How to parse todays Republicanism--"the Near Catastrophic Event"

[craigolemiss]

How to parse todays Republicanism

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/07/katrina.congress/index.html

Aide: GOP leaders agree to joint Katrina hearings

September 7, 2005

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House and Senate Republican leaders have agreed in principle to hold joint hearings into the response by federal, state and local officials to Hurricane Katrina, a House Republican aide said Wednesday.
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In a memo dated August 29 -- the day Katrina struck the Gulf Coast -- Brown asked Chertoff for 1,000 Department of Homeland Security volunteers willing to deploy as soon as possible "for a two-week minimum field assignment" in hurricane-struck states.

The memo was obtained by the media Tuesday.

In it, Brown writes, "We anticipate needing at least 1,000 additional DHS employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days."

According to FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule, the employees were needed to answer phones, do community relations and help set up field hospitals, what she called "nonemergency tasks." They are not first-responders, she said.

"We already had all of our first-responder teams pre-deployed -- 32 teams in all -- who went in and staged in and around the hurricane zone and were ready to go by Sunday. This is deployment that requires that the governor make a request to the federal government," Rule said.

In closing, Brown said, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us meet our responsibilities in this near catastrophic event."
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Remember the words "Near Catastrophic event". Although the Executive Branch has declared that Katrina was an Incident of National Significance, it has not and cannot be called catastophic for the following reasons:

Within the National Respose Plan there is an annex on catastrophic emergencies which includes storms. If Brown calls the incident catastrophic then it can be questioned why "normal" Procedures were followed rather than "catastrophic" procedures.

from the December 2004 Catastrophic Incident Annex CAT-3 National Response Plan:

The Catastrophic Incident Annex to the National Response Plan (NRP-CIA) establishes the context and overarching strategy for implementing and coordinating an accelerated, proactive national response to a catastrophic incident.

ok, sounds about right?

note however:

Only the Secretary of Homeland Security or designee may initiate implementation of the NRP-CIA.

So only Chertoff could call it catastrophic---lets watch his words for a few days.

So what's a Catastrophic incident?

A catastrophic incident, as defined by the NRP, is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic incident could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened.

All catastrophic incidents are Incidents of National Significance. These factors drive the urgency for coordinated national planning to ensure accelerated Federal/national assistance.

ok --that sounds like it fits.

National Response plan with annexes
Planning Assumptions for Catastophic Events

• A catastrophic incident results in large numbers of casualties and/or displaced persons, possibly in the tens of thousands.
  
  
• A catastrophic mass casualty/mass evacuation incident triggers a Presidential disaster declaration, immediately or otherwise.
  
  
• The response capabilities and resources of the local jurisdiction (to include mutual aid from surrounding jurisdictions and response support from the State) may be insufficient and quickly overwhelmed. Local emergency personnel who normally respond to incidents may be among those affected and unable to perform their
  
  
• Federal support must be provided in a timely manner to save lives, prevent human suffering, and mitigate severe damage. This may require mobilizing and deploying assets before they are requested via normal NRP protocols.
  
  
• Large-scale evacuations, organized or self-directed, may occur....
  
  
• Large numbers of people may be left temporarily or permanently homeless and may require prolonged temporary housing.
  
  
• A catastrophic incident may produce environmental impacts...
  
  
• Standard procedures outlined in the NRP regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, temporarily suspended in the immediate aftermath of an incident of catastrophic magnitude, pursuant to existing law;
  
  
• Preidentified Federal response resources are mobilized and deployed, and, if required, begin emergency operations to commence life-safety activities; and
  
  
• Notification and full coordination with States occur, but the coordination process should not delay or impede the rapid mobilization and deployment of critical Federal resources.

If they call it a catostrophic incident then they can get stuck with their own rules--only by referring to it as a Near catastrophic event can they get away with the correct parsing of the issue---plan to see the phrase "Near catastrophe" in use often in their next set of talking points.

Once upon a time it seems that we had FEMA to respond to Fires and Tornadoes and Hurricanes, but looking theough their current documentation reminds me of nothing less than a Tom Clancy novel since the acronym heavy alphabet soup of issues that they are now dealing with does not include "run of the mill disasters" like fires and hurricanes but rather it's Cyber Incidents and Bio-Weapons and Nuclear Occurrences.---Whatever happened to just an ordinary disaster?

get your own copy of the plan and use it to prop open a door or something because its fairly wothless as a document.

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/editorial/editorial_0566.xml