Hurricane Katrina
Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters Gao ID: GAO-06-643 May 15, 2006Hurricane Katrina was one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history. Despite a large deployment of resources at all levels, many have regarded the federal response as inadequate. GAO has a body of ongoing work that covers the federal government's preparedness and response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Due to widespread congressional interest, this review was performed under the Comptroller General's authority. It examined (1) the extent to which pre-Katrina plans and training exercises reflected the military assistance that might be required during a catastrophic, domestic, natural disaster, (2) the military support provided in response to Katrina and factors that affected that response, and (3) the actions the military is taking to address lessons learned from Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophe.
The military mounted a massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved many lives and greatly assisted recovery efforts but many lessons are emerging. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and exercises did not incorporate lessons learned from past catastrophes to fully delineate the military capabilities needed to respond to a catastrophe. For example, the government's National Response Plan made little distinction between the military response to a smaller regional disaster and its response to a catastrophic natural disaster. In addition, DOD's emergency response plan for providing military assistance to civil authorities during disasters lacked adequate detail. The plan did not: account for the full range of assistance that might be provided by DOD, divide tasks between the National Guard and the federal responders, or establish response time frames. National Guard state plans were also inadequate and did not account for the level of outside assistance that would be needed during a catastrophe, and they were not synchronized with federal plans. Moreover, plans had not been tested with a robust exercise program. None of the exercises that were conducted prior to Katrina called for a major deployment of DOD capabilities in response to a catastrophic hurricane. As a result, a lack of understanding exists within the military and among federal, state, and local responders as to the types of assistance and capabilities that DOD might provide in the event of a catastrophe, the timing of this assistance, and the respective contributions of the active-duty and National Guard forces. Despite the lack of planning, the military took proactive steps and responded with about 50,000 National Guard and 20,000 active federal personnel. Based on its June 2005 civil support strategy, DOD relied heavily on the Guard during the initial response. Active duty forces were alerted prior to landfall and key capabilities such as aviation, medical, and engineering forces were initially deployed. Growing concerns about the magnitude of the disaster prompted DOD to deploy large, active ground units to supplement the Guard beginning about 5 days after landfall. Several factors affected the military's ability to gain situational awareness and organize and execute its response, including a lack of timely damage assessments, communications difficulties, force integration problems, uncoordinated search and rescue efforts, and unexpected logistics responsibilities. Without detailed plans to address these factors, DOD and the federal government risk being unprepared for the next catastrophe. DOD is examining the lessons learned from its own reviews and those of the White House and the Congress, and it is beginning to take actions to address the lessons and prepare for the next catastrophe. It is too early to evaluate DOD's actions, but many appear to hold promise. However, some issues identified after Katrina such as damage assessments are long-standing problems that were identified by GAO after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. They will be difficult to address because they are complex and cut across agency boundaries. Thus, substantial improvement will require sustained attention from the highest management levels in DOD, and across the government.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-06-643, Hurricane Katrina: Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters
This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-06-643
entitled 'Hurricane Katrina: Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide
the Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters' which was
released on May 15, 2006.
This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part
of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every
attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of
the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text
descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the
end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided
but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed
version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic
replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail
your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this
document to Webmaster@gao.gov.
This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this
material separately.
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Report to the Congressional Committees:
May 2006:
Hurricane Katrina:
Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the Military's Response to
Catastrophic Natural Disasters:
GAO-06-643:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-06-643, a report to congressional committees.
Why GAO Did This Study:
Hurricane Katrina was one of the largest natural disasters in U.S.
history. Despite a large deployment of resources at all levels, many
have regarded the federal response as inadequate. GAO has a body of
ongoing work that covers the federal government‘s preparedness and
response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Due to widespread
congressional interest, this review was performed under the Comptroller
General‘s authority. It examined (1) the extent to which pre-Katrina
plans and training exercises reflected the military assistance that
might be required during a catastrophic, domestic, natural disaster,
(2) the military support provided in response to Katrina and factors
that affected that response, and (3) the actions the military is taking
to address lessons learned from Katrina and to prepare for the next
catastrophe.
What GAO Found:
The military mounted a massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved
many lives and greatly assisted recovery efforts but many lessons are
emerging. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and exercises did
not incorporate lessons learned from past catastrophes to fully
delineate the military capabilities needed to respond to a catastrophe.
For example, the government‘s National Response Plan made little
distinction between the military response to a smaller regional
disaster and its response to a catastrophic natural disaster. In
addition, DOD‘s emergency response plan for providing military
assistance to civil authorities during disasters lacked adequate
detail. The plan did not: account for the full range of assistance that
might be provided by DOD, divide tasks between the National Guard and
the federal responders, or establish response time frames. National
Guard state plans were also inadequate and did not account for the
level of outside assistance that would be needed during a catastrophe,
and they were not synchronized with federal plans. Moreover, plans had
not been tested with a robust exercise program. None of the exercises
that were conducted prior to Katrina called for a major deployment of
DOD capabilities in response to a catastrophic hurricane. As a result,
a lack of understanding exists within the military and among federal,
state, and local responders as to the types of assistance and
capabilities that DOD might provide in the event of a catastrophe, the
timing of this assistance, and the respective contributions of the
active-duty and National Guard forces.
Despite the lack of planning, the military took proactive steps and
responded with about 50,000 National Guard and 20,000 active federal
personnel. Based on its June 2005 civil support strategy, DOD relied
heavily on the Guard during the initial response. Active duty forces
were alerted prior to landfall and key capabilities such as aviation,
medical, and engineering forces were initially deployed. Growing
concerns about the magnitude of the disaster prompted DOD to deploy
large, active ground units to supplement the Guard beginning about 5
days after landfall. Several factors affected the military‘s ability
to gain situational awareness and organize and execute its response,
including a lack of timely damage assessments, communications
difficulties, force integration problems, uncoordinated search and
rescue efforts, and unexpected logistics responsibilities. Without
detailed plans to address these factors, DOD and the federal government
risk being unprepared for the next catastrophe.
DOD is examining the lessons learned from its own reviews and those of
the White House and the Congress, and it is beginning to take actions
to address the lessons and prepare for the next catastrophe. It is too
early to evaluate DOD‘s actions, but many appear to hold promise.
However, some issues identified after Katrina such as damage
assessments are long-standing problems that were identified by GAO
after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. They will be difficult to address
because they are complex and cut across agency boundaries. Thus,
substantial improvement will require sustained attention from the
highest management levels in DOD, and across the government.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is making recommendations to improve the military response to
catastrophic disasters. The recommendations address the needs to
clearly delineate military capabilities in the National Response Plan
and to improve military plans and exercises. The recommendations
specifically address the integration of the military‘s National Guard
and active duty and Reserve forces, as well as response problems
associated with damage assessment, communication, search and rescue,
and logistics issues. DOD partially concurred with all of our
recommendations.
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-643].
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Sharon Pickup at (202)
512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Pre-Katrina Preparations Did Not Fully Address the Military
Capabilities Needed during a Catastrophic Natural Disaster:
The Military's Response to Hurricane Katrina was Massive but Faced
Several Challenges:
DOD Has Begun Taking Actions to Address Catastrophic Disaster Response
Problems, Some of Which are Complex and Long-standing:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Office of The Secretary Of Defense:
DOD Agencies:
Commands:
Military Services:
Task Forces:
National Guard:
Appendix II: NRP Emergency Support Function Responsibilities:
Appendix III: Comments From the Department of Defense:
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Related GAO Products:
Preparedness:
Federal Response:
Command and Control:
Recovery:
Figure:
Figure 1: Buildup of Military Forces Supporting Hurricane Katrina
Operations:
Abbreviations:
DOD: Department of Defense:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency:
NRP: National Response Plan:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
May 15, 2006:
Congressional Committees:
When Hurricane Katrina made its final landfall along the Louisiana/
Mississippi border on August 29, 2005, it quickly became one of the
largest natural disasters in the history of the United States. Despite
a massive deployment of resources and support from both military and
civilian agencies, many have regarded the federal response as
inadequate. As local, state, and federal governments responded in the
days following Katrina, confusion surfaced as to what responsibilities
the military[Footnote 1] has and what capabilities it would provide in
planning and responding to a catastrophic event. As recovery operations
continue, the nation is quickly approaching the 2006 hurricane season,
and faces other natural and man-made threats that could result in a
catastrophe at any instant.
About 9 months prior to Katrina's landfall, the National Response Plan
(NRP) was issued to frame the federal response to domestic emergencies
ranging from smaller, regional disasters to incidents of national
significance. The plan generally calls for a reactive federal response
following specific state requests for assistance. However, the NRP also
contains a catastrophic incident annex that calls for a proactive
federal response when catastrophes overwhelm local and state
responders. The NRP generally assigns the Department of Defense (DOD) a
supporting role in disaster response, but even in this role, DOD has
specific planning responsibilities. For example, the NRP requires
federal agencies to incorporate the accelerated response requirements
of the NRP's catastrophic incident annex into their own emergency
response plans.
Within DOD, the Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, which
was issued in June 2005, envisions a greater reliance on National Guard
and Reserve forces for homeland missions. The military response to
domestic disasters typically varies depending on the severity of an
event. During smaller disasters, an affected state's National Guard may
provide a sufficient response but larger disasters and catastrophes
that overwhelm the state may require assistance from out-of-state
National Guard or federal troops. For Katrina, the response was heavily
reliant on the National Guard, which is consistent with DOD's Strategy
for Homeland Defense and Civil Support. This represents a departure
from past catastrophes when active-duty forces played a larger role in
the response.
During disaster response missions, National Guard troops typically
operate under the control of the state governors. However, the National
Guard Bureau has responsibility for formulating, developing, and
coordinating policies, programs, and plans affecting Army and Air
National Guard personnel, and it serves as the channel of communication
between the United States Army, the United States Air Force, and the
National Guard in U.S. states and territories. Although the Chief of
the National Guard Bureau does not have operational control of National
Guard forces in the states and territories, he has overall
responsibility for National Guard Military Support to Civil Authorities
programs. The United States Northern Command also has a support to
civil authorities mission. Because of this mission, Northern Command
was responsible for commanding the federal military response to
Hurricane Katrina.
Over the years, we have completed a number of reviews related to
disaster preparedness and response. Our past work has shown that both
DOD and National Guard forces play key roles in the wake of
catastrophic disasters.[Footnote 2] Our recent Katrina testimony and
statement,[Footnote 3] along with White House and congressional
reports,[Footnote 4] have highlighted deficiencies in the NRP's
implementation and thoroughness. For example, the Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security did not implement the NRP's
Catastrophic Incident Annex during Katrina. In addition, the plan's
catastrophic incident supplement, which was supposed to have listed
specific proactive actions agencies would take in response to a
catastrophe, had not been approved during the 9 months between the
plan's issuance and Katrina's landfall.
