Disaster Response and Recovery Complex (left); Advanced Emergency Responder Training Institute (upper right); Applied Research and Technology Laboratory
When Disaster Strikes, You Could Be on Your Own
February / March 2011
Volume 9 Number 1
Everyone would like to believe that when the world turns upside down, help is just around the corner. Most Americans feel secure in the notion that if disaster strikes, the public infrastructure will quickly organize a massive rescue operation. After all, we pay taxes for police and fire departments, as well as for county, state and federal agencies that are trained to scramble quickly for major emergencies.
But here’s what some experts are warning: Don’t bet your life on first responders.
Recent disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the oil platform blowout in the Gulf of Mexico have provided ample evidence that deploying resources for a widespread disaster is agonizingly slow, despite the best intentions of government. In fact, there are scenarios in which government may be incapable of responding for an extended period of time.
For this reason, emergency preparedness is moving in a new direction, one that seeks to ensure self-sufficiency for days, maybe weeks after a catastrophic event. The underlying assumption is that survival will rely on a grassroots effort from neighborhood organizations, businesses and legions of volunteers, most of whom currently have neither the training nor the resources to cope with disaster.
With that challenge in mind, Silicon Valley Joint Venture—an influential consortium of public, private and institutional movers and shakers—has embarked on a mission to establish a state-of-the-art non-profit Disaster Resiliency Center at the NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. This facility would integrate teaching, training and research while simultaneously serving as a base camp for a response and recovery effort in the event of a disaster.
Started with seed funding from the Department of Homeland Security, Santa Clara County and some anonymous donors, the effort has moved from concept to planning. Steven Jordan, a consultant on emergency services from Traiden Global Solutions, and retired Major General Peter J. Gravett have been hired as co-directors. Mockups have already been developed for a sizeable operation that would house three wings: the Disaster Response and Recovery Complex, the Advanced Emergency Responder Training Institute and the Applied Research and Technology Laboratory.
“We live in an age of declining budgets and increasing threats, but we still have the task of protecting our citizens and businesses,” says Jordan. “Unfortunately, the reality is that we can no longer look at first responders as the first tier of response.”
To underscore the dilemma, Jordan points to San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley and America’s tenth largest city with a population of 1 million-plus. “San Jose has 175 firefighters and 35 engine companies on duty around the clock. In major disasters, estimates are that 20 percent of the inhabitants will need assistance in the first hour, which means that 200,000 are at risk,” he says. “Of that number, 20 percent will be in critical condition, needing attention in the first few minutes. We’re talking about 40,000 people. But since there is the likelihood of losing one-fifth of the fire stations, because of the disaster itself, the remaining stations would have to respond immediately to nearly 300 people each. That is statistically impossible.”
So the burden for survival, says Jordan, falls on the community. “That means training the 12,000 employees at Google’s campus in Mountain View as well as students and teachers in every school. That means having robust community groups that are bigger than Neighborhood Watch and CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams).” The national culture of top-down response, he says, needs to change to bottom-up self-sufficiency. He adds: “Eighty-eight percent of the demographics of the U.S. are protected by volunteers, but they don’t get the same training opportunities or the same resources that we provide to municipalities,” he says. “We’ve got to address these disparities.”
Jordan describes the Resiliency Center as “a platform of opportunity for the collaborative effort to enhance emergency management and disaster preparedness.” He envisions putting businesses, community groups, educational institutions and government agencies on equal footing in planning for major emergencies. To that end, the fledgling organization has enlisted advisors and board members from such diverse entities as Carnegie Mellon and San Jose State universities, Lockheed Martin, NASA Ames, Google, Applied Materials, Accenture, Juniper Networks, SRI International, Airship Earth, Red Cross and the California Air National Guard.
Decommissioned in 2005 from its historic use as Moffett Field Naval Air Station, the sprawling former military base is home to the NASA Ames Research Center. If enough funds can be raised for the Silicon Valley Disaster Resiliency Center, the layout could cover nine acres and consist of multiple special-use buildings, according to a conceptual design outlined by Robert Dolci, director of emergency services for NASA Ames. The Resiliency Center would house an operations management command center, an emergency operations communications center, offices for state and local law enforcement, at least 76,000 square feet of warehousing for cold storage and medical supplies, a large training area, a biochemistry lab, technology development space, a 400-seat auditorium and accommodations for emergency responders.
One feature of the Advanced Emergency Responder Training Institute would be something called the Disaster Simulation Village. This might look like the back lot of a Hollywood movie studio, where homes, businesses and streets would be built to offer a realistic environment for training exercises.
