FEMA changes disaster game plan

As Hurricane Florence’s destructive winds dropped over North Carolina’s coast last month, a call for help came into the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh, the nerve center of the official response. The swift water rescue crews were hampered in their efforts to reach people stranded by the storm because they didn’t have the communication equipment they needed.

Sometimes, responses to such requests are delayed by state and federal bureaucracies learning to work together on the fly. But in this case, FEMA staffer David Musick knew where to find the needed satellite phones and which state employee could distribute the 200 devices. He got up and jogged across the building where he has been working alongside state emergency workers for the past few months, and set the process in motion.

“Once they knew where to go, where to sign off and where to find them, it went very quickly,” Musick said.

It was a small success story in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s most recent effort to overcome the challenges responders face as they navigate separate state and federal systems. Musick is part of an initiative that the agency launched this year, embedding a small group of FEMA employees in state agencies full-time to create a more seamless response.

The one-two punch from hurricanes Florence and Michael in North Carolina were the first major test since the initiative started there in April.

The FEMA Integration Teams, or FITs, now exist in five states — Oregon, Tennessee, Indiana and Virginia, in addition to North Carolina.

The Florida FIT team was not in place to help prepare for Michael, but is expected to be staffed later this year, along with four others.

FEMA officials have long said that the agency is not supposed to act as the first responder. Now, the FIT teams are there before disaster happens to help create efficiencies between state and federal systems, while still encouraging each state to develop its own “culture of preparedness.”

The innovation came as the agency faced criticism for its handling of disasters in the past year, including Hurricane Maria, which prompted a chaotic response after it hit Puerto Rico in September 2017.