We currently have a large body of ongoing work to address preparation,
response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts related to hurricanes
Katrina and Rita. Due to the widespread congressional interest in these
subjects, our work is being completed under the Comptroller General's
authority. This report presents the results of our review of the
military response to Hurricane Katrina, which examined (1) the extent
to which pre-Katrina plans and training exercises reflected the
military assistance that might be required during a catastrophic,
domestic, natural disaster, (2) the support that the military provided
in responding to Katrina and factors that affected that response, and
(3) the actions the military is taking to address lessons learned from
Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic event.
To address our first two objectives, we traveled to the affected areas,
interviewed officials who led the response efforts, and collected,
compared, and analyzed data from numerous military organizations that
provided support to the Hurricane Katrina response operations. We also
reviewed the military responses to prior catastrophes and analyzed
disaster planning documents and exercise reports. To determine the
actions that the military is taking to address lessons learned from
Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic event, we collected
and analyzed after action and lessons learned documents from a wide
range of military and civilian organizations, and we interviewed
responsible officials and reviewed available documentation on DOD's
actions to address lessons learned and prepare for the next
catastrophic event. A detailed discussion of our scope and methodology
can be found in appendix I. We determined the reliability of the
military response data we obtained by interviewing DOD officials
knowledgeable about the data and corroborating the information with
information gathered from other DOD and military service organizations.
We conducted our review from September 2005 through April 2006 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and training exercises
involving the military did not sufficiently incorporate lessons learned
from past catastrophes to fully delineate the military capabilities
that could be needed to respond to a catastrophic natural disaster. Pre-
Katrina plans involving the military were inadequate at multiple
levels: (1) at the federal government level, through the NRP (2) at the
DOD level, and (3) at the state level through National Guard plans.
First, the NRP made little distinction between the military response to
smaller, regional disasters and the military response to large-scale,
catastrophic, natural disasters even though past disasters had shown
that the military tends to play a much larger role in catastrophes.
Second, DOD, in its own emergency response plan, did not fully address
the military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a
catastrophic natural disaster. DOD has procedures to develop specific
detailed operations and contingency plans for its missions, but opted
to use its least detailed type of plan, a functional plan, as its
emergency response plan to provide defense assistance to civil
authorities during disasters or catastrophes. This plan was adequate
for most disasters, but did not account for the full range of tasks and
missions the military could be expected to provide in the event of a
catastrophe, despite the NRP requirement that agencies incorporate the
accelerated response requirements of the NRP's catastrophic incident
annex into their emergency response plans. Another significant
shortfall of DOD's pre-Katrina planning was that the department did not
fully address the division of tasks between National Guard resources
under the governors' control and federal resources under Presidential
control, nor did it establish time frames for the response. Third,
Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard plans were not synchronized
with DOD plans and were inadequate for a catastrophe of Katrina's
magnitude. For example, the plans did not adequately account for the
outside assistance that could be needed during a catastrophe. In
addition, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, who has overall
responsibility for military support to civil authorities programs in
the National Guard, had not coordinated in advance with the Adjutants
General in the states and territories to develop plans to identify the
types of units that were likely to be available to respond to disasters
across the country. Moreover, disaster plans had not been tested and
refined with a robust exercise program. The Homeland Security Council
has issued planning scenarios--including a major hurricane scenario--
that provide the basis for disaster exercises throughout the nation.
However, few exercises led by the Department of Homeland Security or
DOD focused on catastrophic natural disasters and none of the exercises
called for a major deployment of DOD capabilities in response to a
catastrophic hurricane. In addition, a 2004 catastrophic hurricane
exercise had revealed problems with situational awareness and
operational control of forces that still had not been resolved when
Katrina made landfall in August 2005. As a result of the inadequate
plans and exercises, when Hurricane Katrina struck, a lack of
understanding existed within the military and among federal, state, and
local responders as to the types of assistance and capabilities that
the military might provide, the timing of this assistance, and the
respective contributions of the National Guard and federal military
forces.
Even though there was a lack of detailed planning, the military mounted
a massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved many lives and
greatly assisted recovery efforts, but several factors affected this
response. The military proactively took steps and supported the Katrina
response with more than 50,000 National Guard and 20,000 federal
military personnel. This heavy reliance on the National Guard was based
on DOD's Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, which was
issued in June 2005. However, it represents a departure from past
catastrophes such as Hurricane Andrew, when the National Guard
constituted less than 20 percent of the military response. For Katrina,
active-duty forces were alerted prior to landfall and after landfall
key capabilities such as aviation, medical, and engineering forces were
initially deployed. Growing concerns about the magnitude of the
disaster prompted DOD to deploy large active-duty ground units to
supplement the National Guard, beginning about 5 days after landfall.
However, a number of interrelated factors affected the military's
ability to leverage its resources to gain situational awareness and
effectively organize and execute its Katrina response efforts. Without
detailed plans to address each of the following factors, the military
risks being unprepared for the next catastrophe that strikes the United
States.
* Lack of timely damage assessment. As with Hurricane Andrew, an
underlying problem was the failure to quickly assess damage and gain
situational awareness. The NRP notes that local and state officials are
responsible for damage assessments during a disaster, but it also notes
that state and local officials could be overwhelmed in a catastrophe.
Despite this incongruous situation, the NRP did not specify the
proactive means necessary for the federal government to gain
situational awareness when state and local officials are overwhelmed.
Moreover, DOD's planning did not call for the use of the military's
extensive reconnaissance assets to meet the NRP catastrophic incident
annex's requirement for a proactive response to catastrophic incidents.
Because state and local officials were overwhelmed and the military's
extensive reconnaissance capabilities were not effectively leveraged as
part of a proactive federal effort to conduct timely comprehensive
damage assessments, the military began organizing and deploying its
response without fully understanding the extent of the damage or the
required assistance. According to military officials, available
reconnaissance assets could have provided additional situational
awareness.
* Communications difficulties. Hurricane Katrina caused significant
damage to the communication infrastructure in Louisiana and
Mississippi, which further contributed to a lack of situational
awareness for military and civilian officials. Even when local
officials were able to conduct damage assessments, the lack of
communications assets caused delays in transmitting the assessments.
Under the NRP, the Department of Homeland Security has responsibility
for coordinating the communications portion of disaster response
operations. However, neither the NRP, the Department of Homeland
Security, nor DOD fully identified the extensive military communication
capabilities that could be leveraged as part of a proactive federal
response to a catastrophe. DOD's plan addressed internal military
communications requirements but not the communication requirements of
communities affected by the disaster. Because state and local officials
were overwhelmed and the Department of Homeland Security and DOD waited
for requests for assistance rather than deploying a proactive response,
some of the military's available communication assets were never
requested or deployed. In addition, some deployed National Guard assets
were underutilized because the sending states placed restrictions on
their use. Communications problems, like damage assessment problems,
were also highlighted following Hurricane Andrew.
* Problems with integrating military forces. The military did not
adequately plan for the integration of large numbers of deployed troops
from different commands during disaster response operations. For
example, a Louisiana plan to integrate military responders from outside
the state called for the reception of not more than 300 troops per day.
However, in the days following Hurricane Katrina, more than 20,000
National Guard members from other states arrived in Louisiana to join
the response effort. In addition, the National Guard and federal
responses were coordinated across several chains of command but not
integrated, which led to some inefficiencies and duplication of effort.
Because military plans and exercises had not provided a means for
integrating the response, no one had the total picture of the forces on
the ground, the forces that were on the way, the missions that had been
resourced, and the missions that still needed to be completed. Also, a
key mobilization statute[Footnote 5] limits DOD's Reserve and National
Guard units and members from being involuntarily ordered to federal
active duty for disaster response. As a result, all the reservists who
responded to Hurricane Katrina were volunteers. The process of lining
up volunteers can be time consuming and is more appropriate for
mobilizing individuals than it is for mobilizing entire units or
capabilities that may be needed during a catastrophe. After Hurricane
Andrew, we identified this issue in two 1993 reports,[Footnote 6] but
it has not been resolved.
* Uncoordinated search and rescue efforts. While tens of thousands of
people were rescued after Katrina, the lack of clarity in search and
rescue plans led to operations that, according to aviation officials,
were not as efficient as they could have been. The NRP addressed only
part of the search and rescue mission, and the National Search and
Rescue Plan had not been updated to reflect the NRP. As a result, the
search and rescue operations of the National Guard and federal military
responders were not fully coordinated, and military operations were not
integrated with the search and rescue operations of the Coast Guard and
other rescuers. At least two different locations were assigning search
and rescue tasks to military helicopter pilots operating over New
Orleans, and no one had the total picture of the missions that had been
resourced and the missions that still needed to be performed.
* Logistics challenges. DOD had difficulty gaining visibility over
supplies and commodities when the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) asked DOD to assume a significant portion of its logistics
responsibilities. Under the NRP, FEMA is responsible for coordinating
logistics during disaster response efforts, but during Hurricane
Katrina, FEMA quickly became overwhelmed. Four days after Katrina's
landfall, FEMA asked DOD to take responsibility for procurement,
transportation, and distribution of ice, water, food, fuel, and medical
supplies. However, because FEMA lacked the capability to maintain
visibility--from order through final delivery--of the supplies and
commodities it had ordered, DOD did not know the precise locations of
the FEMA-ordered supplies and commodities when it assumed FEMA's
logistics responsibilities. As a result of its lack of visibility over
the meals that were in transit, DOD had to airlift 1.7 million meals to
Mississippi to respond to a request from the Adjutant General of
Mississippi, who was concerned that food supplies were nearly exhausted.
DOD is beginning to take actions to address lessons learned from
Hurricane Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic event. The
department has been conducting its own lessons learned reviews and is
also examining the lessons and recommendations in reports from a White
House review panel and congressional oversight committees, and it is
beginning to take actions to address them. While it is too early to
fully evaluate the effectiveness of the DOD actions, many appear to
hold promise for improving future responses. For example, to improve
interagency coordination, DOD is placing specially trained military
personnel into FEMA regional offices. It is also establishing two
command posts capable of deploying as joint task forces for
catastrophes. In addition, DOD officials stated that the department is
currently updating its emergency response plan and plans to use a
contingency plan rather than a less detailed functional plan to guide
its military support to civil authority missions. However, some
problems, like the damage assessments and logistics visibility are long-
standing, and were reported after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Addressing
these problems will be difficult because they are complex and cut
across agency boundaries. Thus, substantial improvement will occur only
if the actions receive sustained management attention at the highest
levels of DOD, and from the key officials from across the government.
