Contingency Planning for Foreign Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

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Contingency Planning for Foreign Humanitarian
Assistance and Disaster Relief
SOUTHCOM Lessons Learned From Recent Crises in
Latin America
Dr Nancy Mock LTC J.E. McGovern
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Overview of Session

• The Lessons Learned model
• Case studies of SOUTHCOMs experiences
• Observations
• Identification
• Analysis
• Actions
• Organizational Changes
• The way ahead

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Reasons for Slow Organizational Learning among
the Institutions
(Civilian and Military)

• Rapid turnover in personnel at the strategic and
  operational levels
• Lack of standards/norms of practice
• Ad hoc training strategies
• Limited empirical knowledge base

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Reasons for Slow Organizational Learning among
the Institutions
(Civilian and Military)

• The traditional vertical structure of the FHA/DR
  Community prohibits information exchange
• Laterally
• Rapidly
• Organizational Cultures
• Time

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Dimensions of Lessons Learned Framework

• Agency Type
• SOUTHCOM
• DoD
• Others (USG Agencies, Regional Organizations,
  PVOS and Host Country Organizations)
• Level of Organization
• Strategic
• Operational
• Tactical

• Subject Matter
• Nature of Problem
• Response
• Resources Management
• Information/Communications Management
• Coordination and Collaboration
• Task Organization

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Issues in Assessing the Lessons Learning Process

• Who is
• Observing
• Analyzing and
• Using information
• How are they
• Observing
• Analyzing and
• Using information

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How are Lessons Identified

• Internal information systems
• Forums/consensus groups
• Delphi methods
• Evaluations/assessments
• Expert analysis
• After Action Reviews
• Debriefings

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Observation
Lessons Identified
Organizational Change
Analysis
Actions
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• Hurricane Mitch
• The worst natural disaster ever to strike the
  Western Hemisphere

• 8,200 dead, 9,300 missing
• Millions left homeless
• More than 8.5 billion dollars in damages

In historic context, thats 17,000 lives lost,
which is equals to the total United States losses
during the Korean War. General Wilhelm, CINCSO
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MITCH - Indiscriminate KILLER
Most deadly hurricane in the Atlantic in over
200 years -- National Hurricane
Center
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Hurricane Mitch
GUATEMALA DEAD 258 MISSING 120 DISPLACED
109,000
HURRICANE MITCH
26 OCT
28 OCT
GUATEMALA
HONDURAS
HONDURAS DEAD 7,000 MISSING 12,000 DISPLACED
1,900,000
GUATEMALA CITY
SOTO CANO
31 OCT
Tegucigalpa
EL SALVADOR DEAD 240 MISSING 135 DISPLACED
50,000
NICARAGUA
SAN SALVADOR
NICARAGUA
NICARAGUA DEAD 2,362 MISSING 970 DISPLACED
868,000
MANAGUA
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Affected Areas And Impact
GUATEMALA 98 Bridges Damaged 60 Roads Impacted
HONDURAS 170 Bridges Damaged 70 Roads Impacted
San Pedro Sula
GUATEMALA CITY
SOTO CANO
TEGUCIGALPA
EL SALVADOR 17 Bridges Damaged 20 Roads Impacted
SAN SALVADOR
NICARAGUA 71 Bridges Damaged 70 Roads Impacted
Managua
AFFECTED AREAS
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
FUERTE APOYO

• THREE PHASE OPERATION

• Emergency
• Rehabilitation
• Restoration

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Challenges

• Large Geographical Area
• No pre-existing medical plan
• Initial information extremely sketchy
• Synchronizing the flow of forces into the
  theater to counter the health threats
• Provide HSS to US forces and disaster relief to
  indigenous personnel
• Desert Fox

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Phase I - Emergency
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Health Service Support

• Priority of effort
• Controlling the outbreak of diseases
• Vector control
• Sanitation
• Domestic animal care
• Food and water quality
• Restoration of general public health programs
• Consultation on the disposal of remains
• Disease surveillance
• Functional HN Medical Infrastructure

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HSS MissionsCENTAM Hurricane Relief

• Supplement medical infrastructure
• National Disease Surveillance Program
• Post Traumatic Stress
• Entomology
• Sanitation
• Health Facility Planning
• Veterinary

