Most Federal agencies operating within the State have a generic emergency response plan that establishes their internal procedures for responding to disasters. Certain agencies such as the Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration, which provide services and support that are used on a regular and fairly extensive basis in disaster, tend to have more highly developed disaster response plans. Some of them even have rather basic earthquake response segments included in their basic plans. Thus, for moderate earthquakes these plans are relatively effective and the Federal response can be expected to be at least adequate. Few Federal agencies, however, have developed any specific plan that is adequate to respond to the demands of a catastrophic event causing property damage exceeding the $2 billion range. Of 24 Federal agencies whose earthquake planning status were recently evaluated by FEMA Region IX, only the Sixth U.S. Army was determined to have developed a comprehensive capability that is in acceptable detail, has been exercised, and appears to be operationally adequate and reliable. Other Federal agencies are now beginning to perceive the need to improve their planning and response capability following the expected event, and are gradually responding to this need.
Providing impetus to this expanded planning activity has been the emergence of the FEMA Region IX Earthquake Response Plan for the San Francisco Bay Area. This is a site-specific FEMA plan based on a 1974 draft that provided for a full range of Federal assistance during the emergency lifesaving phase following the earthquake. Although this plan never proceeded beyond the draft stage (because of evolving FEMA disaster field operations policy), it served as the basic guide for the development of the Sixth U.S. Army Plan, and has remained a core document for identifying expected Federal agency activities for earthquake recovery in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1979, the emergency response portion of the 1974 FEMA Region IX draft was restructured. The conduct of the post-event response program was shifted from being a centrally directed FEMA activity under the operational control of the Regional Director to a decentralized operation which provides for functional disaster support activities to be assigned by the Regional Director to certain Federal agencies by Mission Assignment Letters. Table 1 indicates functional task assignment areas. Those with the designation "Emergency Support Function (ESF)," have been assigned to other Federal agencies. Table 2 reviews the principal and support agency assignments for each of the ESF functions.
On the basis of these anticipated mission assignments, the tasked Federal agencies participated in the development of operational annexes in the 1979 version of the San Francisco Earthquake Response Plan. Upon completion of the annexes, all agencies were then required to develop the necessary agency support plans and standard operating procedures for accomplishing the mission assignment tasks. Additionally, those Federal agencies designated in the plan as principal agencies were tasked with the responsibility of organizing and coordinating the activities of Federal agencies designated as support.
The rationale for this approach was to identify the various functional areas of disaster response for which a Federal activity could reasonably be expected to maintain after the occurrence of the event. With the functional areas identified, the range of Federal agency talent was evaluated and Federal response capabilities matched to expected functional demands. By the development of a matrix (figure 2), a total of 16 functional response areas (such as transportation, mass care, and debris removal) were identified, and 20 Federal agencies, plus volunteer organizations such as the American National Red Cross, were designated as having appropriate disaster response capabilities. Subsequently, all agencies were rated on their capability for functioning in a principal or a support capacity. These agencies were then provided specific FEMA Region IX Mission Assignments or tasking statements which, when triggered by a Presidential disaster declaration, provide the legal basis for delivering the authorized assistance in response to State and local government needs.
The end result of this approach has been to create a much more effective and reliable capability to respond to the needs of an earthquake disaster by those Federal agencies from which a significant response would be required.
Figure 1: Emergency Plans
(Description of and Relationship Between Plan Components)
