The FEMA office in Oakland has established an El Niño task force charged with preparing the regional office and its partners for the impacts of El Niño. Today, FEMA released its Severe El Nino Disaster Response plan.
The task force has evaluated the core capabilities needed to prepare for, respond to, recover from and mitigate against any El Niño-related incident that occurs across the office’s area of responsibility.
The task force has developed an Executive Decision Support Guide, or response plan, and an interactive flood decision support tool to enhance the regional office’s ability to respond to potential El Niño flood events during the winter. The plan seeks to align actionable decision points that provide critical information that leaders need to make informed decisions by determining the hazard level potentially impacting lives, public health, safety, property, and critical infrastructure.
The objectives:
- Establish actionable processes and procedures to identify the location, potential impacts, and probability of occurrence of natural hazards.
- Identify key at-risk populations, critical facilities and natural/cultural resources.
- Identify gaps in core capabilities needed to overcome the threat.
- Develop key messages to motivate partners to prepare and act.
- The task force consists of subject matter experts from the FEMA Region 9 office as well as other federal, state, local, tribal and community partners.
“California is at risk for many types of disasters,” said Mark Ghilarducci, Director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “These joint exercises with our partners allow us to prepare for and respond to emergencies.”
“Utilizing a whole-community approach to emergency management reinforces the fact that FEMA is only one part of our nation’s emergency management team,” said Bob Fenton, FEMA administrator. “The exercise gives us an opportunity to learn from each other, and from the experts in the areas where solutions will come from.”
“There aren’t many types of disasters capable of impacting all Arizonans, but a strong El Niño could cause flooding, evacuations and power outages anywhere (and everywhere) in the state,” said Arizona Dept. of Emergency and Military Affairs Deputy Director Wendy Smith-Reeve. “It takes a team effort to plan for, respond to and recover from the kinds of widespread consequences being talked about, which is why we’re invested in the education and training of and outreach to the whole community.”
FEMA recognizes that a government-centric approach to emergency management is not adequate to meet the challenges posed by a catastrophic incident. Utilizing a whole community approach to emergency management reinforces that FEMA is only one part of our nation’s emergency management team.
The El Nino task force has focused on interpreting data in areas of California, Arizona and Nevada that have proved historically vulnerable in order to develop risk projections of current El Niño events. It is through this assessment the task force seeks to determine the critical decision points needed by senior leaders during all phases of an incident from pre-incident, incident onset, through response and recovery.
Ms. Simms may be contacted at mary.simms@fema.dhs.gov
To view the FEMA Region 9 El Nino Disaster Response Plan, see here.