We are making four recommendations to improve the military's response
to catastrophic events. First, we recommend that the Secretary of
Defense provide the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
with proposed revisions to the NRP that will fully address the
proactive functions the military will be expected to perform during a
catastrophic incident, for inclusion in the next NRP update. Second, we
recommend that the Secretary of Defense establish milestones and
expedite the development of detailed plans and exercises to fully
account for the unique capabilities and support that the military is
likely to provide to civil authorities in response to the full range of
domestic disasters, including catastrophes. The plans and exercises
should specifically address the:
* use of reconnaissance capabilities to assess damage,
* use of communications capabilities to facilitate support to civil
authorities,
* integration of active component and National Guard and Reserve forces,
* use of search and rescue capabilities and the military's role in
search and rescue, and:
* role the military will be expected to play in logistics.
Third, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Chief of
the National Guard Bureau to work with the state governors and
adjutants general to develop and maintain a list of the types of
capabilities the National Guard will likely provide in response to
domestic natural disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance
agreements, along with the associated units that will provide these
capabilities. In addition, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to make this information
available to Northern Command, U.S. Joint Forces Command, and other
organizations with federal military support to civil authority planning
responsibilities. Finally, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense
establish milestones and identify the types of scalable federal
military capabilities and the units that will provide those
capabilities in response to the full range of domestic disasters and
catastrophes covered by DOD's military support to civil authorities
plans.
In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD partially concurred with
our recommendations and stated that the report was thorough and made a
significant contribution to DOD's plans to improve the department's
support to civil authorities during domestic disaster incidents. In
addition, DOD provided technical comments, which we incorporated as
appropriate.
Background:
The National Response Plan:
The National Response Plan (NRP) was issued in December 2004 to
establish a single, comprehensive framework for the management of
domestic incidents, including natural disasters. The NRP is the federal
government's plan to coordinate its resources and capabilities across
agencies and integrate them with other levels of government, as well as
private sector organizations, for prevention of, preparedness for,
response to, and recovery from natural disasters, terrorism, or other
emergencies. According to the plan, the NRP serves as the foundation
for the development of detailed supplemental plans and procedures to
effectively and efficiently implement federal assistance for specific
types of incidents.
The heart of the NRP is its base plan, which outlines planning
assumptions, roles and responsibilities, and incident management
actions. The NRP also contains 15 emergency support function annexes,
which describe the mission, policies, structure, and responsibilities
of federal agencies in an incident. Appendix II contains a table that
shows organizational responsibilities for the 15 emergency response
functions. It shows that DOD does not have sole primary responsibility
for any emergency function, and its role is primarily that of a
supporting agency. While multiple agencies support each emergency
support function, DOD is the only agency with supporting
responsibilities for all 15 emergency support functions.[Footnote 7]
The NRP also contains seven incident annexes describing
responsibilities, processes, and procedures for specific types of
incidents. One of these annexes addresses catastrophic incidents.
Catastrophic Incidents:
The catastrophic incident annex establishes the strategy for
implementing an accelerated, proactive response when a catastrophic
incident occurs. The NRP defines a catastrophic incident as any natural
or manmade incident that results in extraordinary levels of mass
casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population,
infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, or government
functions.
In terms of its combined casualties, damage, and disruption to the
population, environment, and economy, Hurricane Katrina was clearly a
catastrophe and it was arguably the most devastating natural disaster
in United States' history. More than 1,300 people lost their lives;
damage stretched over a 90,000 square mile area; more than a million
people were driven from their homes; buildings, bridges, roads, and
power and communications infrastructure were destroyed or severely
damaged; and millions of gallons of oil were spilled into the
environment. We may never fully know the financial cost of Hurricane
Katrina but one projection has put it at more than $200 billion.
Military Support:
During disasters and catastrophes, the military may provide support at
two different levels. First, the military may provide support at the
state level through its National Guard personnel and units. The
governor of a state may call the National Guard forces within that
state to active duty in response to a local or statewide emergency. In
these cases, the state pays the salaries of the National Guard members.
Under an existing Emergency Management Assistance Compact that
establishes a framework for mutual assistance, governors may also call
their National Guard forces to active duty in a state status and then
send them to another state that is facing a disaster.[Footnote 8] The
governor of the affected state, through the state's adjutant general,
commands both the National Guard forces from the affected state and the
out-of-state National Guard forces that may flow into the affected
state under emergency management assistance compacts. National Guard
troops also respond to disasters under Title 32 of the United States
Code.[Footnote 9] Under Title 32, National Guard troops continue to
report to the governor of the affected state but they receive federal
pay and benefits. In response to Hurricane Katrina, National Guard
forces were generally activated in a state active-duty status and then
eventually placed in Title 32 status.[Footnote 10]
The military can also respond to disasters at the federal level. The
federal military response can consist of active component or Reserve or
National Guard personnel. Active component troops that deploy to
disaster areas remain under the control of the President and the
Secretary of Defense, but they usually deploy in response to a request
from an affected state. The President can also send Reserve and
National Guard troops to a disaster area in a federal status under
Title 10 of the United States Code. However, federal laws place certain
limitations on the use of federal troops.[Footnote 11] For Hurricane
Katrina, the federal military response consisted of active component
troops and Reserve volunteers.
The use of the military for disaster relief is authorized by the Robert
T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.[Footnote 12]
Under procedures to implement the Stafford Act, the military provides
support to civil authorities through a specific request process.
However, under its immediate response authority, which is outlined in
DOD directives, a local military commander can assist civil authorities
or the public without prior approval if the action is necessary to save
lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage under
imminently serious conditions.
Military Roles and Responsibilities:
On March 25, 2003, DOD established the office of the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense to oversee homeland defense
activities for DOD, under the authority of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Policy, and as appropriate, in coordination with the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This office develops policies,
conducts analysis, provides advice, and makes recommendations on
homeland defense, support to civil authorities, emergency preparedness
and domestic crisis management matters within the department.
Specifically, the assistant secretary assists the Secretary of Defense
in providing policy direction to the United States Northern Command and
other applicable commands to guide the development and execution of
homeland defense plans and activities.[Footnote 13] This direction is
provided through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense also serves as the
DOD Domestic Crisis Manager. In this capacity, he represents the
department on all homeland-defense-related matters with all levels of
government, ranging from state and local officials to the Department of
Homeland Security and the Executive Office of the President.
In 2002, following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against
the United States, DOD established the United States Northern Command
with a dual mission of homeland defense and civil support. Northern
Command receives policy direction on both missions from the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense. Northern Command's civil
support activities are triggered by the President or the Secretary of
Defense, generally in response to requests for federal assistance.
Following a catastrophic incident, DOD may provide extensive lifesaving
and sustaining support to civil authorities. However, DOD may also
provide smaller scale support for other incidents such as wild fires,
floods, tornados, blizzards, or other disasters. The United States
Joint Forces Command generally provides Northern Command the military
resources and forces it needs to assist civil authorities.
The National Guard Bureau is the federal military coordination,
administrative, policy, and logistical center for the Army and Air
National Guard and serves as the channel of communication between the
United States Army, the United States Air Force, and the National Guard
in 54 states and territories. The Bureau is responsible for
formulating, developing, and coordinating policies, programs, and plans
affecting Army and Air National Guard personnel. However, the Bureau
does not have operational control over National Guard forces that are
operating in either a state or federal status.
The governor is the commander in chief of all National Guard units
within the state's jurisdiction that are not in active federal service.
Command is normally exercised through the state's adjutant general.
During military support to civil authority operations, the National
Guard Bureau provides policy guidance and facilitates assistance, when
needed, by locating and coordinating out-of-state National Guard
assistance. However, the actual execution of mutual assistance
agreements between the states does not involve the National Guard
Bureau.
Past GAO Work:
Over the years, we have completed a number of reviews related to
disaster preparedness and response, and a list of our related reports
and testimonies is included at the end of this report. Two reports that
we issued in 1993 following Hurricane Andrew are of particular
note.[Footnote 14] In the first, we identified problems related to
inadequate damage assessments and coordination. In the second, we also
addressed coordination issues. In both, we suggested that to improve
DOD's ability to respond to catastrophic events, the Congress might
wish to consider amending Title 10 of the United States Code to allow
reserve component units to be involuntarily activated to provide
military assistance during catastrophes.
Pre-Katrina Preparations Did Not Fully Address the Military
Capabilities Needed during a Catastrophic Natural Disaster:
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, disaster plans and training exercises
involving the military were insufficient, and did not incorporate
lessons learned from past catastrophes to fully delineate the military
capabilities that could be needed to respond to a catastrophic natural
disaster. The military had responded to numerous natural disasters and
catastrophes in the past but these prior experiences were not reflected
in key planning documents or in the disaster exercises that had been
conducted prior to Hurricane Katrina. For example, the NRP contained
few details about the specific military capabilities that would likely
be needed in a natural disaster, even if the natural disaster were
catastrophic. DOD's emergency response plan also did not fully address
the military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a
catastrophic natural disaster. DOD's primary planning document,
Functional Plan 2501, was inadequate because it did not address the
functions DOD could be asked to perform as a supporting agency for all
15 NRP emergency support functions. National Guard state plans, which
had been sufficient for past smaller disasters, were also insufficient
for large-scale catastrophes and did not adequately account for the
outside assistance that could be needed during a catastrophe. Moreover,
disaster plans had not been tested and refined with a robust exercise
program. As a result of the inadequate plans--and the lack of realistic
exercises to test those plans--a lack of understanding existed within
the military and among federal, state, and local responders as to the
types of assistance and capabilities that the military might provide,
the timing of this assistance, and the respective contributions of the
active-duty and National Guard components.
Disaster Experience Was Not Reflected in the NRP's Planned Use of
Military Capabilities during Catastrophes:
Disaster plans in place prior to Hurricane Katrina did not adequately
delineate military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a
catastrophic event. Over the years, the military has been frequently
called upon to provide assistance in the aftermath of hurricanes and
other disasters. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the largest disaster-
relief deployment of military forces was in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew
swept across south Florida. The military also provided extensive
support to civil authorities following other catastrophes, such as the
1989 earthquake in the San Francisco area and the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001. The National Guard has even more experience, albeit
typically with smaller-scale disasters. In fiscal year 2001, the
National Guard responded to 365 requests for disaster assistance
following hurricanes, floods, fires, ice storms, tornadoes, and the
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
None of these prior disasters compared to the devastation wrought by
Katrina, and the military was not prepared for what would be needed in
her wake. Overall, plans proved to be insufficient because they did not
identify the military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a
catastrophic natural disaster of this magnitude. The NRP, which guides
planning of supporting federal agencies, lacks specificity as to how
DOD should be used and what resources it should provide in the event of
a domestic natural disaster. For example, the NRP makes little
distinction between the military response to smaller, regional
disasters and the military response to large-scale, catastrophic
natural disasters, even though past disasters have shown that the
military tends to play a much larger role in catastrophes. The NRP
states that DOD has significant resources that may be available to
support the federal response to an incident of national significance,
but it lists very few specific DOD resources that should be called upon
even in the event of a catastrophic natural disaster. Given the
substantial role the military is actually expected to play in a
catastrophe--no other federal agency brings as many resources to bear-
-this lack of detailed planning represents a critical oversight.