HONDURAS NICARAGUA
EL SALVADOR

• Water surety
• Entomology
• Med Asst Tms

GUATEMALA
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Phase I - Emergency
Life saving missions and emergency delivery of
relief supplies and medical assistance
26-Nov-98.
2,102
San Pedro Sula
La Ceiba
Guatemala City
39 A/C 440 Sorties 1686 hrs
Soto Cano
6 A/C 200 Sorties 385 hrs
Lives Saved
1,052 Food Distributed
3,245,100 Lbs Medical Supplies
Distributed 131,000 Lbs
Water Distributed
120,000 Gals
Managua
42,500,000
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Lessons Identified

• Get the plan and information out to the forces
  as soon as possible
• Define capabilities, be as detailed as possible
• Defining the chain of command for medical forces
• Providing sufficient transportation for medical
  elements
• Utilization of the Internet

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Lessons Identified

• Assessments
• Training forces on how to conduct assessments
• Pre-identifying organizations best suited to do
  this mission and getting them on the ground early
• Linking the teams with MOH and National EOCs
• Obtaining information rapidly
• Posting it so that it is accessible to all

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Phase II - Rehabilitation
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Phase II - Rehabilitation

• US medical force structure fully operational
• USA Health Facility Planning Agency (HFPA)
  conducted site surveys to assess restorability of
  host nation medical treatment facilities
• Center of Health Promotion and Prevention
  Medicine (CHPPM) assisted in disease surveillance
  programs

The goal - restore HN facility to preexisting
levels.
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Phase II - Rehabilitation

• HSS Priorities
• Sanitation
• Safe water
• Vector control
• The prevention of disease outbreaks
• Revamp, reinforce and reestablish health care to
  a minimum of preexisting levels working through
  the local health care system, utilizing local
  labor and/or facilities, where ever possible.
•  

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Phase II - Rehabilitation

• HSS Objectives
• Reduce health related suffering of HN populations
  
• Provide force health protection to US Forces
• Reduce risk of disease epidemics throughout
  region
• Reduce HNs dependency on JTFs
• Prepare infrastructure for transition to
  GO/IO/NGO/PVO operations.

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Medical Liaison

• JTF Surgeon must establish liaison with
  medical contacts within OFDA, USAID, the
  Ministries of Health, PAHO, and other key medical
  IO/NGO/PVOs operating within their JOA. It is
  critical to set the stage for transition early in
  the operations. Duplication of efforts must be
  avoided. HSS resources must safeguard the heath
  of the effected population. This cant be done
  if these resources are wasted. Efforts must be
  synchronized as much as possible.

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Phase II - Rehabilitation
Repairs to infrastructure required to reestablish
national capabilities to provide for health and
basic welfare of the populace
5,400
San Pedro Sula
La Ceiba
219 (Sorties)
Guatemala City
11
Soto Cano
Comalapa
53
Managua
10
112,500,000
4
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Lessons Identified

• Needs of the countries changed
• Use of pesticides/insecticides
• Class VIII issues
• Reporting procedures
• SMART

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Lessons Identified

• Pan American Health Organization
• Working together with Country Teams, USAID, and
  Ministries of Health and Agriculture
• Joint Operations
• Use of the Internet

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Transition

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Transition

• HSS Priorities Assess HSS conditions within
  JOA transition HSS programs to GO/IO/NGO/PVOs
  initiate Humanitarian Civic Actions (HCA) in the
  region prepare major end items for
  re-deployment.
• HSS Objectives While continuing to provide
  health care for JTF and HN personnel, US Force
  medical personnel will begin disengaging from the
  infrastructure support and assimilate GO/IO/NGO/
  PVO to continue long term rehabilitation efforts.

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GUATEMALA EL SALVADOR NICARAGUA
OPERATION NEW HORIZONSHONDURAS
MARCH - SEPTEMBER 1999
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Jan Feb Mar Apr
May Jun Jul Aug
Sep
Transition Disaster Relief to Expanded New
Horizons
Honduras 01 13 Feb -- 30 Jun
Guatemala 01 8 Feb- 3 May
Honduras 02 20 Feb - 21 Aug
Nicaragua 1 Apr - 15 Aug
JTF Operations
El Salvador 30 Mar -1 Aug
Dominican Republic 1 Apr - 7 Aug
Guatemala 02 1 May - 30 Aug
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Phase III - Restoration Mission
US Southern Command conduct expanded New Horizon
Exercises in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador in
Nicaragua from March 1999-September 1999 in order
to assist in the restoration of Central America
as a result of its devastation from
Hurricane Mitch.

