Around The Industry By Gary Gleason - Around the Industry: Preparing for Catastrophe

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Around The Industry: Preparing for Catastrophe
By Gary Gleason

Preparing for Catastrophe
Maybe it is global warming? Or a symptom of population growth? Or just bad luck? Whatever the reason, conventional wisdom tells us that natural disasters seem to strike with greater frequency these days.

So far this year, FEMA reports six emergency declarations relating to severe snowstorms, 30 grants to help pay for wildfire management costs, and another 40 federally declared disasters for flood, tornadoes and other severe weather events. At this rate, the agency will set a new record for the number of federal disasters declarations in a calendar year. And the majority of emergency events, while devastating to the affected community, do not warrant federal assistance so are not reflected in these statistics.

It is therefore little surprise that public works agencies are being asked to step up their efforts in emergency preparedness, prevention, response and recovery.

“First responders are no longer just fire and police,” noted Jake Arslanian Public Facilities Manager in West Valley City, Utah. “By presidential directive the term ‘first responder’ is now defined as ‘those individuals who in the early stages of an incident are responsible for the protection and preservation of life, property, evidence, and the environment.”

This includes assessing damage to buildings and infrastructure; clearing, removing and disposing of debris; restoring utility services; and technical assistance to fire and police departments for search and rescue and traffic control. In other words, all the things typically tasked to public works departments following a disaster.

In addition to the challenge of fulfilling these duties, Public Works agencies are expected to keep detailed records of time, equipment and materials dedicated to incident response.

“You have to keep track of everything,” says Mark Frazier, Project Coordinator with Florida’s Hardee County Road and Bridge and a veteran of several severe hurricanes. “The first 72 hours FEMA will fund 100% labor and equipment and materials, after 72 they will cover you for storm related overtime on labor and equipment, plus materials. It is critical that your labor force understands the importance of completing timesheets correctly (see related story on time tracking).”

Several PubWorks customers have had experience on federal disaster events in recent months, and are using the software to track their costs.

“We’ve been using PubWorks a lot for FEMA stuff - major river flooding in April 2005 and June 2006, and flash flooding in November 2006,” noted Joy Kasmarcik, Administrative Assistant for the Highway Department in Chenango, New York. “The November flood was the big one, with $1.5 million in damage. That’s my entire budget for a year and a half, including labor, equipment, materials, everything!

“I keep good files, but the fact that I have PubWorks means I don’t have to dig through the paper files to show what everything cost. I just transfer the information from PubWorks to a spreadsheet, and copy and paste at will (onto the FEMA forms).”

In Reno County, Kansas, just Northwest of Wichita, they’ve lost culverts and had roads wash out in a pair of recent flash floods.

“We assigned each of those floods as project codes, which lets us detail what our guys have gone and done,” explained Reno County’s Sue Jones. “With PubWorks we were able to give FEMA an estimate for what we had spent so far – to see if we qualified for FEMA aid – and will be able to give them complete costs at the end of the project.”

According to Kasmarcik, PubWorks can also be used to ensure that all storm-related work gets completed.

“I do a query in PubWorks for elements of the (FEMA Scope of Work) so I can find out if work was actually done. That way we have been able to close out work elements on FEMA projects. And since the FEMA work will automatically trigger an independent audit, I feel a lot better knowing I have PubWorks as a back-up,” Kasmarcik said.

As the role of first responders has been redefined, those of us in the public works industry must step up to the plate and ask ourselves if our departments and our personnel are trained and prepared. To help public works agencies with this newly defined public affairs role, FEMA has issued planning guidance on Public Works Job Titles and functions under the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the National Response Plan (NRP). This document can be found at http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/pw_job_title.pdf. The American Public Works Association (APWA) has produced a fact sheet on the role of public works on emergency incidents (http://www.apwa.net/Documents/About/TechSvcs/Emergency/EM_Fact_Sheet.pdf) and in December will hold a web conference titled, “The ABCs of Readiness and Response for Public Works Part I - BEFORE the Disaster - Training and Exercise” (http://www.apwa.net/events/eventdetail.asp?ID=4009)

The US Department of Homeland Security has created new requirements for training of your personnel. The federal matrix can be viewed at http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/imp_mtrx_states.pdf, but it might be a little easier to understand the matrix adapted by the state of Kansas, which can be viewed here: http://www.accesskansas.org/kdem/pdf/nims/FY06_NIMS_Training_Guidelines.pdf

Also, FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute at Emmitsburg, Maryland, has developed an online independent study course on incident management specific to frontline public works staff. According to federal guidelines, all public works personnel should, at a minimum, complete this course: http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is100PW.asp

Federal reimbursement could be withheld from organizations that do not comply with this training requirement. And clearly, federal reimbursement is withheld from organizations that do not effectively track and document their disaster-related costs. PubWorks is here to help ensure that this does not happen to your organization.

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