The NRP contains a catastrophic incident annex that addresses the need
for accelerated, proactive federal responses during catastrophic
incidents. The annex contains principles and guidelines but few details
about the anticipated proactive federal response. The details were to
be contained in the NRP's catastrophic incident supplement and in
detailed supplemental plans and procedures. A draft version of the NRP
catastrophic incident supplement was released in September 2005, but it
still has not been finalized. It contained a 12-page execution schedule
with many details about the tasks that many agencies are expected to
accomplish in response to a catastrophic event. However, despite
extensive deployments of military capabilities for past catastrophes
like Hurricane Andrew, the draft supplement lists very few specific
tasks that DOD should perform during a catastrophe. The only specific
DOD actions it addresses are deploying a coordinating officer and team
to the affected region, making bases available as operational staging
areas, and preparing for medical evacuation missions. The additional
detailed planning was left for DOD to develop.
The NRP represents a planning framework, not the detailed planning that
would be necessary to support the plan. In addition to designating
primary agencies for each of its 15 emergency support functions, the
NRP designates an emergency function coordinator. The coordinator,
which is also a primary agency, is responsible for coordinating all
activities related to catastrophic incident planning. Since the NRP
generally places DOD in a supporting role rather than in a coordinator
role, DOD relied on other agencies to take the lead in coordinating the
overall response within each functional area. However, according to DOD
officials, coordinated emergency support function plans were generally
not completed when Katrina struck. Lacking coordinated plans to clearly
identify the capabilities that other agencies would provide during a
catastrophe, DOD was forced to anticipate which capabilities the
primary agencies and other supporting agencies would provide as it
developed the details in its supporting plan. After evaluating the use
of military capabilities during Hurricane Katrina, the White House
report recommended, among other things, that DOD plan and prepare to
have a significant role during catastrophes, and develop plans to lead
the federal response for events of extraordinary scope and nature.
DOD's Supporting Plan Lacked Details About the Military Response to
Catastrophic Natural Disasters:
While the military's approach to planning is well defined, prior to
Hurricane Katrina, DOD did not develop a detailed plan to account for
the full range of tasks and missions the military could need to provide
in the event of a catastrophe. DOD planners typically use one of three
different types of plans for its missions. From most to least detailed,
they are operations plans, contingency plans, and functional plans.
Combatant commanders, like Northern Command, have some discretion to
determine what type of planning is necessary for their assigned
missions. For its emergency response plan to provide defense assistance
to civil authorities during disasters or catastrophes, DOD opted to use
its least detailed type of plan, the functional plan. Functional plans
are generally used to address peacetime operations in permissive
environments. DOD's plan is called Functional Plan 2501.[Footnote 15]
Even though functional plans are less detailed than the two other types
of plans, according to DOD's joint planning guidance, a functional plan
must be adequate and feasible. Adequate means that the scope and
concept of the plan satisfy the specified task and accomplish the
intended mission, and feasible means the plan accomplishes the assigned
tasks with resources that are available within the time frames
contemplated.
While Functional Plan 2501 was adequate for most disasters, it was not
adequate or feasible for a catastrophe. The existing plan was nearly 9
years old, and was undergoing revision when Katrina struck. It had not
been updated since the Northern Command was established in 2002, nor
was it aligned with the recently published NRP. Just as the NRP did not
differentiate between military tasks in a disaster and a catastrophe,
Northern Command's Functional Plan 2501 lacked the details necessary to
address issues that emerge in a catastrophe but not in smaller-scale
disasters. The plan did not account for the full range of tasks and
missions the military could need to provide in the event of a
catastrophe, despite the NRP requirement that agencies incorporate the
accelerated response requirements of the NRP's catastrophic incident
annex into their emergency response plans. It did not anticipate that
DOD, as a supporting agency for the 15 emergency support functions
outlined in the NRP, could be called upon by the primary agencies to
assume significant responsibilities for those functions--from search
and rescue to communications to transportation and logistics.
In addition, DOD's plan had little provision for integrating active and
reserve component forces. In general, a feasible plan would anticipate
the personnel and resources that might be required in response to a
catastrophic event. This would include the emergency support function
tasks to which DOD was committed in a supporting role. Resources likely
to be employed in a catastrophic event include reserve component forces-
the National Guard and Reserves--and yet the plan did not fully address
the division of tasks between National Guard resources under the
governors' control and federal resources under Presidential control.
The 2005 DOD Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support called for
focused reliance on reserve component capabilities for civil support
missions, but Functional Plan 2501 did not envision the large- scale
employment of National Guard and Reserve assets and did not outline a
concept of operations using National Guard/Reserve capabilities. It did
not address key questions of integration, command and control, and the
division of tasks between National Guard resources under state control
and federal resources under U.S. Northern Command's control. Moreover,
the functional plan did not establish time frames for the response.
Functional Plan 2501, created in 1997, was written without the benefit
of numerous strategies, directives, and publications that directly bear
upon military support to civil authorities. For example, the 2005 DOD
Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support identified the need for
improved communications capabilities in domestic incidents, but
Functional Plan 2501 does not specifically address this issue.
Furthermore, the strategy envisions effective surveillance and
reconnaissance capabilities in support of homeland defense operations
and again, the functional plan does not sufficiently address this
capability. In contrast, the Northern Command has more detailed and
operationally specific plans for other homeland defense missions, like
its response missions following a terrorist attack. Understandably,
development of these plans was given priority after the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001. While specifics about these plans are
classified for national security reasons, DOD officials told us that
many of the capabilities and procedures used in these plans could be
adopted for civil support operations conducted after natural disasters.
National Guard Plans Were Also Inadequate:
Two related problems were evident with respect to the National Guard's
planning prior to Katrina. First, the National Guard Bureau and
Northern Command had not planned a coordinated response. Second, at the
state level, the plans of the National Guard in Louisiana and
Mississippi were inadequate for a catastrophic natural disaster.
The National Guard civil support plans were not integrated with DOD's
Functional Plan 2501. While the Chief of the National Guard Bureau does
not have operational control of National Guard personnel in the states
and territories, he does have overall responsibility for military
support to civil authorities programs in the National Guard. However,
the bureau had not coordinated in advance with the governors and
adjutants general in the states and territories to develop plans to
provide assistance for catastrophic disasters across the country.
Specifically, the bureau had not identified the types of units that
were likely to be needed during a catastrophe or worked with the state
governors and adjutants general to develop and maintain a list of
National Guard units from each state that would likely be available to
meet these requirements during catastrophic natural disasters. In
addition, the Northern Command and the National Guard Bureau had not
planned which disaster response missions would be handled by National
Guard members and which would be handled by reservists and active
component members.
Prior to Katrina, the Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard plans
were not synchronized with DOD's plans, and they were also inadequate
for a catastrophe of Katrina's magnitude. Like DOD's Functional Plan
2501, the Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard plans were adequate
for smaller disasters but insufficient for a catastrophe, and did not
adequately account for the outside assistance that could be needed
during a catastrophe. For example, Joint Forces Headquarters Louisiana
modified its plan and reassigned disaster responsibilities when
thousands of Louisiana National Guard personnel were mobilized for
federal missions prior to Hurricane Katrina. However, the Louisiana
plan did not address the need to bring in thousands of military troops
from outside the state during a catastrophe. Similarly, Mississippi
National Guard officials told us that even their 1969 experience with
Hurricane Camille, a category 5 storm that hit the same general area,
had not adequately prepared them for a catastrophic natural disaster of
Katrina's magnitude. For example, the Mississippi National Guard
disaster plan envisioned the establishment of commodity distribution
centers but it did not anticipate the number of centers that could be
required in a catastrophic event or following a nearly complete loss of
infrastructure.
Exercise Programs Did Not Adequately Test Disaster Plans:
Disaster plans had not been tested and refined with a robust exercise
program. The Homeland Security Council has issued 15 national planning
scenarios--including a major hurricane scenario--that provide the basis
for disaster exercises throughout the nation. While DOD sponsors or
participates in no less than two major interagency field exercises per
year, few exercises led by the Department of Homeland Security or DOD
focused on catastrophic natural disasters and none of the exercises
called for a major deployment of DOD capabilities in response to a
catastrophic hurricane. According to DOD officials, DOD has been
involved in only one catastrophic hurricane exercise since 2003--
Unified Defense 2004. This exercise, which simulated a nuclear
detonation along with a category 4 hurricane, revealed problems with
situational awareness and operational control of forces that still had
not been resolved when Katrina made landfall in August 2005. In
addition, although DOD has periodically held modest military support to
civil authorities exercises, the exercises used underlying assumptions
that were unrealistic in preparing for a catastrophe. For example, DOD
assumed that first responders and communications would be available and
that the transportation infrastructure would be navigable in a major
hurricane scenario. Finally, the First U.S. Army conducted planning and
exercises in response to six hurricanes in 2005. These exercises led to
actions, such as the early deployment of Defense Coordinating Officers,
which enhanced disaster response efforts. However, DOD's exercise
program was not adequate for a catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina's
magnitude.
As a result of the inadequate plans and exercises, when Hurricane
Katrina struck, a lack of understanding existed within the military and
among federal, state, and local responders as to the types of
assistance and capabilities that the military might provide, the timing
of this assistance, and the respective contributions of the National
Guard and federal military forces.
The Military's Response to Hurricane Katrina was Massive but Faced
Several Challenges:
Even though there was a lack of detailed planning, the military mounted
a massive response to Hurricane Katrina that saved many lives and
greatly assisted recovery efforts, but several factors affected this
response. During the response to Katrina, a number of interrelated
factors affected the military's ability to leverage its resources to
gain situational awareness and effectively organize and execute its
response efforts. Some factors that affected the military response
were: a lack of timely damage assessments, communications difficulties,
problems integrating the use and capabilities of active-duty and
National Guard forces, uncoordinated search and rescue efforts, and
challenges with the significant logistics functions that FEMA
unexpectedly turned over to DOD.
The Military Response Was Massive:
The military response to Hurricane Katrina reached more than twice the
size of the military response to the catastrophic Hurricane Andrew in
1992. Military officials began tracking Hurricane Katrina when it was
an unnamed tropical depression and took steps to proactively respond as
the storm strengthened to a category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
Prior to landfall, anticipating the disruption and damage that
Hurricane Katrina could cause, the governors of Louisiana and
Mississippi activated their National Guard units. In addition, National
Guard officials in Louisiana and Mississippi began to contact National
Guard officials in other states to request assistance. By the time
Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005, the military was positioned
to respond with both National Guard and federal forces. For example,
commands had published warning and planning orders and DOD had already
deployed Defense Coordinating Officers to all the potentially affected
states. After landfall, the governors and National Guard officials in
Louisiana and Mississippi requested additional support from other
states. The governor of Louisiana also requested federal military
assistance to help with response and recovery efforts.
