Florida Catastrophic Planning Initiative

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The Florida Catastrophic Planning (FLCP) Initiative was conducted under the auspices of the National Catastrophic Planning Process (CPP), as mandated by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which was amended by the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007. The Act of 2007 expanded the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in preparing for catastrophes as a result of the dismal response to Hurricane Katrina (Ruback et al., 2010). FEMA was given specific requirements to better prepare for catastrophic disasters and the FLCP planning process embodies one the first major tests of the CCP.

The CPP is inherently different from traditional models developed by federal entities in several ways, the most important being that it is a “bottom-up” planning method as dictated by one of the directives of the Act of 2007. FEMA was asked to partner with State, local and tribal governments, emergency responders, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in addition to other federal agencies typically involved with disaster preparedness, response and recovery efforts. Most FEMA and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) systems and methods in the past have been driven from the “top down”, such as the Incident Command System (ICS) and the National Incident Management Systems (NIMS) and have focused on the structure of command and control rather than coordinated partnerships (Ruback et al., 2010). Another significant directive of the Act of 2007 is the specific focus on preparedness for catastrophic events rather than disasters, which are more regional in scope.

Catastrophes impact large areas, crossing regional and often, state jurisdictional boundaries, and will require m...

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...rs and catastrophes. Other planning processes may address other scenarios or situations in better ways such as the Integrated Planning System approach also described by Ruback et al (2010) in FEMA’s Catastrophic Readiness and Response course, section 12.

The FLCP successfully demonstrated that the CPP can accomplish the outcomes from the mandates of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007 given to FEMA.

If there can be a good or bright side of the horrific catastrophe known as Hurricane Katrina it must be that the federal, state and local governments are better prepared to response to catastrophes of the future. In order to better respond, those agencies must include all possible stakeholders in the planning process as well as relying on all the resources of the nation. The CPP and FLCP initiatives by FEMA are steps in the right direction.

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