of Arizona, Napolitano has been a staunch critic of DHS training exercises, questioning their value and wondering what officials who participate actually learn. The no-notice training drills offer a decisive shift in policy for training exercises in a way that has never been done before, Napolitano said.
In addition to changes in training, Napolitano lauded her department's efforts to reach out to state and local governments, the American public, and private industry through grants and other resources.
DHS has announced more than $3 billion in targeted grants in the past nine months to help state and local governments protect critical infrastructure and bolster first responders and emergency operations, including $14 million to Citizen Corps to engage the public in preparedness and readiness efforts, Napolitano said.
Meanwhile, Americans have accessed 40 million sets of preparedness instructions from the DHS Web site at Ready.gov, she added. DHS also has started a new weekly e-mail message to provide practical information to help families prepare for disasters.
DHS also will expand the Secure Communities Network, a program that provides security and preparedness resources to the American Jewish community through security training and rapid information sharing, the secretary noted. The program will expand its offerings to other US communities.
Communities and citizens
Napolitano also called for increased community and personal preparedness to build readiness and resiliency across the United States. Boosting resilience would increase the plans, resources and capacity of US communities to adapt to changes and emerge stronger whenever disasters strike, she said.
An American Red Cross poll revealed that most Americans have given some thought to preparedness but far fewer have actually taken steps to prepare their families, Napolitano lamented. Few Americans believe they face the threat of disasters, she said, but they further believe that government-sponsored emergency personnel would show up and help them if they did.
"That attitude, more than anything, is what we must change," Napolitano declared.
Ninety percent of Americans live where there is a moderate to high risk of a disaster, she said. In the past nine months, FEMA has responded to 100 disasters across 36 states, demonstrating that the risks of disasters is more widespread than people believe.
In noting that resilience is a "bottom-up" concept empowered by US citizens rather than a "top-down" approach driven by government, the secretary pointed to the example of Greensburg, Kan. After being utterly destroyed by a tornado in 2007, the residents of the town rebuilt it, holding the reconstruction to the highest levels of environmental responsibility and making Greensburg truly a "green" town.
"Out of their grief, the residents saw this tragedy as a way to improve and rethink. They decided to rebuild their town to be stronger and better," Napolitano said. "That's resilience and that's what we need to build into the heart of each and every American community."
Napolitano's speech on readiness and resilience was one of five major policy speeches planned for 2009 in support of the five major missions of her department.
The series of speeches began in July with remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on countering the threat of terrorism. In August, Napolitano discussed securing US borders by land, air or sea during a speech at a border conference at the University of Texas at El Paso.
In the coming months, Napolitano will hold major policy speeches on enforcing immigration laws while simultaneously working for immigration reform and unifying the disparate agencies at DHS.
|
Mickey McCarter |
| About the author: |
| eNewsletter Editor/Senior Washington Correspondent,
is a journalist with more than a decade of experience in reporting
on
military affairs and information technology.
|
| Read More >> | |
Columns 