Figure 1 shows the buildup of forces as the military supported response
and recovery operations with engineering, communication, and military
police units as well as helicopter search-and-rescue and ship crews,
and personnel with many other critically needed capabilities. Active-
duty forces were alerted prior to landfall and the initial buildup of
active-duty forces shown in figure 1 reflects the deployment of key
active-duty capabilities such as aviation, medical, and engineering
forces. Growing concerns about the magnitude of the disaster prompted
DOD to deploy large active-duty ground units beginning on September 3,
2005, 5 days after Katrina's landfall.
Figure 1: Buildup of Military Forces Supporting Hurricane Katrina
Operations:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO analysis of DOD data.
[End of figure]
Figure 1 also indicates that the military response, which began prior
to Katrina's landfall on August 29, 2005, peaked at more than 70,000
troops--over 50,000 National Guard and over 20,000 active federal
personnel. This reliance on the National Guard was based on DOD's
Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, which was issued in
June 2005. The strategy called for a focused reliance on the National
Guard and Reserves for civil support missions because, among other
things, they have key civil support capabilities and are located in
3,200 communities throughout the nation. The reliance on the National
Guard and Reserves represents a departure from past catastrophes when
active-duty forces played a larger role in the response. For example,
during the military response to Hurricane Andrew, the National Guard
provided less than 20 percent of the more than 30,000 military
responders.
Most of the National Guard response to Hurricane Katrina came from
outside Louisiana and Mississippi, with the National Guard Bureau
acting as a conduit to communicate requirements for assistance in
Louisiana and Mississippi to the adjutants general in the rest of the
country. The adjutants general of other states, with the authorization
of their state governors, then sent their National Guard troops to
Louisiana and Mississippi under emergency assistance agreements between
the states. Requirements for out-of-state National Guard or federal
assistance were increased because thousands of National Guard personnel
from Mississippi and Louisiana were already mobilized for other
missions and thus unavailable when Hurricane Katrina struck their
states. The National Guard troops that had been mobilized from within
the affected states were able to quickly deploy to where they were
needed because they had trained and planned for disaster mobilizations
within their states. The deployment of out-of-state forces, though
quick when compared to past catastrophes, took longer because
mobilization plans were developed and units were identified for
deployment in the midst of the crisis. By Monday, September 5, 2005 (a
week after Katrina made landfall), over 13,800 out-of-state National
Guard troops were in Louisiana assisting with response and recovery
efforts. However, when the Superdome bus evacuations began on Thursday,
September 1, 2005, only about 1,600 out-of-state National Guard troops
were in Louisiana, fewer than the number of Louisiana National Guard
members who were mobilized for other missions and unavailable when
Katrina made landfall. At the peak of the military's response, nearly
40,000 National Guard members from other states were supporting
operations in Louisiana and Mississippi--an unprecedented domestic
mobilization.
In the days after the hurricane passed, considerable confusion
surrounded the employment of military support and many questioned why
more federal ground troops were not sent sooner. According to senior
DOD officials involved in executing DOD's response to Katrina, DOD was
aware that the situation warranted significant military support and
they noted that the department took steps to proactively deploy federal
military capabilities from all the services to the region. For example,
DOD deployed a joint task force, medical personnel, helicopters, ships
from Texas, Virginia, and Maryland, and construction battalion
engineers. Many of these capabilities were providing assistance or
deploying to the area within hours of Katrina's landfall. Given the
current DOD homeland defense strategy, which calls for "focused
reliance" on the reserve components for civil support missions, DOD
officials told us that they also began working with the National Guard
Bureau to ensure the mobilization of National Guard forces from across
the country. As the situation unfolded during the week, concerns about
the magnitude of the disaster led to discussions about the need to
deploy additional active-duty forces to supplement the National Guard
forces. After visiting the region and meeting with the Louisiana
Governor on Friday, September 2, 2005, the President, on the next day,
ordered the deployment of over 7,000 active-duty ground troops to the
region.
Data concerning the military response were not always fully documented
in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, but it is clear that the
military had a huge impact on response and recovery operations. Data
from the active-duty military task force that headed the federal
response indicate that the military:
* flew thousands of helicopter sorties, rescuing tens of thousands of
people and carrying thousands of tons of cargo, including sandbags to
repair breeches in the levees around New Orleans;
* delivered millions of meals ready to eat, gallons of water, and
pounds of ice;
* searched hundreds of thousands of houses in the affected regions;
* provided medical treatment to tens of thousands of civilians; and:
* conducted mosquito spraying missions over more than 1 million acres.
Several Factors Affected the Military Response:
Despite the significant contribution of its massive response, a number
of interrelated factors affected the military's ability to leverage its
resources to gain situational awareness and effectively organize and
execute its response efforts. Without detailed plans to address each of
the following factors, the military risks being unprepared for the next
catastrophe that strikes the United States.
Comprehensive Damage Assessments Were Not Completed Promptly:
Hurricane Katrina response efforts were hampered by the federal
government's failure to fully use its available assets to conduct
timely, comprehensive damage assessments in Louisiana and Mississippi.
The failure to quickly assess damage and gain situational awareness had
also been a problem during Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The NRP notes that
following a disaster, state and local governments are responsible for
conducting initial damage assessments, but it also notes that state and
local officials could be overwhelmed in a catastrophe. The NRP
addresses this incongruous situation, where state and local officials
who may be overwhelmed have critical functions to perform during the
initial stages of disaster recovery efforts, by stating that the
federal government should provide a proactive response when state and
local officials are overwhelmed during a catastrophe. However, the NRP
does not specify the proactive means or capabilities the federal
government should use to conduct damage assessments and gain
situational awareness when the responsible state and local officials
are overwhelmed.
The military has significant capabilities to conduct damage assessments
using reconnaissance aircraft and satellite imagery, but our analysis
shows that neither the NRP nor DOD's Functional Plan 2501 specifically
called for the proactive use of these assets to meet the NRP
catastrophic incident annex's requirement for a proactive response to
catastrophic incidents. In addition, DOD did not initially receive
significant requests for these capabilities. At FEMA's request, DOD
initially provided three helicopters to assist in damage assessments.
About 4 days after Katrina's landfall, the military began providing
imagery data from some of its reconnaissance assets to its forces and
civilian agencies. However, the process for sharing information proved
difficult for several reasons. Some information was classified due to
its source and could not be shared directly with civilian agencies. In
addition, some agencies were not able to access some of the available
information because the data files were too large to download to the
agency computers. A National Guard Hurricane Katrina after-action
review reported that the adjutants general (in Mississippi and
Louisiana) required real time imagery that the military community
should have been able to provide, but did not.
Because state and local officials were overwhelmed and the military's
extensive reconnaissance capabilities were not effectively leveraged as
part of a proactive federal effort to conduct timely, comprehensive
damage assessments, the military began organizing and deploying its
response without fully understanding the extent of the damage or the
required assistance. According to military officials, available
reconnaissance assets could have provided additional situational
awareness. In contrast, DOD officials told us that almost immediately
after Hurricane Rita struck Louisiana and Texas in September 2005,
considerable surveillance assets were made available to assess damage,
primarily because of lessons learned from Katrina.
Communications Difficulties Affected the Military Response:
Hurricane Katrina caused significant damage to the communication
infrastructure in Louisiana and Mississippi, which further contributed
to a lack of situational awareness for military and civilian officials.
Katrina destroyed or severely degraded many commercial landline and
cellular telephone systems, and emergency radio systems were
oversubscribed, making it difficult to establish necessary connections
between officials and responders at the local, state, and federal
levels. As a result, it was difficult for officials to gain situational
awareness. Even when local officials were able to conduct damage
assessments, the lack of communications assets caused delays in the
transmitting of the results of the assessments. Communications
problems, like damage assessment problems, have been long-standing
problems that were also highlighted following Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
The military, other agencies, and public companies all have extensive
communications assets and capabilities, but the Department of Homeland
Security[Footnote 16] has responsibility for coordinating the
communications portion of disaster response operations under the NRP.
However, neither the NRP, the Department of Homeland Security, nor DOD
fully identified the extensive military communication capabilities that
could be leveraged as part of a proactive federal response to a
catastrophe. In addition, DOD's emergency response plan, Functional
Plan 2501, addressed internal military communications requirements, but
it did not address the communication requirements of communities
affected by a catastrophic natural disaster. It also did not address
coordination with civilian responders. Typically, military equipment
cannot communicate with civilian police, fire, and emergency medical
systems unless it is augmented with specialized equipment. While the
military and civilian agencies deployed mobile communication vans that
were able to connect different communications systems that are normally
incompatible, the placement of these vans was not coordinated and some
areas had multiple systems while other areas had no systems at all.
Because state and local officials were overwhelmed and the Department
of Homeland Security and DOD waited for requests for assistance rather
than deploying a proactive response, some of the military's available
communication assets were never requested or deployed.
In addition to the coordination challenges, communications challenges
arose within the military response. Some deployed National Guard assets
were underutilized because the states that sent the assets placed
restrictions on their use. The equipment was sent solely to support the
sending states' units and thus was unavailable for priority use. As a
result, a number of mobile communications vans were collocated at a
single site while other areas remained without communications. In
addition, some National Guard responders were short of equipment. For
example, one National Guard unit deployed to the area of operations
with only 5 percent of its communications personnel and 50 percent of
its communication equipment. As a result of these problems, military
forces lacked good communication between headquarters units and troops
on the ground. While subordinate military commanders are trained to
complete their missions even when they do not have communications with
their headquarters, this lack of communication made it difficult for
senior military leaders to determine which missions had been completed,
which were still ongoing, and what new missions may have surfaced.
The Military Encountered Problems Integrating Its Response:
The integration of the military response to Hurricane Katrina was
affected by inadequate planning and by a key mobilization statute that
limited DOD's reserve component members from being involuntarily
ordered to active duty for disaster response. The military did not
adequately plan for the integration of large numbers of deployed troops
from different commands during disaster response operations. For
example, a Louisiana plan to integrate military responders from outside
the state called for the reception of not more than 300 troops per day.
However, in the days following Hurricane Katrina, more than 20,000
National Guard members from other states arrived in Louisiana to join
the response effort, and on one single day--September 5, 2005--more
than 8,500 National Guard members from other states arrived in
Louisiana to join the Katrina response effort.
One critical issue that needs to be resolved in any large, integrated
operation is the decision concerning command and control of the forces.