Adjoining the village would be the Applied Research and Technology Laboratory, which might explore everything from advanced robotics to emergency alternative fuel sources in the event that refineries are out of commission. The idea is that the lab would be a sort of neutral zone for otherwise fiercely competing Silicon Valley companies, allowing them to offer their technologies and expand their research for the cause. This directly reflects a key initiative of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, which sees itself as a cooperative forum for improving the wellbeing of the community.
What will it take to make this dream a reality? The answer: A hefty donation from someone or some agency. Fortunately, there is a model to follow. Just last November, a similar facility, the Morrelly Homeland Security Center, was commissioned in Bethpage, New York. It took five years and a $25 million grant from the State of New York to launch the project, which was the brainchild of the Applied Science Foundation for Homeland Security. It is the first privately owned facility of its kind in the United States.
Located 20 miles from New York City, the three-story, 90,000-square-foot building contains a variety of command and control capabilities and is home to Nassau County’s Office of Emergency Management. The goal of the non-profit center is to help protect the U.S. from manmade and natural disasters by creating a private/public partnership to “develop and commercialize resilient and sustainable homeland security products and services,” according to its vision statement. It provides a command and control center for government agencies as well as training and exercise programs for first responders.
Already, a dozen companies that specialize in emergency and security technologies have set up shop in the Morrelly Center, providing a powerful think tank. Among them are:
• Applied Visions, Inc., which develops visual applications for national security, including command and control and battlefield visualization tools.
• Alliant Techsystems, Inc., an aerospace, defense and security company.
• Balfour Technologies, which has created a four-dimensional browser to provide situational awareness for human interaction, analysis and response through a fully integrated single four-dimensional landscape.
• Northrop Grumman Corporation, a leading global security company that offers solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.
• PMC, a mission-critical engineering technology company that focuses on improving reliability, energy conservation, energy security and the operational needs of critical environments.
• SiCore, a developer of cyber security products.
• V.C.O.R.E. Solutions, LLC (Virtual Command Operations and Response Environments), which is a joint venture of Balfour Technologies and Power Management Concepts. V.C.O.R.E. offers a four-dimensional visualization platform that draws from surveillance and infrastructure data to create a single common operating environment that provides automated situational awareness.
The Morrelly Center already boasts an impressive list of government tenants including the FBI, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department, New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, and the Transportation Security Administration. Within the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management are communications responsibilities for 18 police departments and 17 fire departments. Now, the county agency has all emergency service communications and monitoring within one building.
The splintered communications of first response agencies continue to hamper emergency operations throughout most of the U.S. nearly a decade after 9/11. Police and fire agencies still don’t have direct radio communications with each other in many jurisdictions, and that problem is often exacerbated with the involvement of state and federal agencies. Add to that the different training regimens, policies and procedures and it’s easy to see why multi-agency coordination has been so difficult to achieve.
The San Francisco Bay Area is trying to connect the dots through an annual series of law enforcement exercises called Urban Shield. This four-day event tests the training of SWAT teams from the local college police force to the FBI, as well as establishing communications protocols among dozens of police and fire departments, county sheriff’s departments and emergency medical teams. Considered the largest event of its type in the U.S., Urban Shield is organized by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, which is headquartered in Oakland.
During the 2010 event last October, first responders were dispatched to 34 different exercise sites spanning 700 square miles in four counties. Training involved nearly 4,000 people, with representatives from F.E.M.A., the U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, F.B.I., U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as well as dozens of city police and fire departments. There were also international teams from Israel, Bahrain and Jordan. The threat scenarios ran the gamut, from the hostile takeover of San Francisco City Hall to the hijacking of a passenger train. There were also simulated threats to the drinking water supply, a WMD attack at a metropolitan airport and the sabotage of regional telephone systems.
As part of Urban Shield, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern invited technology firms to participate. For example, Cisco Systems installed its TelePresence video conferencing equipment in a half-dozen command centers —linking them to the overall emergency coordination center—and there were contributions from video surveillance system integration companies, telecommunications providers and suppliers of specialized law enforcement equipment such as bomb disposal robots.
This year, the Bay Area will host another major security event—the National UASI (Urban Area Security Initiative) Homeland Security Conference, which will be held June 20 in San Francisco. The conference is expected to attract representatives and decision-makers from the country’s 64 largest metropolitan areas and from all 54 states and territories. (Information: www.urbanareas.org)
With the momentum to establish private disaster planning centers on the East and West coasts, the opportunities for technology companies to deploy their products and services—and to innovate with new ideas—have never been greater. At least, on the issue of protecting the country, there is hope that the public and private sectors can establish ongoing rapport.
As Steven Jordan campaigns to make the Silicon Valley Disaster Resiliency Center a reality, he explains the impetus that drives his supporters: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference in the way we do things.”
Ken Castle reports from Silicon Valley for Innovation.
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