The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation Special Report 294 (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 Emergency and Evacuation Planning and Response
2 Emergency and Evacuation Planning and Response
Pages 28-49
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The final section reviews sources of funding for evacuation planning and operations. Typology of Major Disasters This study is focused on major emergency incidents that involve an evacu ation and exceed local response capacity.
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(Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, www.
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(Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, www.
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Since then, local emergency managers and trans portation providers, in conjunction with state officials, have developed more robust plans for a mass evacuation and are encouraging sheltering in place where doing so is safe. Nevertheless, it remains an open question whether evacuating a large portion of a major metropolitan area is feasible and whether planning for such an eventuality makes sense.
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Preparedness involves the development of com prehensive emergency management plans and detailed emergency opera tional plans. These plans define a decision-making structure (i.e., chain of command)
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History The structure of emergency planning and response has evolved over the past 50 years or more, often in response to major disasters. For purposes of this brief overview, it is useful to divide this history into three periods. Civil Defense Era and Creation of FEMA Disaster response, particularly the role of the federal government, was formalized in 1950 by two important pieces of legislation.
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Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, which established a system for initiating fed eral assistance to state and local governments. The act authorized the director of FEMA to prepare a Federal Response Plan (FRP) and required all states to prepare their own Emergency Operations Plans.
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provides a tool kit of ideas and advice for those responsible for develop ing emergency operations plans in state and local emergency management agencies, based on FEMA's risk-based, all-hazards approach. S ome of the first mutual-aid agreements, which evolved into the Incident Command System (ICS)
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-- a major reorganization that consolidated FEMA and 22 other federal agencies, programs, and offices into a single cabinet-level agency. DHS officially began operations on January 24, 2003, with the mission of providing a coordinated approach to national security for emergencies and disasters, both natural and man-made. President Bush issued a series of national policy directives to build on existing federal, state, and local emergency response initiatives to enhance the capability of all levels of government to respond to major disasters.
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Emergency Support Functions Primary Department or Agency ESF-1 Transportation U.S. Department of Transportation ESF-2 Communications DHS ESF-3 Public Works and Engineering U.S.
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Among other items, the National Response Framework contains a new annex on planning and carrying out a mass evacuation, the topic of the following section. Evacuation Planning and Response In general, state and local governments have the primary responsibility for an emergency evacuation, as they do for emergency response in general (see Figure 2-3)
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Local govern ments, generally working through local emergency managers, have at their disposal police, fire, and emergency medical service providers, who can be called upon as first responders to assist in an evacuation. Transportation agencies typically play a supporting role.
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If federal assistance is required, DHS has clarified that FEMA is responsible for leading and coordinating that assistance, and the mass evacuation annex of the National Response Framework describes federal agency responsibilities in such cases (DHS 2007b)
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The mass evacuation index of the National Response Framework provides an overview of evacuation functions, outlines agency roles and responsi bilities, and offers guidelines for a mass evacuation during an incident requiring a coordinated federal response (DHS 2007b)
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and the new mass evacuation annex to the National Response Framework are predicated on planning for a catastrophic emergency that would involve multiple agencies and would require evacu ation of major portions of an urban area. Yet some local officials inter viewed during the site visits conducted for this study questioned the feasibility of evacuating large segments of a metropolitan area.
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From page 43... ...
MPOs vary in their capacity and their role in individual urbanized areas, but their regional perspective could be useful in the development of regional emergency evacuation plans and supporting transportation capital improvement projects. For example, MPOs could become more involved in traffic modeling to simulate various evacuation scenarios and clearance times; the committee found several examples of this type of assistance during the site visits conducted for this study.
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The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 authorizes the use of Urban Area Secu rity Initiative or other HSGP funds for states to develop catastrophic mass evacuation plans (DHS 2007b)
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14 S AFETEA-LU and the 2006 Appropriations Act requested that the U.S. Department of Trans portation conduct a companion assessment to the DHS Nationwide Plan Review to evaluate the evacuation plans of state and local governments in the Gulf Coast region (USDOT 2006)
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From page 46... ...
Although not directly targeting security or emergency management, FTA's main funding programs can be used for capital improvements (e.g., rail projects) and bus purchases that can provide transit providers in urbanized areas with additional capacity and equipment to assist in an emergency evacuation.
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-- a nonprofit organization for the transit industry that advocates for the advancement of public transportation programs and initiatives in the United States -- established a task force to determine how the transit industry could be better prepared and more responsive in future emergency evacuations. The resulting Emergency Response and Prepared ness Program (ERPP)
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Federal law has long required local emergency planning offi cials to develop emergency plans that include an evacuation plan. How ever, detailed operational plans for the evacuation of major urban areas have not been a priority, except perhaps in some hurricane-prone areas.
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2008. Producing Emergency Plans: Comprehensive Preparedness Guide (CPG)
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