18 Oct While the Hurricane Lani weather event does not pose any more danger to populated areas, attention is primarily now being focused on long-term recovery and potential mitigation actions.

While the Hurricane Lani weather event does not pose any more danger to populated areas, attention is primarily now being focused on long-term recovery and potential mitigation actions. In addition, attention is also being generated to quickly understand any lessons learned gleaned from the Hurricane Lani weather with the purpose to support a continuous process improvement effort that can potentially be implemented to various sectors within the emergency management community’s actions in support of similar future weather events.

 

Not unexpectedly, FEMA’s Congressional Affairs Division within the Office of External Affairs has received several external requests for preliminary lessons learned from the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team in association with the Hurricane Lani weather event. Recognizing this intense interest associated with Hurricane Lani-related lessons learned, the FEMA Administrator has requested that any preliminary lessons learned identified by the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team initiative in associated with the Hurricane Lani weather event be first reviewed internally within FEMA – to include the Chief Counsel – prior to approval for distribution external to the FEMA organization.

 

Therefore, the FEMA Administrator has tasked the OPPA Associate Administrator to develop a brief point paper that highlights preliminary Hurricane Lani lessons learned by the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team. The preliminary lessons learned are understood to not be “final” but, rather, initial observations – along with any accompanying recommendations – from the time the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team was formed to any actions being taken to date. The FEMA Administrator has given the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team the flexibility to submit the Team’s preliminary lessons learned in whatever format deemed appropriate to ensure the “message” is received.

 

Therefore, I’d like our Team to individually develop your preliminary thoughts on Hurricane Lani lessons learned in response to this FEMA Administrator request. I’ll use your feedback/comment inputs to develop our consolidated EMRAAS Pilot Project Team point paper back to the OPPA Associate Administrator’s staff, who will review and then forward the Team’s point paper to the FEMA Administrator’s staff for action closure.

 

LONG-TERM ANALYTIC STUDY TASKER

 

To help ensure the Team’s various inputs are somewhat consist, your response to this tasker should be focused based on discussing a minimum of at least three (3) of the following category topics that were addressed over the last ten or so weeks from the perspective of the Hurricane Lani weather event.

 

•             Public-Private Partnerships

 

•             Processes

 

•             Planning (to include Emergency Operations Plans [EOP])

 

•             Interest Groups, Non-Profit Organizations, and Media

 

•             Preparedness

 

•             Response (to include Emergency Operations Centers [EOC])

 

•             Recovery

 

•             Mitigation

 

•             International Emergency Management

 

•             Wild Card: anything else that you’d like to address

 

Your discussion should address your thoughts, ideas, concerns, etc. regarding potential lessons learned when responding to the tasks assigned to the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team in association with the Hurricane Lani weather event.

 

For each category from the above list that you elect to respond to include the following.

 

Part 1: Category Overview

 

Describe the roles, responsibilities, functions, stakeholders, etc. from a generic “emergency management” perspective. What do you want senior leadership to know about each of your chosen categories regarding its importance to “emergency management support” in response to a disastrous event? What stands out as the top two aspects within each category in terms of providing emergency management support before, during, and/or after a disastrous event?

 

Part 2: Category Lessons Learned from Hurricane Lani

 

Within each of your category discussions, address the following from the perspective of Hurricane Lani.

 

•             What is a minimum of at least two (2) strengths you think senior leadership should understand about your category from a capability perspective before, during, and/or after a disastrous event like Hurricane Lani?

 

•             What is a minimum of at least two (2) limitations and/or weaknesses that you think senior leadership should be aware of that potentially negatively impacts this category’s performance in terms of delivering emergency management support before, during, and/or after a disastrous event like Hurricane Lani?

 

•             What might be some initiatives you’d recommend to senior leadership to undertake in an attempt to improve the category’s performance of emergency management support before, during, and/or after a disastrous event like Hurricane Lani?

 

•             Were there any major surprises that you came away with after learning about your category in terms of the EMRAAS Pilot Project Team initiative?

 

•             Other aspects you wish to inform senior leadership about?

 

SUBMISSION GUIDANCE

 

You have two submission due dates associated with this Long-Term Analytic Study tasker.

 

1.            Initial Outline: Email to Dr. K no later than end of Week 7 (July 6th) with an initial outline of your proposed approach to this tasker. This is very general in nature and can change before your final submission. This initial outline should simply outline the major topics/sections that you plan to address as part of your final submission. Note that this initial outline is not expected to be an in- depth submission, i.e., think of submitting something like a book’s table of contents. Also, it’s recognized this initial outline may change depending on your further research and writing efforts up until the point of your final submission.

 

2.            Final Submission: Your completed individual Long-Term Analytic Study assignment should be submitted no later than the end of Week 12, August 10th as a single Word document in accordance with the following guidance. This is “hard” due date…no extensions will be granted.

 

•             Length = minimum expectation of at least 8 full pages of text

 

•             The following do not “count” towards a written Word document receiving 100% credit for the Length criteria: title page, table of contents (not required), abstract (not required), executive summary (not required), illustrations (tables, figures, graphs, pictures, etc. …all not required), appendices (not required), or reference list

 

•             References = at least 10 high-quality “external” references (i.e., not part of the class required readings)

 

•             Paragraph = 2.0 (double-spaced) … no right-margin justification

 

•             Font = 11- or 12-point

 

•             Margins = 1-inch

 

Note that there is no template for your proposed set of lessons learned. However, it is recommended you provide “headers” to help the reader differentiate when you transition from one topic category to another.

 

Post your individual Long-Term Analytic Study response to this tasker along with supporting in- text citations and reference list (in APA 7th edition format) to your applicable personal Assignment folder as a single file.

 

As always, let me know if you have any questions about this tasker.

 

// signed //

 

EMRAAS Pilot Project Team Lead