This issue had not been resolved prior to Hurricane Katrina and was a
subject of discussion during the critical first days after Katrina made
landfall. Ultimately, the military took a pragmatic approach to
deconflict the operation with separate active-duty and National Guard
chains of command. The federal forces--the active component and
mobilized Reserve volunteers--were under the command and control of
Northern Command's Joint Task Force-Katrina, while the National Guard
forces, including those from other states, were under the command and
control of the governors in Mississippi and Louisiana. While response
operations were coordinated across the several chains of command, they
were not integrated, which led to some inefficiencies and duplication
of effort. For example, many responding military units from outside the
states were assigned missions within established geographic boundaries,
but the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard units had functional
missions that cut across these geographic boundaries. Furthermore, in
New Orleans, the geographic boundaries were not the same as the city
district boundaries. This made coordination with local responders more
difficult. Despite the lack of prior planning to address integration
issues, many efforts were made to integrate the response. For example,
active military representatives were assigned to state emergency
operations centers and the commander of the active forces traveled
daily throughout the affected region coordinating and collaborating
with National Guard, and federal, state, and local civilian officials.
Because the military had not specifically planned nor decided which
parts of the military response would be handled by the National Guard
and which parts would be handled by the active component and mobilized
reservists, many of the force flow decisions and integration efforts
were ad hoc in the midst of the crisis. Because military plans and
exercises had not provided a means for integrating the response, no one
had the total picture of the forces on the ground, the forces that were
on the way, the missions for which forces had been allocated, and the
missions that still needed to be done. For example, National Guard
commanders in Mississippi and Louisiana were not prepared to receive
the division headquarter elements that were sent from Indiana and
Kansas to command the out-of-state National Guard forces that were
arriving in the two states from around the country.
A key mobilization statute[Footnote 17] also affected the integration
of the military response. Title 10 of the United States Code currently
limits a unit or member of a reserve component from being involuntarily
ordered to federal active duty for disaster response. While this
restriction applies to both National Guard and Reserve forces, National
Guard forces were mobilized under both state active duty and Title 32
for Hurricane Katrina. No similar provisions exist to specifically
mobilize Reserve forces for disaster response, although it is
conceivable that if the President declares a national emergency,
reserve component forces could become available for involuntary
activation. As a result, all the Reservists who responded to Hurricane
Katrina were volunteers, and Reservists constituted a relatively small
portion of the response when compared to the National Guard and active
component portions of the response.
If the military continues to rely on Reserve volunteers it will have
difficulty fully executing DOD's 2005 civil support strategy that calls
for a focused reliance on both the National Guard and the Reserves.
[Footnote 18] The strategy notes that the National Guard is
particularly well suited for civil support missions because it is
routinely exercised with local law enforcement and first responders,
experienced in supporting neighboring communities in times of crisis,
and accessible in state active duty and Title 32 status. However, the
strategy also emphasizes the use of the Reserves for domestic missions.
The strategy specifically states that "the nation needs to focus
particular attention on better using the competencies of National Guard
and Reserve" organizations, and notes that Reserve forces currently
provide many key capabilities. The process of lining up volunteers can
be time-consuming and is more appropriate for mobilizing individuals
than it is for mobilizing entire units or capabilities that may be
needed during a catastrophe.
In 1993, after Hurricane Andrew, the military was facing a drawdown in
force size and increasing mission requirements, and we issued two
reports related to disaster assistance that addressed the Title 10
limitation. One of the reports[Footnote 19] said that, to improve DOD's
response to catastrophic events, the Congress may want to consider
amending Title 10 of the United States Code to allow reserve component
units to be involuntarily activated to provide disaster assistance.
Such a change would have provided DOD with more flexibility in the use
of its total force. However, the limitation has remained in place.
While the mobilization restriction did not limit the military's ability
to respond to Hurricane Katrina, it could limit DOD's ability to
respond to future catastrophes if large portions of the active-duty and
National Guard forces are unavailable due to other mission requirements.
Search and Rescue Plans and Efforts Were Not Coordinated:
While tens of thousands of people were rescued after Katrina through
the efforts of military, civil government, and private rescuers, the
lack of clarity in search and rescue plans led to operations that,
according to aviation officials, were not as efficient as they could
have been. The NRP addressed only part of the search and rescue
mission, and the National Search and Rescue Plan had not been updated
to reflect the NRP. Under the United States National Search and Rescue
Plan, which was issued in 1999, the Coast Guard ordinarily has
responsibility for providing or arranging maritime search and rescue
services, and the Air Force ordinarily has responsibility for providing
or arranging nonmaritime search and rescue services in the continental
United States. The plan also calls on DOD to support civil search and
rescue efforts when the efforts do not interfere with DOD's primary
military duties, and it states that DOD and Coast Guard commands should
provide their facilities for civil search and rescue to the fullest
extent practicable. While the NRP acknowledges the existence of the
National Search and Rescue Plan, the NRP does not specifically address
how the Coast Guard and the Air Force organizational responsibilities
in the National Search and Rescue Plan coincide with the NRP's urban
search and rescue annex. That annex lays out organizational
responsibilities for search and rescue during a disaster, but it
focuses on ground rescues. While the NRP includes DOD and the Coast
Guard among the many supporting agencies, it lists the Department of
Homeland Security's Emergency Preparedness and Response and FEMA as the
primary and coordinating agencies for urban search and rescue.
As a result of the lack of clear search and rescue guidance, the
aviation portion of military search and rescue operations was not fully
integrated with the helicopter search and rescue operations of the
Coast Guard and other rescuers. At least two different locations were
assigning search and rescue tasks to military helicopter pilots
operating over New Orleans and no one had the total picture of the
missions that had been resourced and the missions that still needed to
be performed. In accordance with the National Search and Rescue Plan,
the Air Force established a Joint Search and Rescue Center at Tyndall
Air Force Base, Florida, to manage Hurricane Katrina search and rescue
missions; however, this center was not set up until September 4, 2005,
6 days after Katrina's landfall. Furthermore, the center did not have
radar coverage over New Orleans. After Katrina made landfall, search
and rescue helicopters operating in the New Orleans area were receiving
their tasks from either the Coast Guard, which was based at Belle
Chase, Louisiana, or from a task force led by the Louisiana National
Guard, which was operating at the Superdome. According to Louisiana
National Guard officials, they worked with the Coast Guard to
deconflict the aviation operations, but the search and rescue efforts
that were being directed from the two sites were not integrated. For
example, some military aircraft received their direction from the task
for at the Superdome, while others received their direction from the
Coast Guard or the Joint Task Force that was in command of the active
troops on the ground. Neither the Coast Guard nor the Louisiana
National Guard had visibility of all the aircraft operating over the
city of New Orleans in the initial days after Katrina made landfall.
According to military officials, better integration of search and
rescue efforts could reduce duplications of effort for search and
rescue aircraft.
DOD Assumed an Unanticipated Logistics Role:
Another factor that affected the military response was the large and
unanticipated logistics role it was asked to assume when FEMA became
overwhelmed. Under the NRP, FEMA is responsible for coordinating
logistics during disaster response efforts but during Hurricane
Katrina, FEMA quickly became overwhelmed. Supplies that had been
positioned prior to Katrina's landfall were quickly exhausted. As a
result, FEMA placed orders for more than 9 million meals-ready-to-eat
and then, 4 days after landfall, asked DOD to assume a significant
portion of its logistics responsibilities. Specifically, FEMA gave DOD
responsibility for procurement, transportation, and distribution of
ice, water, food, fuel, and medical supplies and it authorized DOD to
spend up to $1 billion to accomplish this mission. According to DOD
officials, all of the 9 million meals that FEMA had ordered were
shipped to the region by September 4, 2005. However, because FEMA
lacked the capability to maintain visibility--from order through final
delivery--of the supplies and commodities it had ordered, DOD had
difficulty gaining visibility over the supplies and commodities when it
assumed FEMA's logistics responsibilities. As a result of its lack of
visibility over the meals that were in transit, DOD had to airlift 1.7
million meals to Mississippi to respond to a request from the Adjutant
General of Mississippi, who was concerned that food supplies were
nearly exhausted.
We recently issued a report that examined how the food provided by
foreign nations was managed,[Footnote 20] and we have additional work
planned to look at the entire logistics process to best determine how
the federal government can provide support in the future.
DOD Has Begun Taking Actions to Address Catastrophic Disaster Response
Problems, Some of Which are Complex and Long-standing:
DOD is aware of disaster response problems described in this report and
is beginning to take actions to address the lessons learned from
Hurricane Katrina and to prepare for the next catastrophic event. The
department has been conducting its own lessons-learned reviews and is
also examining the lessons and recommendations in reports from a White
House review panel, congressional oversight committees, and other
sources. As a result, DOD is taking some actions to address
catastrophic disaster response problems. While it is too early to fully
evaluate the effectiveness of these ongoing and planned actions, many
appear to hold promise for improving future responses. However, the
issues identified during the aftermath of Katrina are often complex,
cross agency boundaries, and are, in some cases, long-standing.
Substantial improvement to the military's disaster and catastrophe
response will require sustained attention from management at the
highest levels of DOD and from key officials across the government.
Military Lessons Learned Are Emerging:
DOD has collected lessons learned following Hurricane Katrina from a
variety of sources. Within the department, DOD has a formal set of
procedures to identify, capture, and share information collected as a
result of operations in order to enhance performance in future
operations. Even in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina response
operation, officials from various military organizations were
collecting information on lessons learned and this continued well after
most operations had ceased. For example, communications issues that had
surfaced were studied by both active and National Guard commands that
had responded to Hurricane Katrina. DOD also formed a task force to
study the response and is compiling and analyzing various military and
other lesson learned reports to help design an improved response to
future natural catastrophic events. In addition, the DOD Inspector
General's Office and the service audit agencies are reviewing aspects
of the Hurricane Katrina response.
Other organizations have also been gathering lessons learned. According
to DOD officials, they have reviewed White House and congressional
reports identifying lessons to be applied or challenges to be addressed
in future response operations. While the assessments were different,
many common themes emerged and are similar to the issues we describe in
this report. For example, a February 2006 White House report[Footnote
21] also recognized the significant role that the military plays in
catastrophes, and it even recommended that DOD work with the Department
of Homeland Security to identify those extraordinary circumstances when
it is appropriate for DOD to temporarily lead the federal response.
That report also noted the lack of a unified command structure for
active and National Guard forces and suggested that DOD work on
ensuring integration of those forces in future responses. It further
recommended that DOD seek ways to leverage Reserve members' civilian
skills in disaster relief efforts. In addition, an over 500-page
congressional report[Footnote 22] found numerous issues with the
Katrina response, including the lack of integration of National Guard
and active-duty forces, which hampered the military response.
