Emergency Response Planning for the University of California at San Diego Understanding the precautions required to mitigate damage and prevent chaos during large-scale earthquakes A research proposal submitted to the Urban Studies and Planning Program Senior Sequence Class of 2009-2010 November 19, 2009 Emma Reed University of California at San Diego Urban Studies and Planning Program 3:00pm Section esreed@ucsd.edu Abstract Recent events suggest that the United States is unprepared to respond to damage caused by natural disasters. It can be inferred that the nation’s university campuses require increased attention paid to their own disaster preparedness planning. A lack of direction at the national level impedes progress at the local level. This research is tailored specifically to earthquakes in proximity to the University of California at San Diego. The goal is to ascertain crucial insight into the potential consequences of a large-scale earthquake in the vicinity and then enact ways to mitigate these. Data will be gathered through interviews and archival research, in addition to first-hand observation as an intern for UCSD’s Department of Continuity and Emergency Services. The data gathered will contribute to the existing literature on disaster preparedness for this region and aims to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of emergency responses. 1 Introduction Recent catastrophes across the United States have suggested that the nation as a whole is overwhelmingly unprepared to respond to large-scale disasters. This study aims to determine how the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) campus could plan effectively to mitigate damage caused by a major earthquake. To better understand the components of efficient emergency response planning, this research will analyze the ways in which other regions have responded to major disasters and then propose improvements and examine how they relate to the preparedness of the UCSD microcosm. This study seeks to utilize past failures to recognize where flaws lie and, by so doing, implement new policies and regulations to prevent similar problems from occurring once again. It also endeavors to understand why so few policy changes have been made at the federal level to allow for more proficient emergency management. This research will present a case study of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, an incident that epitomizes the country’s profound lack of preparedness. The ultimate goal is to provide both policy-makers and students with a model illustrating how this evidence can be used at the local UCSD level and, thus, to influence future policy development. The two fundamental assumptions upon which this study rests are that a large-scale earthquake, which affects the UCSD campus, will occur at some point in the future and, presently, not enough direction exists at the federal level to guarantee a well-managed emergency response. The question, thus, becomes: How can the UCSD community organize itself at a local level to prepare for potential earthquake disasters and what types of federal policy changes might aid in the campus’s emergency response system? The primary issue being catered to here is the intangible chasm between society and nature. Science tragically has demonstrated throughout recent years that global warming is 2 occurring and, as the planet continues to heat up, Mother Nature’s wrath will become more relentless. This looming threat, however, often goes unheeded by society as a whole. Although increasingly frequent, large-scale disasters remain fairly rare incidents. Large intervals between events mean that the federal government tends to place emergency response planning lower on its list of priorities since money can be diverted to pressing budget issues without being noticed by individuals who have forgotten about the dire consequences that can occur if they do not take precautions to prevent them. Investigations into the Hurricane Katrina incident discovered countless flaws in the nation’s response to the disaster but, most tragically, analysis indicates that much of the pain and suffering could have been avoided. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been held most accountable for these mistakes (Calcote, 2006). The four primary matters with which emergency response planning should be concerned are mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (Petak, 1985). This study will utilize analysis done on past emergency response failures to establish ways in which the UCSD community can improve its own disaster preparedness plan. The first matter the research will address is the intangible abyss that lies between society and its willingness to understand the seemingly mysterious behavior of nature. The second matter discussed will be the challenge of narrowing the effects of potential federal policy changes to the local community level. The final matter addressed will be how the public entity might participate in effecting the development of new disaster preparedness policies. All of these issues will be addressed through archival research, case studies, interviews, and first-hand experience. These matters constitute the skeleton of an effective plan for the UCSD community to implement in responding to large-scale earthquakes, and many aspects (such as how evacuations are affected by blocked routes) will apply to other types of emergency situations as well. 3 Current Literature: Discovering flaws and their causes in recent disaster responses Natural disasters have occurred for longer than human society has existed. Response mechanisms such as FEMA can be traced back over 200 years to the Congressional Act of 1803 when the first emergency response plans were implemented to respond to widespread fires in New Hampshire (FEMA History, 2009). The act has since