On Wednesday, I took a ride with my son Sam to do some work at Luther Dell Bible Camp in Northern Minnesota. Sam has been at Luther Dell every summer for the last seven years as a camper, volunteer and now the camp groundskeeper.
Luther Dell is an amazing place for kids to grow. Billing itself as "focused on building relationships as we play, worship and cannonball into the lake" is just the start. Each year, Sam has grown in his faith, created lasting friendships, experienced the value of a strong community and learned to help others to grow.
This year marks the second and third trips to Luther Dell for my daughter Casey and she is already looking forward to next year.
On the map below you will find something Luther Dell campers rarely see, a quiet and empty camp.
Terzich on Readiness
Friday, August 30, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Mr. Terzich Goes to Washington
Senator Smith in the US Senate |
The only real similarity I expect between my upcoming trip to Washington DC and the Jimmy Stewart movie is that I will feel a little naive as I walk into the Dirksen Senate Building.
On Wednesday, I will testify before the Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental
Relations, and the District of Columbia at a hearing entitled, “Role of Private Sector in Preparedness and Emergency Response.”
Written Statement of Christopher Terzich
Regional Consortium Coordinating Council
Before the US Senate Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Relations, and the District of Columbia
Hearing: Role of the Private Sector in Preparedness and Emergency Response
Good
afternoon Chairman Begich, Ranking Member Paul, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee. My name is Chris Terzich, and I am the chair of the Regional
Consortium Coordinating Council, a partnership whose members are regional
partnerships working in resilience and protection of our critical
infrastructure across the United States.
I personally have worked on critical infrastructure security and
preparedness for more nearly 30 years. On behalf of our council, it is a true
honor to testify before you.
I am here to
report that while we have indeed accomplished a great deal, the world around us
is changing at a pace that is increasing each day. If we don’t learn to be nimble and adapt, our
critical infrastructure and our communities will not successfully weather then
next catastrophe.
Through
social media, by traveling to disaster-stricken communities, or by completing
the Boston Marathon and running to the hospital to donate blood, Americans will
help each other during crises. In one
example I will discuss later, veterans have already formed a group that not
only aids in disaster, but provides a path for our young men and women to serve
at home using the skills they learned in service to their country
overseas.
To be
successful, we must be more focused on efforts that enable Americans in their
own communities. There are two roles
where government and regional partnerships can be more effective: 1) clarifying
our purpose and shared resilience goals and 2) providing do-it-yourself “kits”
for volunteers in a range of efforts. In
a short time and with little to no cost, we can use the successful Community
Emergency Response Team (CERT) model to create training and organizing tools
for volunteers who have expertise and are a desire to help their
community.
The National
Preparedness Directive is aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of
the United States through systematic preparation for the threats that pose the
greatest risk to the security of the Nation.
It articulates that our national preparedness is the shared
responsibility of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors,
and individual citizens.
America is
changing at a rapid pace. In 1930, we
were a predominantly agrarian society with 70% of Americans living in rural
areas. Today, 82% of us live in cities,
and by 2030, this is projected to rise to 87%[1]. Our most urban state is California where 95%
or 35.4 million people live in cities.
Los Angeles (including Long Beach and Anaheim) is the most densely
populated urban area in the country with 12.1 million residents.[2] We are also moving towards the
coastlines. Between 1960 and 2008, the
population in coastline counties along the Gulf of Mexico soared by 150
percent, more than double the rate of increase of the nation's population as a
whole. This area is now home to nearly 14 million residents.[3] From 1980 through 2012, there have been 144 billion
dollar weather disasters, or 4.5 per year.
In 2011 and 2012 this number spiked to 25, or 12.5 per year.[4]
We are also
more connected than ever before. Stanley
Milgram’s experiment with letters[5]
in 1969 led to our now common understanding that we are all separated by an
average of 6 friends and friends of friends: Six Degrees of Separation. Less known, but perhaps more important is the
concept of Three Degrees of Influence[6]. The influence of actions moves through our
social networks three degrees (or in the most basic terms, to and from your
friends’ friends’ friends). This influence dissipates after three degrees for
three reasons, 1) the information loses integrity (think of the telephone
game), 2) the connections become less stable with the loss of strong personal
connections, and 3) most groups throughout history were connected by three
degrees or fewer.