DOD Is Taking Initial Steps to Improve Future Military Response to
Catastrophes:
To address the challenges highlighted in these lessons learned reports,
DOD is currently planning numerous actions to improve its ability to
respond to a catastrophic event. For example, DOD officials stated that
the department is currently updating its emergency response plan and
intends to use a contingency plan rather than a less detailed
functional plan to guide its military support to civil authority
missions. Recognizing the urgency of preparing for catastrophic events,
the department hopes to complete many of its initial steps by June 1,
2006, the start of the next hurricane season. Since details about many
of the department's actions were still emerging as we completed our
review we were unable to fully assess the effectiveness of DOD's
actions. However, many actions appear to offer promise for improving
future responses. Several additional examples of DOD's planned efforts
follow.
* To improve situational awareness and assist in damage assessment
after a catastrophe, DOD is working on a plan to coordinate and
synchronize surveillance and reconnaissance requests and assets.
* To improve integration of responders, DOD is planning several steps,
including (1) expanding its training programs to accommodate planners
from other agencies and (2) conducting new homeland defense and civil
support exercises.
* To improve coordination between National Guard and active forces,
and, specifically, avoid duplication of effort by military forces
during an incident, NGB officials will work with the states to build a
database of current and planned state-to-state agreements for sharing
National Guard forces.
DOD also has an organizational realignment underway that military
officials believe should improve the response to future disasters and
catastrophes. This realignment gives a single Army organization, the
Fifth United States Army, responsibility for domestic disaster
response. When Katrina made landfall in August 2005, disaster
responsibilities within the Army were split between two
organizations.[Footnote 23] Under the change, the Fifth Army becomes a
subordinate (U.S. Army, North) to the Northern Command and will focus
on homeland defense and disaster response. According to military
officials, Army, North, is establishing two command posts that will be
capable of deploying within 18 hours as joint task forces for
catastrophes anywhere in the United States. The command posts will be
available when Army, North, reaches its full operating capability in
October, 2006. Furthermore, to improve interagency coordination,
specially trained defense coordinating elements are being established
and co-located within each of FEMA's 10 regional offices. Army, North,
also has a number of training and planning efforts underway to improve
its support to civil authorities.
Complex and Long-standing Issues Will Require Sustained Management
Attention to Resolve:
While DOD's efforts to address the Katrina lessons learned appear to be
steps in the right direction, some of the issues DOD is facing are
complex and long-standing and cut across agency boundaries. As a
result, substantial improvement will occur only if the actions receive
sustained management attention at the highest levels, both within DOD
and within the other responsible agencies. Many of the problems
encountered during the Katrina response were also reported after
Hurricane Andrew in 1992. For example, in a 1993 report,[Footnote 24]
we found that the practice of assigning responsibility for conducting
damage assessments to state and local officials under the Federal
Response Plan[Footnote 25] was not suitable for catastrophic situations
and it contributed to the lack of timely damage assessments during
Hurricane Andrew. Our report also found supply distribution delays
caused by a lack of visibility over FEMA-ordered supplies, and found
confusion over the command and control relationships, which had not
been fully resolved prior to Andrew's landfall. Due to the complexity
and long-standing nature of these problems, DOD's planned and ongoing
actions must receive sustained top-management attention in order to
effect needed improvements in the military's ability to support civil
authorities.
Part of DOD's challenge in moving forward is the complexity of the
problems, especially given the uncertainty of potential events and the
sheer number of organizations at all levels of government that are
involved. Coordinating improvements across the various parts of the
military, alone, will be a challenge. The National Guard and active-
duty forces have complicated chains-of-command, especially in peacetime
when the National Guard typically serves the state governors. Other
issues require close coordination with state and local governments. For
example, conducting damage assessments, a critical early step in
developing an appropriate response to an event, can involve many
different agencies at all levels of government. Damage assessments are
normally to be conducted by local or state officials during a disaster.
However, local and state officials who are overwhelmed in a catastrophe
are unlikely to be able to conduct timely and comprehensive damage
assessments. Paradoxically, without timely, comprehensive damage
assessments federal responders may not realize the extent to which
local and state official are overwhelmed. While the issues are complex,
they are also urgent, and experience has illustrated that the military
has critical and substantial capabilities that are needed in the wake
of catastrophic events.
Conclusions:
Clearly, Hurricane Katrina was one of the most devastating natural
disasters in our nation's history, and because of its size and
strength, it will have long-standing effects for years to come. By
their nature, major catastrophic events involve extraordinary levels of
casualties, damage, or disruption that will likely immediately
overwhelm state and local responders--circumstances that make sound
planning for catastrophic events all the more crucial. Prior disasters
and the actual experience of Hurricane Katrina show that the military
is likely to contribute substantial support to state and local
authorities. More detailed planning would improve officials'
understanding of the support the military could be expected to provide
following a catastrophic incident, including the types of capabilities
that might be provided, the actions that might be taken proactively and
in response to specific requests, and the integrating of the National
Guard and active-duty response. Further, while the limited
participation of Reserve members after Katrina did not affect response
efforts, under current law, DOD's ability to respond to future
catastrophes may be limited if it cannot involuntarily mobilize reserve
component members--particularly if large portions of the active and
National Guard forces are unavailable due to other mission
requirements. The devastation of Katrina and the issues it revealed
serve as a warning that actions are needed to clearly identify the
military capabilities that will be required from the National Guard,
Reserve, and active forces as part of a proactive federal response
following a catastrophic natural disaster. Without urgent and detailed
attention to improve planning, the military and federal government risk
being unprepared for the next catastrophe.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
We recommend that DOD take the following four actions:
First, given the expected heavy reliance on the military during
catastrophes, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense provide the
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security with proposed
revisions to the NRP that will fully address the proactive functions
the military will be expected to perform during a catastrophic
incident, for inclusion in the next NRP update.
Second, in view of the fast approaching 2006 hurricane season and other
natural and man-made threats that could result in a catastrophe at any
instant, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense establish
milestones and expedite the development of detailed plans and exercises
to fully account for the unique capabilities and support that the
military is likely to provide to civil authorities in response to the
full range of domestic disasters, including catastrophes. The plans and
exercises should specifically address the:
* use of reconnaissance capabilities to assess damage,
* use of communications capabilities to facilitate support to civil
authorities,
* integration of active component and National Guard and Reserve forces,
* use of search and rescue capabilities and the military's role in
search and rescue, and:
* role the military might be expected to play in logistics.
Third, since National Guard troops can join response efforts as part of
the federal response or as part of the state response under mutual
assistance agreements, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to work with the state
governors and adjutants general to develop and maintain a list of the
types of capabilities the National Guard will likely provide in
response to domestic natural disasters under state-to-state mutual
assistance agreements along with the associated units that could
provide these capabilities. In addition, we recommend that the
Secretary of Defense direct the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to
make this information available to the Northern Command, U.S. Joint
Forces Command, and other organizations with federal military support
to civil authority planning responsibilities.
Finally, based on the above action by the National Guard Bureau to
identify the National Guard units that are likely to respond to
domestic disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance agreements,
we also recommend that the Secretary of Defense establish milestones
and identify the types of scalable federal military capabilities and
the units that could provide those capabilities in response to the full
range of domestic disasters and catastrophes covered by DOD's defense
support to civil authorities plans.
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
In a 1993 report[Footnote 26] we suggested that the Congress may want
to consider removing the statutory restriction on DOD's authority to
involuntarily activate Reserve units for catastrophic disaster relief.
In view of the significant military downsizing that has occurred since
we first raised this matter and the need to actively engage the total
force in order to meet missions at home and abroad, we continue to
believe that the Congress should consider lifting or modifying the
mobilization restriction--10 U.S.C. §12304 (c)(1)--that limits reserve
component participation in catastrophic natural disasters.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated the report was
thorough and made a significant contribution to DOD's plans to improve
the department's support to civil authorities during domestic disaster
incidents. In addition to partially concurring with our
recommendations, DOD's made several comments about the report that fell
into two broad categories, DOD's role during domestic disaster response
and its pre-Katrina planning and exercise schedule.
First, DOD believed the report called for a greater DOD role during
domestic disaster response but noted that it must strike a balance
between its warfighting role overseas and the need to support civil
authorities at home. While DOD said it would continue to work as part
of a unified interagency effort, it said that the goal is to enhance
the domestic disaster response capacities of other agencies. Until that
goal is achieved, DOD will be prepared to respond even more rapidly
with more resources to another catastrophe in the United States. We
recognize the need to balance DOD's overseas warfighting mission and
its domestic response missions. In the report, we note DOD's role is
primarily that of a supporting agency under the NRP, and that the
nature of the military response will vary depending on the nature of
the emergency. However, given the military's capabilities, its response
and level of support to civil authorities is likely to be more
significant during large disasters and catastrophes.
Second, DOD said that the title of the report is misleading because it
does not recognize DOD's extensive planning and exercise schedule prior
to August 29, 2005, such as specific preparations in response to six
2005 hurricanes. We added additional information about these efforts.
However, we continue to believe that the title accurately reflects the
report's findings and recommendations. As stated in the report, DOD had
periodically held modest military support to civil authorities
exercises but the exercises used underlying assumptions that were
unrealistic in preparing for a catastrophe. We also note that DOD's
comments acknowledge the need to improve its plans and exercises. In
fact, DOD's comments acknowledged the need to conduct at least one
fully integrated major exercise with the Department of Homeland
Security each year rather than the separate exercises that have been
conducted in the past.
DOD also commented on our four recommendations, partially concurring
with each of them. With respect to our first recommendation--to revise
the NRP to fully address the proactive functions that the military will
be expected to perform during a catastrophic incident--DOD said that
proactive military functions can be identified in all 15 major disaster
scenarios and said it is working with the Department of Homeland
Security to revise the NRP. While DOD stated that the long-term focus
of the U.S. government should be to develop more robust domestic
disaster capabilities within the Department of Homeland Security, it
acknowledged that DOD will need to assume a more robust response role
in the interim period, and when other responders lack the resources and
expertise to handle a particular disaster.
With respect to our second recommendation that concerned the
development of detailed plans and exercises, DOD listed a number of
steps it is taking to improve its disaster response planning and
exercises and said that consistent with its Strategy for Homeland
Defense and Civil Support the active component should complement, but
not duplicate, the National Guard's likely role as an early responder.
The DOD comments also said that planning and exercises should include
local, state, and federal representatives and should stress the
responders with the highest degree of realism possible--to the breaking
point if possible. However, the comments said that logistics planning
and execution is the clear responsibility of FEMA and individual
states, and DOD would remain ready in a supporting role. We agree with
DOD that effective disaster plans and exercises require stressing
scenarios with the active participation of representatives from all
levels of government. We also agree that FEMA and states have logistics
responsibilities. However, we continue to believe that DOD should plan
and prepare to assume additional emergency support function
responsibilities during catastrophes when other responders may be
overwhelmed.