been ratified over 100 times to include responses to hurricanes, earthquakes, and many other types of natural disasters. The 1960s and 1970s brought with them a string of severe hurricanes as well as the Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake of 1971. These events renewed legitimacy in the existence of an emergency management organization to keep the public safe and healthy, though the system remained highly fragmented. This fragmentation resulted primarily from a multitude of smaller agencies working simultaneously at the state and local levels. The Carter Administration eventually centralized many of these separate disaster related programs into FEMA (FEMA History, 2009). Nevertheless, when Hurricanes Rita and Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast in 2005, FEMA’s lack of preparedness and incompetence was quite apparent. The consensus among literature relating to the Hurricane Katrina incident is not only that the situation was handled poorly but that FEMA’s incompetent response actually worsened the disaster (Pierre and Stephenson, 2007). In their essay After Katrina, Pierre and Stephenson detail one of the most fundamental oversights made by the agency shortly after Katrina hit. Federal law guarantees help to disaster victims through FEMA, which includes “financial assistance to rent housing or the direct provision of a trailer or mobile home” (Pierre and Stephenson, 2007). Shortly after Katrina struck, Congress appropriated 62.3 billion dollars in federal temporary housing aid for the disaster victims and placed FEMA in charge of distributing 4 the funds. Unfortunately, the agency’s distribution methods fell short (Pierre and Stevenson, 2007). FEMA’s shortfall when it came to placing Katrina victims into temporary housing situations is very pertinent in this study of UCSD’s disaster preparedness since there are over 10,000 students living in dorms on the campus (University of California, 2007). Many of these students do not live within easy driving distance of the campus and if a major earthquake were to occur then students might be unable to make it home for an extended period of time. Funding for temporary dwellings, thus, becomes crucial for this population. Studies indicate that factors such as race may play a role in emergency responses. In his writing Katrina’s America, Michael I. Niman suggests reasons for FEMA’s fundamental inadequacies. He points out that New Orleans – the city devastated most by Hurricane Katrina – consists predominantly of African Americans. He indicates that racism played a key role in the lack of urgency paid to the response as well as in the unnecessarily violent handling of the situation once military personnel were ordered into the city to “help” in the relief efforts. Niman exclaims, “There’s something acutely unnatural about this disaster. Because it didn’t have to happen” (Niman, 2005). Disaster victims were abandoned for days on end living on rooftops to avoid drowning in the surging waters after the levees broke. Those who managed to arrive at evacuation shelters like the Superdome were forced to live in crowded and unsanitary conditions – often without basic food, water, and medicine – until the floodwaters subsided. Questions were raised about the qualifications of FEMA leaders. The media portrayed the city as in a dire state of anarchy highlighting stories of looting, rape, and murder. Emergency response efforts quickly turned away from rescuing the many people still stranded in attics and on rooftops and focused, instead, on subduing the chaos. (Niman, 2005 and Calcote, 2006). Since the majority of the victims of the Katrina disaster were middle to low-income citizens, few owned property and, 5 of those who did, most did not have insurance that covered damage caused by natural disasters. This population, hence, has been unable to rebuild their homes and their lives in New Orleans and many are still living in refugee centers in neighboring states (Niman, 2005). The concern is that the poor will not be considered in the reconstruction of New Orleans and that the gentrification that had begun before Katrina struck the region will be perpetuated at a much faster rate. The African American culture in New Orleans will become a part of its history. Racism’s affect on FEMA’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster could potentially play a role in this study. A future large-magnitude earthquake near UCSD could prompt an extensive evacuation of students living on and around the campus. Although the university has a minuscule African American population, the percentage of the student body comprised of minority races is quite startling – over 43 percent is Asian or Pacific Islander (University of California, 2007). This statistic begs the question: if a major disaster were to occur in this region, would FEMA tend to focus their aid to university campuses and other communities whose populations are predominantly white? The hope is that the answer is ‘no,’ but if the agency’s incompetent response to Katrina was indeed fueled by racism then the UCSD community cannot count on this response. Thus, the need for research into ways for UCSD to perfect its own local level emergency response plan becomes all the more pertinent in preventing unnecessary tragedies similar to the ones in New Orleans. On a more practical note, implementing innovative technological systems to aid in emergency responses could be an effective manner in which to deal with large-scale disasters on the local level. In their article Information Technology, Chan et al detail the challenges authorities had with responding to the chaos in New York City during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The biggest problem experienced by emergency responders was a lack of 6 efficient communication (Chan et al, 2004). Too