In late August 2005, the days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on America's Gulf Coast, FEMA—its federal emergency management agency—deployed an Emergency Response Team to the State of Louisiana’s Emergency Operations Center.
But, when it arrived, the FEMA ERT could not combine forces with the emergency managers in Louisiana. Similarly, the State of Louisiana emergency managers could not combine forces with those in the City of New Orleans.
The result was that in the crucial early hours after Katrina made landfall—when the government-led response needed to get big enough fast enough to manage the surge in human needs that the crisis brought—its various pieces were disconnected, working at cross-purposes, and losing time.
We call this the inability of different areas and levels of government to come together into a unified response team quickly, the "speed to scale" challenge. And it remains our single most significant obstacle to effective disaster response.
But rather than being a uniquely American problem, "speed to scale" is pervasive and ubiquitous in every country, whether rich or poor. Among the rich countries of the world, it is especially pernicious in countries with federal systems, such as Australia, Canada, the USA...and New Zealand
The deadly disaster in Canterbury
Ten years ago today, on February 22, 2011, at 12:51 pm local time, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale struck the Canterbury Region in New Zealand's South Island, centered 6 miles south-east of the center of Christchurch.
The earthquake caused widespread damage across Christchurch, killing 185 people.
Over half of the deaths occurred in the six-story Canterbury Television Building, which collapsed and caught fire in the earthquake.
The government declared a state of national emergency
As the scope of the disaster became evident, emergency managers at the national level became alarmed and decided to initiate integration with the local emergency management team
The result proved to be the ‘disaster within the disaster.’
The process of combining the two teams was not clear
It had never been practiced—especially who reported to who and who was in charge of what—and the local operations center descended into chaos
An after-action review concluded, “that the duplication of control and EOCs between Christchurch city and the regional CDEM group was not only inefficient but put people and property at risk.”
This unhappy condition is little changed today.
For people like us in the disaster business, the "speed to scale" challenge means failure and humiliation.
It means needless suffering for the affected community—the seniors, individuals with disabilities, children, and families.
Kelly McKinney is the AVP of Emergency Management + Enterprise Resilience for NYU Langone Health in New York City and the former Deputy Commissioner for Preparedness at the New York City Office of Emergency Management. He is the author of Moment of Truth: The Nature of Catastrophes and How to Prepare for Them, published by Post Hill Press.
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