Potential Threats For Hampton Roads

Throughout its history, FEMA has had two main missions. First, FEMA’s mission is to enhance the federal government 's capacity to deal with and survive foreign attacks. The main types of foreign attacks that FEMA is tasked to respond to relate to terrorist attacks and nuclear war. The second mission of FEMA is to assist state and local authori¬ties to respond to man-made and natural disasters that are to enormous for the local and state resources to respond to efficiently. While national security focuses more on civil defense, state and local authorities are more focused on natural disasters such as hurricanes, storms, floods and potential nuclear power accidents. These divergent focuses really presents FEMA with huge challenges since federal security authorities’ main objective is quite different from state or local authorities’ focus. Considering that FEMA designed the Federal Response Plan, the agency has the challenge of balancing these interests while working on its two key missions.

The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for “consolidating existing federal government response plans into a single, coordinated national response plan.” (GAO Reports. 2007.) The Homeland Security Act of 2002 allows them to handle all sorts of disasters from natural disasters to terrorist attacks. DHS also “Operates the Federal

The whole world observed as the administration responders appeared incapable to provide essential protection from the effects of nature. The deprived response results from a failure to accomplish a number of risk factors (Moynihan, 2009). The dangers of a major hurricane striking New Orleans had been measured, and there was sufficient warning of the threat of Katrina that announcements of emergency were made days in advance of landfall (Moynihan, 2009). Nonetheless, the responders were unsuccessful to change this information into a level of preparation suitable with the possibility of the approaching disaster. Federal responders failed to recognize the need to more actively engage (Moynihan, 2009). These improvements include improved ability to provide support to states and tribes ahead of a disaster; developed a national disaster recovery strategy to guide recovery efforts after major disasters and emergencies; and the Establishment of Incident Management Assistance Teams in which these full time, rapid response teams are able to deploy within two hours and arrive at an incident within 12 hours to support the local incident commander (FEMA,

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would become the central point-of-contact within the national government in responding to incidents. Since formation in 1979, FEMA’s core missions were to enhance the government’s ability to survive a foreign attack, and to assist state and local authorities in disaster response (Carafano, 2005). And while the two core missions seem heterogenous in scope at times from an outside perspective, the biggest difference between the two tasks is duration. A man-made disaster may be over in a matter of minutes as compared to a hurricane lasting several days, but in both instances the road to recovery is long. In order to streamline response and recovery in either scenario, FEMA was reorganized with new directives to support comprehensive emergency management practices (CRS, 2006). Today, FEMA provides the standard approach and guidance that many local communities may not have due to funding, training, and

Ensuring Resilience to Disasters has more tasking’s than another mission and involves many different agencies to accomplish those tasks. The four tasks are to mitigate hazards, enhance preparedness, ensure effective emergency response, and rapidly recover. The main agency that is responsible for these tasking’s is FEMA. FEMA’s mission is to “reduce the loss of life and property and protect communities nationwide from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters” (FEMA, 2017, p.2). FEMA works with federal and State services to assist them in accomplishing their goals. They also assist local services by assisting in setting up emergency management agencies (LEMA) and set guidance for Emergency Operations Planning (EOP). EOP’s are “plans that provide an overview of the jurisdiction’s preparedness and response strategies. It describes expected hazards, outlines agency roles and responsibilities, and explains how the jurisdiction keeps the plan current.” (FEMA, 2010,

This program is the Department of Homeland Security’s final priority to “plan, train, and equip police, fire, and paramedics to react successfully to terrorism; and promotes recovery with the assistance of disaster specialists.” (Homeland Security, 2015) One of the examples of disaster specialists that help assist in disasters like Hurricane Katrina is the Federal Emergency Management Agency also known as FEMA. FEMA helps communities with reducing their risk, helps its different agency officials prepare for all types of hazards, and also helps people in communities get back on their

This chapter provides an overview that describes the basic types of hazards threatening the United States and provides definitions for some basic terms such as hazards, emergencies, and disasters. The chapter also provides a brief history of emergency management in the federal government and a general description of the current emergency management system—including the basic functions performed by local emergency managers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the all-hazards approach and its implications for local emergency management.