many victims were taken to certain hospitals and too few were transported to others. Many were moved much further than necessary for treatment. Although terrorist attacks are not natural disasters, the emergency response techniques certainly can overlap. The most effective method for triaging disaster victims Chan et al discovered was by assigning each person a barcode and then entering his information into a universal database so that it could be conveyed quickly from the ground zero to surrounding hospitals. Preparing a similar system for the UCSD community does not appear unreasonable given the university’s scientifically advanced reputation. For instance, a system in which a student’s identification card is scanned as they climb onto a bus could enable an efficient system for keeping track of which evacuation center they are sent to. This would allow parents and relatives to locate their students faster and reduce panicking. Preparing to handle disasters before they strike seems key. According to an essay (Collective Intelligence in Disaster) analyzing the Virginia Tech University campus’s response to the school shooting in 2007, Vieweg et al emphasize that the most important technique for mitigating disasters on school campuses is problem solving ahead of time. Although earthquakes cannot be prevented through prior problem solving like most shootings can, problems that perpetuate the damage earthquakes cause undoubtedly can be resolved prior to the occurrence of a large-scale event. Four overarching issues that contributed to FEMA’s response failures throughout Hurricane Katrina are defined in the May 2006 Senate Report titled Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared: Long-term warnings went unheeded and government officials neglected their duties to prepare for a forewarned catastrophe; government officials took insufficient actions or made poor decisions in the days immediately before and after landfall; systems on which officials relied on to support their response 7 efforts failed; and government officials at all levels failed to provide effective leadership. The committee also noted a failure, over time, to develop the capacity for a coordinated, national response to a truly catastrophic event” (Calcote, 2006). In addition to tragic loss of life and widespread suffering, Hurricane Katrina undermined the country’s confidence in the government’s ability to prepare for and respond effectively to national disasters. Although hurricanes and flooding clearly are quite different catastrophes from earthquakes and the tragedies of the Gulf Coast occurred in a different corner of the United States, the Katrina case study remains relevant to this research. All three – hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes – are natural disasters that have the potential to cause immense amounts of damage even though they tend to occur in different regions. And, despite the fact that the events appear so different, the emergency responses for all of them actually would be quite similar in terms of triaging and evacuating victims. Nearly every emergency management case is a cycle of rescue and relief efforts, which turn into recovery and reconstruction, and mitigation takes over with the goal of preventing similar failures from occurring again (Cutter, 2003). The lack of public confidence in the national government’s ability to respond effectively to major disasters prompts communities to plan and implement their own emergency response systems at the local level. Although emergency preparedness studies of other local communities (and countless macrocosmic studies) have been completed, there exists almost no scholarly literature relating to the UCSD campus’s earthquake disaster awareness. The importance of small-scale preparedness in the larger picture is the driving force behind this study of UCSD. 8 Methodology Setting In order to better understand UCSD’s current emergency response plans and where the most room for improvement lies, I have obtained an internship with campus’s Department of Continuity and Emergency Services. I will be collaborating with Phillip Van Saun, the direct of this program, and observing first-hand the ways in which UCSD responds to smaller-scale emergencies on a daily basis. Utilizing my observations from this experience, I will work to develop plans to mitigate injuries and structural damage should a large-magnitude earthquake affect the university campus. Data To answer the aforementioned questions about UCSD’s level of disaster preparedness and ways that it might be improved, several different research methods will be used. The first method employed will be the use of archival evidence. This will enable me to find the basic statistics (like how often and to what degree the San Diego region is affected by major earthquakes) so that I can use the past to better analyze the current situation on the university campus. Archival research, logically, will be one of the preliminary steps in this study. The second method utilized will be extensive case studies. The primary case study will focus on FEMA’s shortcomings in the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. Although a different type of natural disaster, the Katrina incident seems most pertinent to this study because its effects were of such great scale and it is the most recent event of this magnitude in the United States. The flaws in the Katrina emergency response will be analyzed and compared with the potential consequences of a major earthquake in the San Diego region. Other events will also be researched to determine how previous successful response strategies might be applied to this 9 study of the preparedness of the UCSD community. For instance, Robert A. Stallings’ and E. L. Quarantelli’s essay Emergent Citizen Groups and Emergency Management, details the ways