For example,
Chairman Begich and I have not met before today, but if Wikipedia[7]
is accurate we are connected; we are both of Croatian descent, his father and
my mother grew up in the same small town of Eveleth in Northern Minnesota and
our fathers both attended the University of Minnesota. We also have a shared connection on the
professional networking site, LinkedIn.
At one time
these connections between people took place through personal travel, letters
and phone calls. They now happen at
light speed almost anywhere in the world.
We must fully understand how digital communications have and will continue
to change our world. In December,
Facebook saw daily use from an average of 618 million people, roughly twice the
population of the United States each day.[8] In a more personal example, just today I used
my iPad to have a “video conversation” with my daughter 1,000 miles away in
Wisconsin.
Why Regional Partnerships Matter
The National
Preparedness Goal[9] describes the concept of
Whole Community as “a focus on enabling the participation in national
preparedness activities of a wider range of players from the private and
nonprofit sectors, including nongovernmental organizations and the general
public, in conjunction with the participation of Federal, state, and local
governmental partners in order to foster better coordination and working
relationships.”
Regional
partnerships give the preparedness and critical infrastructure resilience
community identity. This sense of
community is critical to our success. It
is an all-encompassing characteristic, a feeling that members have of
belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a
shared confidence that members' needs will be met through their commitment to
be together.
According to
researchers[10], there are four elements necessary
to create a sense of community: membership,
influence, reinforcement and shared emotional connection. Membership is the feeling of belonging or of
sharing a sense of personal connection. Influence can be described as a sense
that members matter and can make a difference, that this influence is
bi-directional. Reinforcement or the integration
and fulfillment of needs: Do I have confidence that the group will meet my
needs? The last element is a shared
emotional connection. Do we have and
will we have a shared history, beliefs, places and experiences? I experienced community in the strongest
sense when I joined the Marine Corps 30 years ago. To this day, when I meet another Marine, we
are instantly and strongly connected.
In the partnerships I have founded, supported and led, I
have seen no limits to the variations in formal organization. Some are
loose gatherings that form naturally and others have been funded, organized and
operated very much like a business.
In a practical sense, successful regional partnerships all have
several characteristics in common. A
small group of committed leaders starts with a clear and shared purpose. They create a simple organization, determining
rules and structure that will prevent major conflicts but is not too cumbersome
to operate. A small number of volunteers
who are committed to seeing the partnership work to completion will enable
accomplishment of goals. Other members
may engage and disengage over time, but without a few constant leaders, the
partnership can fall to irrelevancy.
The larger group is equally connected to the shared purpose, but may be
more loosely tied to the leadership and each other. In social groups, strong ties are good for local cohesion and are
more likely with a small core of leaders, but they but can cause more
fragmentation on a larger scale. In a
larger group, weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that
are not accessible via strong ties. In
other words and perhaps counter intuitively; more weak ties mean the group is more capable
of acting in concert[11].
Successful Partnerships
Those in
homeland security at all levels of government are charged with protection of
our critical infrastructure. The common
estimate is that private businesses and other non-governmental organizations
own 85% of the critical infrastructure of the United States. In very simple terms, if we are to succeed at
keeping people safe, keeping the lights on and the economy moving, no one
doubts that we must work together.
In Alaska,
where an emergency manager once summed up the worst case scenario as “a 9.0 at
40 below”, the Alaska Partnership for Infrastructure Protection[12]
has worked toward the clear goals of direct connection of the private sector to
the State Emergency Operations Center, which now includes the membership Rapid
Alert System during a statewide emergency.
In New York
and New Jersey, the All Hazards Consortium[13]
worked with the local business community during Hurricane Sandy to provide an
unprecedented map of business that were opened or closed during the storm and
recovery.
In Illinois
Chicago FIRST[14] became one of the most
robust partnerships in the post-9/11 years with the goal of forging a
relationship between financial institutions and government at all levels to
promote information sharing about employee safety and business continuity
issues.
The
Safeguard Iowa Partnership[15]
was launched on January 29, 2007 with support of the Iowa Business Council,
Business Executives for National Security and the State of Iowa. Their mission is clear: Strengthening the
capacity of the state to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from
disasters through public-private collaboration.
The
Minnesota InfraGard Members Alliance[16]
grew to 1,400 members (one of the largest chapters) when it set out to create a
trained team within the Minnesota State Emergency Operations Center. This group also held a 5-state private sector
led exercise[17] using social media to
connect and interact with remote participants.