International terrorism has greatly impacted the role of first responders throughout the U.S., not only in terms of large scale events like the attacks on 9/11, but the role of the first responder has needed to adapt to the widely varying methods of attacks that have been employed. First responders may face threats from biological, chemical, and radiological weapons of mass destruction. First responder heroes of 9/11 are still dealing with injuries, illness, and even still dying from the effects of that terrorist attack. (ODMP, 2017). First

The city of Danville, Virginia is expecting a terrorist attack to occur in the near future due to Dominion Power dumping their waste water into the Dan River. Terrorist have given the city five days to have a response before the city endures a major attack. This emergency operations plan will include all aspects for the city of Danville, Virginia to carry out the various roles and responsibilities of government organizations and providing a connection to the local, state, federal, and private organizations, and resources to address during emergencies. The emergency operation plan will be taking steps and roles necessary to provide a well throughout response to ensure the safety and well-being of the Danville’s civilians. The safety and well-being of citizens is never more threatened than during disasters and attacks. The main goal of the emergency operations plan is to ensure that we limit the severity of the situation, having preparedness, responding quickly and firmly, and making sure recovery actions exist to the public to make sure their safety and well-being stays protected. This emergency plan will provide a guidance for the Danville’s departments with a general concept of potential emergency assignments before, during, and following an emergency but making sure it does not replace county or local emergency operations plans or procedures they may have already established. This plan wants to ensure that there is and will be consistency with the now current policies and

State and local responders formulate the concepts within the FRP around disasters and emergencies that can be handled “the Federal Government is called on to provide supplemental assistance when the consequences of a disaster exceed State and local capabilities” (p.11). If assistance is required by State, and local agencies, the Federal Government has the ability to deploy a wide range of assets to aid state and local efforts during the disaster. The Federal Government has a large contingency of support personnel, teams, operating facilities, specialized equipment, and assistance programs that allow for disaster operations. “The FRP describes the major components of the system, as well as the structure for coordinating Federal response and recovery actions necessary to address State-identified requirements and priorities”

This integration of FEMA into the DHS was more than just window dressing because this allowed true integration between other DHS units. Prior to 9/11 and when FEMA was an independent agency, the traditional Emergency Management system focused on four mission areas; preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation (Gerber, 2016). After integrating into DHS, the Emergency Management system focused on the traditional four mission areas and added protection as the fifth mission area (Gerber, 2016). In 2003, these five mission areas were incorporated into Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) – 8 and provided authority for the development of the National Preparedness Goal and, for the first time, defined “first responders” and their role in the early stages of an incident (Office of the Press Secretary, 2003). These are key points in how the Federal Government took a strong leadership role and provided guidance on how public safety entities would prepare and respond to threat incidents in a post-9/11 US.

The national agencies involved in pre and post-disaster management and planning are The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in connection with The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and The Ready Campaign. FEMA was first implemented during President Jimmy Carter's term in 1979. Their mission is dedicated to nationally support and protect citizens throughout the country during natural or manmade disasters (Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2017). FEMA works closely together with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with local and state governments to provide extensive disaster relief efforts and necessary assistance during any crisis (Department Homeland Security, 2016). FEMA offers both pre and post-disaster

The new managerial module finds the best way to handle situations. In addition, they personalize situations to help citizens. They want to help, because they believe that administration should be separate from politics (Weimer & Vining, pg. 30, 2017). Using this approach gives the them the opportunity to focus on decision making and management. This method will allow for changes to be made and allocation of funds and resolutions to present issues. FEMA stated that they are below the “$1 billion margin after having to report 65 times” in 2011 to natural disasters (Colarusso & Stone, 2017). The issue is if FEMA’s funds become depleted than there is no way to reach out to those that need help. Many states do not have the major resources or funding to help their state if there is a natural disaster. There needs to be assistant programs created by the local government. Implementing these programs will help offer some relief for FEMA. For example, Georgia Emergency Management Systems/Human Services (GEMA/HS), helps those in Georgia that have been affected by a natural disaster, which in turn provides relief to FEMA. They receive a grant from the government and it is controlled by the state, local, and federal government. Every state should adapt this method, because it will replenish FEMA. Meanwhile, FEMA will not have to decline certain services, because they cannot afford to provide the

There are many risks for first responders when countering or responding to an international terrorist attack.

In the event of a mass casualty incident, say a hypothetical incident at the Sharon Harris nuclear facility, there will be a variety of responding parties from local fire and rescue, to the North Carolina Emergency Management office in Raleigh, to federal assets to including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the military. Finally the private sector will also be involved such as local businesses and hotels for shelters.