in which an eastern San Diego neighborhood banded together when a deadly wildfire broke out in 1970 and helped each other through the many hardships of the disaster. Despite the fact that this community was not a university campus, chances are that the UCSD campus could apply this neighborhood’s strategies to improve its own emergency response plans. Thirdly, interviews will be used as a method in this research. Experts in the emergency response planning field – specifically at UCSD – will be most constructive to this research. In order understand the different perspectives that would have to come together when a major earthquake struck the university campus, it will also be insightful to this study to interview a campus police officer to become aware of exactly how they have been trained to lead and respond in this type of emergency situation. The final method utilized in this study will be personal observation. Through my internship position at the UCSD Department of Continuity and Emergency Services, I will have the privilege to see first-hand the strengths and flaws in the university’s present emergency response system. I plan to continue participating in UC Ready workshops organized by Continuity and Emergency Services for departmental business officers, systems administrators, facilities managers, and departmental safety coordinators. These workshops focus mainly on the continuity aspect of response efforts and address questions such as how long it will take for normal daily processes to resume in particular university departments. In addition, I aim to observe the Campus Emergency Response Team (CERT) – an organization run by Barbara Haynor of Continuity and Emergency Services focusing on educating campus employees about disaster preparedness – and utilize its strategies in my research. 10 I will also have access to documents (such as detailed evacuation plans) that are not accessible to the general student body. This unique perspective will allow me insight into a local level emergency response system. This viewpoint will enable me to advise UCSD campus authorities as well as policymakers on how they might organize more effectively. The archival research, case studies, and personal observation will begin immediately, while the interviews and analysis will commence in January 2010 and be complete a couple of weeks prior to the March deadline. Concluding Remarks This research intends to provide a detailed case study that analyzes UCSD’s current level of preparedness for major disasters – primarily earthquakes – and then proposes ways in which the university campus might be able to mitigate some negative consequences. This study will investigate the events that led to FEMA’s notorious failure in responding to the Hurricane Katrina disaster and then employ these findings to decide which policy alterations at the federal level might help smaller communities better prepare for disasters at the local level. A goal of this research is to fill the gap in current literature, which does not succeed in providing solid examples of ways in which federal policy changes could dramatically aid communities like UCSD in preparing and implementing plans to respond to major disasters. This study will then serve as a model demonstrating how emergency response policies might be altered to prevent unnecessary tragedies (like the ones perpetuated by FEMA’s mistakes in the Katrina incident) from occurring once again. It will also provide guidelines specific to the UCSD campus for damage and injury mitigation in the event of a large-magnitude earthquake. The backbone of the research will be comprised of individual case studies and personal observation from the 11 standpoint of a UCSD Continuity and Emergency Services intern. It is expected that shortfalls will be discovered in UCSD’s current emergency response plans and a startling lack of reaction awareness will be revealed among students, faculty, and staff of the university. The ultimate aim is to bridge the gap between society and its consciousness of the forces of Mother Nature. Bibliography Calcote, Josh. (May 2006). Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. “Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared Executive Summary.” U.S. Senate, Washington D.C: 1-19. Chan, Theodore C., MD, Killeen, Jim, MD, Griswold, William, PhD, and Lenert, Leslie, MD, MS. (November 2004). “Information Technology and Emergency Medical Care during Disasters.” Wiley Interscience. 11 (11): 1-7. Cutter, Susan L. (2003). “GI Science, Disasters, and Emergency Management.” Transactions in GIS. 7(4): 1-6. “FEMA History.” (29 May 2009). http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm. Niman, Michael I. (November-December 2005). “Katrina’s America: Failure, Racism, and Profiteering.” The Humanist: 11-15. Petak, William J. (January 1985). “Emergency Management: A Challenge for Public Administration.” Public Administration Review. 45 (Special Issue): 3-7. Pierre, John K. and Stephenson, Gail S. (30 July 2007). “After Katrina: A Critical Look at FEMA's Failure to Provide Housing for Victims of Natural Disasters.” Social Science Research Network: 3-46. Stallings, Robert A. and Quarantelli, E. L. (January 1985). “Emergent Citizen Groups and Emergency Management.” Public Administration Review. 45 (Special Issue): 93-100. “University of California-San Diego: General Information, Alumni, History, Campus, Students, Faculty, Address, and Tuition.” 2007. http://www.stateuniversity.com/universities/CA/ University_of_California_San_Diego.html. Vieweg, Sarah, Palen, Leysia, Liu, Sophia B., Hughes, Amanda L., and Sutton, Jeanette. (May 2008). “Collective Intelligence in Disaster: Examination of the Phenomenon in the Aftermath of the 2007 Virginia Tech Shooting.” ConnectivIT and the Natural Hazards Center – University of Colorado, Boulder: 1-10. 12 13