By Barbara Glynn | Member
Have you ever followed the track of an approaching hurricane on the nightly news or The Weather Channel? Watched as the storm hit ground zero—debris hurling through the air, waves overtaking tops of houses, listened to the press conference of a concerned governor and an interview with an exhausted evacuee? You probably have. But have you ever thought about how municipalities rebuild after a catastrophic natural disaster or how small communities with few funds pay to repair roads and sewage systems?
Immediately after a disaster, local emergency managers send estimated damage data to the state. The estimates are reviewed to determine if the state is able to see the recovery process through to completion without federal aid. Infrastructure damage is tallied separately from that of home and business owners for two different types of disaster declarations. At FEMA, we unofficially call the former a Public Assistance (PA) disaster and the latter an Individual Assistance (IA) disaster. Should the damages near or exceed the state’s threshold, the governor will ask that FEMA deploy reservists to team with the state for development of Preliminary Damage Assessments (PDAs). PDAs for a Public Assistance declaration will include damage estimates for state and local governments, some private non-profits with essential services, and Native American tribes. The state tabulates the final PDA results and presents them to the governor in a letter. Should the damages be great enough, by law (the Stafford Act specifically), the governor requests a disaster declaration from the president.
When deployed to a Public Assistance disaster, my job is to advise local governments of hazard mitigation methods to include while rebuilding their infrastructure. Mitigation methods are financially restricted in correspondence to the full cost of repairs, the mitigation must relate to the damaged element only and be appropriate to the disaster. The purpose, of course, is to reduce the loss of life and property should there be another natural disaster.
The writing is straightforward, no-frills technical writing. It may sound dry, but each damaged 96-inch corrugated metal culvert; 250-foot long historic bridge; outdoor, aluminum, mobile-sculpture; and below-grade high school gymnasium has its function, a cause of damage specific to its qualities and the event, and a connection to its surroundings. These characteristics must be fully examined before a mitigation plan is determined.
Sometimes I think of my job as watching a mystery where I learned in the first scene who the killer was; I just don’t know how the detective will catch the criminal. For example, I know that there were heavy rains and flooding (the criminal). Now 250 feet of road and a 60-foot long, 96-inch diameter culvert that passed under that road are missing (the victim). What exactly caused the culvert to fail and then cause the road to wash out (modus operandi)? What mitigation can be done when replacing the culvert to keep this from happening again (the arrest)? Tax dollars and lives are at stake.
As a FEMA reservist in the Hazard Mitigation cadre, I have been called to work at federally declared disasters caused by floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes. We reservists are expected to be ready to deploy within 24 hours of their assignment for a minimum of 30 days, but that can often last a few months or longer. My longest deployment was for one year in Iowa after the 2008 flooding. I learned a lot about corn. Seriously.
That’s the other part of my job that I love. I travel to parts of the United States that I might never have seen. I get to learn the history and culture in areas that are not the typical tourist destination, especially if your mode of travel is flying. I’ve had the chance to shake hands with a few important politicians, and I’ve met many people trying to pull themselves together after a disaster and other people going about lives I might never heard of. It has been a fascinating job.