In the
Pacific Northwest, 5 states and 5 Canadian provinces formed the Pacific
Northwest Economic Region and later the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience[18]
with the goal of creating and fostering cross-sector partnerships focused on
infrastructure security and disaster resilience.
Just last month, the SouthEast Emergency Response Network (SEERN)
hosted a call for businesses and partnerships to talk through the collective
and individual response to the Boston Marathon Bombing on April 15th.
These are just a few examples of regional partnerships at work. Their legal and formal structures may vary
greatly as do their specific activities, depending on the needs of their
members, but they are all successful because they recognize the importance of
membership, influence, reinforcement and shared emotional connection in
building a thriving regional resilience community.
Effective Government Efforts
My
experience in public – private partnerships began in 1989. In 2003 through a working group of the
National Infrastructure Advisory Council[19],
we recommended the Department of Homeland Security include the private sector in
a framework for partnership that includes a regional focus. I am pleased to report that while much work
remains, we have achieved a great deal together. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan
has outlined a partnership frame work that engages the private sector and in
calling for the creation of the Regional Consortium Coordinating Council (RCCC),
creates a connection to community partnerships.
Since
assuming the chair role for the RCCC in 2012, my experience with the Office of
Infrastructure Protection (IP) has also been positive. Assistant Secretary Durkovich and her
leadership team have been strong and committed partners.
During
Hurricane Sandy and more recently the Boston Marathon Bombing, DHS leaders
provided regular and open briefings, communicating what they knew even when the
picture was unfolding and incomplete.
This kind of open dialog may not provide more detail than written situation
reports or statements, but it offers context and perspective that cannot be
conveyed through written communication and helps us understand and prioritize
risks to critical infrastructure.
At FEMA, Administrator
Fugate has led a strong effort to both embrace the concept of resilience through
community, but also in engaging through digital media. In its Whole Community Approach to Emergency
Management[20], FEMA is working to
understand community complexity, recognize capabilities, foster relationships,
build partnerships and leverage and strengthen social infrastructure. Toward these goals, FEMA is active on
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. FEMA
Private Sector Office has also stood up a National Business Emergency
Operations Center to engage private sector in planning and response to crises. Additionally, in partnership with Citizen
Corps, FEMA has launched a program for preparedness and response volunteers
called FEMA Corps.
FEMA also
has and continues to play an important role in one of the most successful, and
cost-effective partnership efforts of the last 40 years; Community Emergency
Response Teams[21] (CERT). In February, New York City Mayor Bloomberg
recognized CERT members[22];
“CERT members volunteered throughout the Hurricane Sandy response and recovery
efforts, even when their own homes suffered severe damage from the storm. That’s the kind of dedication that really
defines CERT volunteers. You are our most direct connection to communities in
times of crisis, and you are a vitally important part of helping us prepare New
Yorkers before a crisis starts.” The
CERT model is successful because it provides a “partnership kit”. Training and “branding” are standard
providing the identity, purpose and structure for a successful
partnership. Groups themselves are
formed more organically in established communities.
Innovations
Regional
partnerships and government agencies are making progress, but the truly
innovative and rapid advances are happening from within our communities
themselves.
Crisis
Commons[23]
is a global community of volunteers from technology, crisis response
organizations, government agencies, and citizens that are working together to
build and use technology tools to help respond to disasters and improve
resiliency and response before a crisis.
Google
Public Alerts[24] takes information from
the National Weather Service, USGS and other sources to provide a platform for
disseminating emergency messages such as evacuation notices for hurricanes, and
everyday alerts such as storm warnings. The goal of Google Public Alerts is to
show relevant official weather, public safety and earthquake alerts in the
U.S., Japan, and Canada when you search on Google Search.
Team Rubicon[25]
sets out with two important goals, the first is to engage returning veterans in
a sense of purpose and community while they reintegrate into civilian life and
the second is to provide trained and coordinated volunteers during
disasters. Team Rubicon realized that
natural disasters present many of the same problems that confront troops in
Iraq and Afghanistan: unstable populations, limited resources, horrific sights,
sounds and smells. The skills cultivated
on those same battlefields – emergency medicine, risk assessment and
mitigation, teamwork and decisive leadership – are invaluable in disaster
zones.
These are
just a few examples and there are countless more where they come from. We need to learn from them and use our unique
strengths and capabilities to advance our shared goals for a resilient America.