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Phase III - Restoration

• 23,000 Guardsmen and Reservists from 45 states
• Build 33 schools
• Build 12 clinics
• Repair 52 more roads and bridges.
• Drill 27 high capacity wells
• Conduct 40 very large medical outreach programs
  during which we expect that we will establish
  somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 patient
  contacts.

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Phase III - Restoration

• This exercise is significant for two reasons
• This was the premier training event of the year
  for our Guardsmen and Reservists.
• The work that our engineers, medics, and
  logisticians did remained long after they left,
  benefiting the populations of these four
  countries.

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Lessons Identified

• Contingency planning must consider worst case
  scenarios
• Lack of professionalism still plagues the relief
  system
• One entity in charge is a myth but unity of
  effort is key to effective and efficient
  preparedness, response and recovery

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Lessons Identified

• SOUTHCOM needed to strengthen its relationship
  and understanding with the IO/NGO/PVO community
• Preparedness as well as response had to be
  addressed
• A mechanism for sharing data among various
  countries, organizations and institutions had to
  be established
• Training at the local, regional hemispheric
  levels had to be strengthened

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Key lessons Identified from Mitch

• Information management remains a great constraint
  to effective planning
• Planning activities must encompass preparedness,
  mitigation, response and recovery
• Measures of effectiveness (MOE)
• Focus on outcome
• Unity of effort
• Policy
• Decision Points

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Venezuela Floods

• On December 16 and 17, 1999 Venezuela
  suffered its historys worst national disaster as
  torrential rains caused wide spread flooding and
  mudslides along its northern coast. As a result
  of this catastrophe more than 400,000 people were
  displaced, most of them left homeless and an
  estimated 30,000 to 50,000 people loss their
  lives.

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The Venezuelan Floods

• An estimated 30,000-50,000 dead
• 15,000 injured
• 150,000 left homeless
• 600,000 without water

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The Geodynamic Effects Along The Coast Of Central
Venezuela, December, 1999
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Lessons Identified

• Impact modeling

• Call back capabilities

• Site identification

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International Cooperation
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Key Lessons Identified at the Strategic Level

• Nature of problem
• All hazards analysis is critical in the AOR, this
  should be incorporated in to initial assessments
• Underdevelopment and poor development contributed
  to the great loss of life resulting from natural
  hazards Shaping activities must engage the
  regional community in promoting policies/programs
  to prepare for and mitigate hazard impacts
• Population vulnerability and local infrastructure
  information base is weak, all partners should
  support a plan to improve the regional
  information base

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Key Lessons Identified at the Strategic Level

• Rapid deployment of subject matter experts and
  experienced staff was critical to mission
  success, identify and develop mechanisms for
  accessing and deploying these resources
• Staffs were deployed with little preparation,
  improve core competencies and just-in-time
  training
• Unity of effort among the various agencies, to
  include the military, was poor, develop
  mechanisms for collaboration, coordination and
  cooperation

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Key Lessons Identified at the Strategic Level

• Information management/communications
• MOEs focusing on outcomes are essential to
  rational planning and management of DR/HR
• Facilitate interagency development of indicators
  for use in the AOR
• Information base for planning and management is
  weak and conflicted due to lack of standards of
  practice within and between agencies
• Facilitate the identification of standards of
  practice relating to disaster management
  information

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Key Lessons Identified at the Strategic Level
(cont)

• Information management/communications
• The internet was a key tool for planning
• Develop tools and training to increase the
  effectiveness and access of internet tools
• Information sharing among agencies was a
  constraint to effective planning and management
• Develop mechanisms for enhancing interagency
  information sharing

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The Way Ahead.

• Plans
• Changes to the Theater Engagement Plan
• Update of 6150
• A Disaster Preparedness Strategy
• Training and Seminars
• The Integrated Regional Humanitarian Disaster
  Relief Seminars (INTERHANDS)
• FA HUME
• Regional Disaster Seminars
• Subject Matter Expert Exchanges

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The Way Ahead...

• Improving the information base for HA/DR
• Facilitating the standardization of indicators
  (including MOEs) data formats among regional
  players
• Development of geo-spatial and multi-media
  information systems for storage, analysis and
  display of disaster case information, including
  population vulnerability/capabilities and
  disaster resource management information
• Building a human resources data base of regional
  and subject matter expertise

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Potential Measures of Effectivenessfor Disasters

• Compared to Rates Prior to the Disaster
• Mortality rates
• Morbidity Rates
• Evacuation times
• Daily outpatient statistics
• Daily inpatient statistics
• Area coverage
• Rate of Post Traumatic Stress
• Medical stocks
• Nutritional Status

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The Way Ahead

• Improving information sharing and dissemination
• Development of real-time dissemination of lessons
  identified
• WWW and CDROM based full-text search digital
  libraries of SOUTHCOM non-classified data
• Support of ALERTAR as an open source information
  portal for HA/DR in the region

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The Way Ahead..

