On the anniversary of Katrina (see elsewhere in this forum for an excellent article and retrospective on it) I find myself charged with the task of developing plans for our tiny community.

The new head of FEMA - Craig Fugate - is the subject of an article in The Atlantic (link) which I read last week.

I pull this (long) quote from the full article:

“We need to change behavior in this country,” he told about 400 emergency-management instructors at a conference in June, lambasting the “government-centric” approach to disasters. He learned a perverse lesson in Florida: the more the federal government does in routine emergencies, the greater the odds of catastrophic failure in a big disaster. “It’s like a Chinese finger trap,” he told me last spring, as a hailstorm fittingly raged outside his office. If the feds do more, the public, along with state and local officials, do less. They come to expect ice and water in 24 hours and full reimbursement for sodden carpets. But as part of a federal system, FEMA is designed to defer to state and local officials. If another Katrina hits, and the locals are overwhelmed, a full-strength federal response will inevitably take time. People who need help the most—the elderly, the disabled, and the poor—may not get it fast enough.

To avoid “system collapse,” as he puts it, Fugate insists that the government must draft the public. “We tend to look at the public as a liability. [But] who is going to be the fastest responder when your house falls on your head? Your neighbor.” A few years ago, Fugate dropped the word victim from his vocabulary. “You’re not going to hear me refer to people as victims unless we’ve lost ’em. I call them survivors.” He criticizes the media for “celebrating” people who choose not to evacuate and then have to be rescued on live TV—while ignoring all the people who were prepared. “This is a tragedy, this whole Shakespearean circle we’re in. You never hear the media say, ‘Hey, you’re putting this rescue worker in danger.’”

At his first all-staff meeting with FEMA employees, Fugate asked for a show of hands: “How many people here have your family disaster plan ready to go? [If you don’t], you just failed your first test … If you’re going to be an emergency manager, the first place you start is at home.” Already, Fugate is factoring citizens into the agency’s models for catastrophic planning, thinking of them as rescuers and responders, not just victims. And he has changed FEMA’s mission statement from the old, paternalistic (and fantastical) vow to “protect the Nation from all hazards” to a more modest, collaborative pledge to “support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together.”

I am particularly fond of this guy's approach - as a local emergency manager, it's good to hear someone from the Federal level talking like this.

But I do have to say that the one thing I hear clearly in all of this is that the 72 hour kit concept is probably invalid and that the 96 hour "homestead" is likely the better plan.

As I've posted here, I went to a 96 hour plan a few years ago, and in a recent storm we got to test out some of our plans and assumptions (it was all good).

But I'd like to see more talk here about specific needs and action plans FOR YOUR COMMUNITY. Do you know your neighbors? Do you know your community? Do you know what you're good at in an emergency? Do you really, actually truly have the capacity to live in your home with no electric, water or heat for 5 days?