Path Forward
But there is
much more work to do. Most businesses
understand they play a role in promoting the long-term economic prosperity and
quality of life for everyone in our communities. Put simply, if the community prospers, then
so do businesses. And, most are
committed to assuming their responsibility for our shared resilience. But too many are still not engaged in
building community resilience. We need
to engage them better.
And we need
to adapt to social media much faster than we are today. If we are to be successful in our work toward
a resilient Nation, we must not only understand the basics of posting updates
and tweeting, we must fully embrace it and learn to innovate within it. The
mindset shift required of us now is no less than a pilot flying the first jets.
We may be in a time of transition that is significant as the world saw in the
century after Gutenberg introduced his printing press. Only this time, we have
weeks, months and years to adapt, rather than centuries.
I leave you
today with a challenge to move quickly to create programs that build on the
success of Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). CERT does a good job of enabling local
community resilience at a relative low cost.
But CERT doesn’t address the full range of disaster volunteers. The CERT program can be applied to volunteers
whether they want to respond in social media or by chainsaws and clearing
debris.
Together, we
can create efficient and effective programs for resilience that reflect where
Americans engage in their communities.
Here are two examples to start the conversation:
Social Media Volunteers - Create digital version of the
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) – communities will respond to a
disaster and more frequently the fastest and most capable communication and
coordination happens in the digital environment. The fastest and often most-coordinated
understanding of a disaster as well as available resources and volunteers
happens online. In one potential
example, I have described these in a concept called Social Media Active Response
Teams (SMART)[26].
Skilled Volunteer Responders – Like the example of Team
Rubicon, there is a need for volunteers who are trained and equipped at higher
levels than the light search and rescue that is the hallmark of CERT
teams. FEMA Corps[27],
a new program for volunteers to support FEMA response is a step in this
direction. I assert there is a role for
government in providing the program and structure that can enable volunteers
across the United States to follow in the footsteps of Team Rubicon.
Thank you
for your time today.
[1]
World Bank
[2] US
Census (http://www.census.gov)
[3] US
Census (http://www.census.gov/newsroom/emergencies/)
[4]
National Climactic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/overview)
[5] Travers, Jeffrey & Stanley Milgram. 1969. "An
Experimental Study of the Small World Problem."
[6] Tasha Bock, James H. Fowler, Nicholas A. Christakis (http://connectedthebook.com/index.html)
[7] Mark
Begich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Begich)
[8]
Facebook by the Numbers (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57566550-93/facebook-by-the-numbers-1.06-billion-monthly-active-users/)
[9]
National Preparedness Goal (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/prepared/npg.pdf)
[10] A
Definition and Theory of Sense of Community (http://www.drdavidmcmillan.com/article-1/)
[11] Granovetter's
Theory of the Strength of Weak Ties (http://www.analytictech.com/networks/weakties.htm)
[12] Alaska
Partnership for Infrastructure Protection (http://www.ak-prepared.com/APIP)
[13]
All Hazards Consortium (http://www.ahcusa.org/)
[14]
Chicago FIRST (https://www.chicagofirst.org/)
[15]
Safeguard Iowa (https://safeguardiowa.wildapricot.org/FAQ)
[16]
Minnesota InfraGard (http://mninfragard.us/)
[17]
Northern Lights (http://northernlightscip.blogspot.com/p/exercise-overview.html)
[18]
Center for Regional Resilience (http://www.regionalresilience.org/)
[19]
Cross Sector Interdependencies and Risk Assessment Guidance (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/irawgreport.pdf)
[20]
Whole Community Approach to Emergency Management (http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=4941)
[21]
FEMA – CERT (http://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams)
[22]
NYC Press Release (http://goo.gl/RDQPK)
[23]
Crisis Commons (http://crisiscommons.org/about/)
[24]
Google Public Alerts (http://www.google.org/crisisresponse/publicalerts/)
[25]
Team Rubicon (http://teamrubiconusa.org/)
[26]
SMART – Teams for Social Response (http://mninfragardstudent.wordpress.com/smart-teams/)
[27]
FEMA Corps (http://www.fema.gov/fema-corps)
Friday, April 5, 2013
Climate change: "real" threat or just a political issue?
Has the topic of climate change come up in your conversations since Sandy became the largest hurricane recorded ever last year or March 2013 in the Northern US has become the winter that won't leave?
In
announcing that climate change is one of the key threats to our National
Security, Leon Panetta said, "Rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief."
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