• Developing just in time training tools
• Smart books
• ECLASS tailored training

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ALERTAR

• Humanitarian Assistance Database (HADB)
• Multimedia Documentation Kit
• Other software tools
• Computer-Based Training

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Humanitarian Assistance Database

• Used to store a list of important organizations
  and contacts in the region
• All information can be indexed by country or
  disaster type, allowing for highly-focused
  searches
• Completely web-based, users can view from the
  web, authors can edit from the web
• Windows-based editor in development

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HADB - Country Search
By clicking on any country on this map, you can
get a listing of contacts and documents related
to that country.
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HADB - Contact Information Form
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Multimedia Documentation Kit

• A Reference Library for Disaster Professionals
  in the Field
• Contains Country and Subject/Disaster Specific
  Resources (manuals, contacts, articles, maps,
  publications) Available on CD-ROM or the Web
• Prototype Currently in Development

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Libraries
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Technology Assisted Learning Modules (TALM)

• TALM toolkit for developing online courses,
  includes freeware software
• E-Class (our in house software) and tutorials
• Image editors
• Video editors
• Sound Editors
• Has been used successfully by professors and
  leaders with no previous technical background
• Examples in many different domainsand settings
• Currently being used to develop GIS training
  modules for the LAC region

View E-ClassExamples
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Computer-Based Training

• Used to Facilitate the Development of Easily and
  Widely Accessible Training Materials
• Using E-Class Designer, Creates Multimedia Web
  and CD-ROM Friendly Training Courses
• Prototype in Development

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E-Class Features Content Management

• Take course materials, including textual, video
  and audio, and combine them into a web-based
  e-Book
• Creates a navigation system automatically so
  instructors can focus on content instead of
  technical issues
• Create clickable terms (hotwords) so that
  students can find out more about important terms

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Computer-Based TrainingPrototype
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Private Sector Initiative

• Background revival of OFDA Private Sector
  Committee
• Activities to date
• Post Mitch private company pilot survey completed
• IDB private sector seminar in March 2000
• Nicaragua action planning workshop being
  developed
• Expected outcomes include
• Database on private sector readiness and
  resources in Central America
• Working group formulated (Private sector advisory
  committee)
• Training materials development
• American Chambers of Commerce training seminars
• Collaborating partners PADF, OAS, PAHO, US
  Chamber of Commerce

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Disaster Preparedness Strategy

• Develop regional capabilities and collaboration.
• Encourage cooperation and training between
  USSOUTHCOM, national authorities, relief agencies
  and multilateral institutions.
• Establish a mechanism that supports disaster
  preparedness and response within the theater.

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Disaster Preparedness Mission
US SOUTHCOM shapes the environment within its
area of responsibility in part through disaster
preparedness in order to promote democracy,
stability and collective approaches to regional
security when required, responds unilaterally or
multilaterally to crises.
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Disaster Preparedness Vision

• A community of democratic, stable, and
  prosperous nations properly prepared for
  transnational disasters served by professional ,
  modernized, interoperable security forces in
  support of civilian agencies, and capable of
  multilateral, regional, and hemispheric responses
  to challenges.

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PAHO
OFDA

• Partnership
• Regional Cooperation
• Regional Collaboration
• Self sufficiency

CDMHA
FEMA
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• Our ultimate goal is to establish programs and
  infrastructure that eliminate the need for
  external assistance and resources.

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Disaster Preparedness Objectives

• Information
• Technology
• Methodology

Promote the rapid exchange of critical
information among military forces and civilian
agencies in the region.
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Influence the roles, missions, and modernization
efforts of the response communities in the region
through affiliations with other agencies,
institutions and organizations
Disaster Preparedness Objectives
PAHO
OFDA
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Provide a rapidly deployable disaster response
capability
Disaster Preparedness Objectives
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Disaster Preparedness Objectives
Develop a comprehensive and coordinated
multilateral plans
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Develop a theater disaster preparedness
logistics' support system
Disaster Preparedness Objectives
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Provide situational awareness and force
protection for U.S. military and civilian
personnel in the region
Disaster Preparedness Objectives
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Its not a matter of if but only a question of
when, where and how bad