DOD also partially concurred with our third recommendation--that the
Chief of the National Guard Bureau work with the state governors and
adjutants general to develop and maintain a list of the types of
capabilities the National Guard will likely provide in response to
domestic natural disasters under state-to-state mutual assistance
agreements, along with the associated units that will provide these
capabilities. DOD said that it was not feasible to identify the
specific units that would provide these capabilities and requested that
we modify our recommendation to say units that "could" provide these
capabilities rather than units that "will" provide those capabilities.
We agree and have adjusted our recommendation. In addition, DOD listed
steps the U.S. Northern Command is taking to better understand the
capabilities of National Guard units and it stated that the National
Guard is creating a database to facilitate planning its employment in
support of the homeland. As part of the database implementation, the
National Guard Bureau has identified a need to place a contractor in
each of its Joint Force Headquarters-State locations.
Finally, DOD partially concurred with our recommendation that it
identify the types of scaleable federal military capabilities and units
that will provide those capabilities in response to the full range of
domestic disasters and catastrophes covered by DOD's defense support to
civil authorities plans. DOD noted that it has developed scalable
capability packages in conjunction with pre-scripted requests for
assistance and Northern Command's Contingency Plan 2501, which is
scheduled to be signed in the spring of 2006. However, because DOD's
forces can be used to meet many different types of missions, DOD
requested that we modify our recommendation to say identify the types
of scaleable federal military capabilities and units that "could"
(rather than "will") provide those capabilities. We agree and have
adjusted our recommendation.
DOD also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as
appropriate. DOD's written comments are reprinted in their entirety in
appendix III.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional
committees; the Secretary of Defense; the Secretaries of the Army,
Navy, and Air Force; the Commandant of the Marine Corps; the Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Commander, U.S. Northern Command; the
Chief of the National Guard Bureau; the Director of the Defense
Logistics Agency; the Director, Office of Management and Budget; and
other interested parties. In addition, this report will be available at
no charge on the GAO Web site at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov. Contact points for our
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on
the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributors to
this report are listed in appendix IV.
Signed By;
Sharon L. Pickup:
Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
List of Congressional Committees:
The Honorable John Warner:
Chairman:
The Honorable Carl Levin:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Susan M. Collins:
Chairman:
The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Ted Stevens:
Chairman:
The Honorable Daniel K. Inouye:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Defense:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter:
Chairman:
The Honorable Ike Skelton:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Tom Davis:
Chairman:
The Honorable Henry A. Waxman:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable C. W. Bill Young:
Chairman:
The Honorable John P. Murtha:
Ranking Minority Member:
Subcommittee on Defense:
Committee on Appropriations:
House of Representatives:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To address our objectives, we interviewed officials from DOD, the
National Guard, the military services, and defense agencies that
participated in the response to Hurricane Katrina. In addition, we
reviewed military time lines, after-action reports, lessons learned
studies, briefings, congressional testimonies, and other documents.
During our review, we met with and obtained information from officials
in the following organizations.
Office of The Secretary Of Defense:
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Comptroller, Arlington, Va.:
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Arlington, Va.:
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the General Counsel,
Arlington, Va.:
Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Policy,
Arlington, Va.:
Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Logistics &
Material Readiness, Arlington, Va.:
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs,
Arlington, Va.:
McHale-Mauldin Hurricane Katrina Task Force, Arlington, Va.:
Joint Staff Director of Military Support, National Military Command
Center, Arlington, Va.:
DOD Agencies:
Defense Logistics Agency, Ft. Belvoir, Va.:
Office of the Inspector General, Logistics Management Division,
Arlington, Va.:
Defense Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.
Commands:
U.S. Strategic Command, Joint Functional Component Command for
Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance, Bolling Air Force Base,
Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs,
Colo.:
U.S. Joint Forces Command, Atlantic Fleet Compound, Norfolk, Va.:
U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill.
Military Services:
U.S. Army:
U.S. Army Forces Command, Headquarters, Fort McPherson, Ga.:
First U.S. Army, Fort Gillem, Ga.:
Fifth U.S. Army/ Army North, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Tex.:
U.S. Army Reserve Command, Fort McPherson, Ga.:
Surface Distribution and Deployment Command, Alexandria, Va.:
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Tex.:
13th Corps Support Command Fort Hood, Tex.:
82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
U.S. Navy:
Fleet Forces Command, Naval Station Norfolk , Norfolk, Va.:
Joint Force Maritime Component Command, Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk,
Va.:
2nd Fleet, Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Va.:
USS Iwo Jima USS Truman USS Bataan Military Sealift Command,
Washington, D.C.:
First Naval Construction Division, Little Creek Amphibious Base,
Norfolk, Va.:
Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Norfolk, Va.
U.S. Marine Corps:
Headquarters Marine Corps Plans, Policies, and Operations Department,
Arlington, Va.:
Marine Corps Forces Command, Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Va.:
2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.:
24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
U.S. Air Force:
Operations Group, Arlington, Va.:
National Security Emergency Preparedness, Arlington, Va.:
Joint Force Air Component Command, 1st Air Force, Tyndall Air Force
Base, Panama City, Fla.:
Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Air Combat Command,
Langley Air Force Base, Va.
Task Forces:
Joint Task Force Katrina, New Orleans, La.:
Task Forces Pelican and Eagle, Louisiana National Guard, Camp
Beauregard, La.
National Guard:
National Guard Bureau, Arlington, Va.:
Louisiana National Guard, Baton Rouge, La.:
Louisiana National Guard, Carville, La.:
Assistant Adjutant General, Mississippi Army National Guard, Gulfport,
Miss.:
186th Air Refueling Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard, Meridian,
Miss.:
172nd Airlift Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard, Jackson, Miss.:
Joint Forces Headquarters, Indiana National Guard, Indianapolis, In.:
38th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Indianapolis, In.:
Joint Forces Headquarters, Kansas National Guard, Topeka, Ks.:
35th Infantry Division (Mechanized) Ft. Leavenworth, Ks.:
Joint Force Headquarters, Jackson, Ms.
To assess the extent to which pre-Katrina plans and training exercises
reflected the military assistance that might be required during a
catastrophic, domestic, natural disaster, we analyzed planning and
directive documents related to military support to civil authority,
such as the Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support, and the
Military Support[Footnote 27] and Assistance[Footnote 28] to Civil
Authorities directives, and state plans. In analyzing these documents
and others, we determined the extent to which they addressed a
mechanism for the integration of forces and established a process to
identify and communicate the military capabilities available to civil
authorities or those that could be sent by DOD following a disaster or
catastrophic event. We also reviewed after-action reports from training
exercises to determine whether assumptions for the exercises were
realistic in light of recent catastrophic disasters, to establish the
level of military involvement in recent disaster planning exercises,
and to determine whether the training scenarios exercised available
military capabilities. We discussed our analysis with officials from
the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense,
Northern Command, the National Guard Bureau, and others to determine
the extent to which the directives, plans, and lessons from exercises
adequately supported the military's response to civil authority after
Hurricane Katrina.
To examine the support that the military provided in responding to
Katrina and factors that affected that response, we obtained briefings
and reports describing the military's response to Hurricane Katrina in
Louisiana and Mississippi. We compared and contrasted data collected
and resolved discrepancies through interviews with officials from DOD,
state National Guard forces, Joint Task Force Katrina, and service, and
state officials. We specifically examined the time line of the
military's response, the size and nature of the forces that responded,
and the challenges faced in supporting civil authorities. To compare
this response to prior military responses, accounting for differences
in storms, we analyzed testimony and reports about the military's
response to other natural disasters.[Footnote 29] We analyzed relevant
documents and lessons learned reports from the military to specifically
examine the damage assessment, logistics, communication, search and
rescue, and security/law enforcement response to determine if
previously identified concerns had been addressed prior to Hurricane
Katrina.
Additionally, to determine what actions, if any, the military is taking
to address lessons learned from Katrina, we collected and analyzed
briefings and lessons learned reports from organizations participating
in the response. We discussed recommended actions from lessons learned
reports and how the military plans to improve its response to future
disasters with officials from DOD and the National Guard Bureau.
We conducted our work from September 2005 through April 2006 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: NRP Emergency Support Function Responsibilities:
Emergency support function: #1-Transportation;
Primary agencies or organizations: Department of Transportation;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 10 others.
Emergency support function: #2-Communications;
Primary agencies or organizations: DHS/Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection/ National Communications System;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 7 others.
Emergency support function: #3-Public works and engineering;
Primary agencies or organizations: DOD/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers;
DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 16 others.
Emergency support function: #4-Firefighting;
Primary agencies or organizations: Department of Agriculture/Forest
Service;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 5 others.
Emergency support function: #5-Emergency management;
Primary agencies or organizations: DHS/Emergency Preparedness and
Response/ FEMA;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 25 others.
Emergency support function: #6-Mass care, housing, and human services;
Primary agencies or organizations: DHS/Emergency Preparedness and
Response/FEMA; American Red Cross;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 15 others.
Emergency support function: #7-Resource support;
Primary agencies or organizations: General Services Administration;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 9 others.
Emergency support function: #8-Public health and medical services;
Primary agencies or organizations: Department of Health and Human
Services;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 15 others.
Emergency support function: #9-Urban search and rescue;
Primary agencies or organizations: DHS/Emergency Preparedness and
Response/ FEMA;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 10 others.
Emergency support function: #10-Oil and hazardous materials response;
Primary agencies or organizations: Environmental Protection Agency;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 14 others.
Emergency support function: #11-Agriculture and natural resources;
Primary agencies or organizations: Department of Agriculture;
Department of the Interior;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 12 others.
Emergency support function: #12-Energy;
Primary agencies or organizations: Department of Energy;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 11 others.
Emergency support function: #13-Public safety and security;
Primary agencies or organizations: DHS; Department of Justice;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 12 others.
Emergency support function: #14-Long-term community recovery and
mitigation;
Primary agencies or organizations: Department of Agriculture;
Department of Commerce; DHS/Emergency Preparedness and Response/FEMA;
Department of Housing and Urban Development; Department of the
Treasury; Small Business Administration;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 10 others.
Emergency support function: #15-External affairs;
Primary agencies or organizations: DHS/Emergency Preparedness and
Response/FEMA;
Supporting agencies or organizations[A]: DOD and 25 others.
Source: GAO analysis of the National Response Plan.
DHS = Department of Homeland Security.
FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Agency.
[A] The Army Corps of Engineers was included with DOD and not counted
as a separate agency.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments From the Department of Defense:
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
end of this appendix.
Assistant Secretary Of Defense:
2600 Defense Pentagon:
Washington, DC 20301-2600:
May, 5 2006:
Homeland Defense:
Ms. Sharon L. Pickup:
Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Pickup:
We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the draft report,
"Hurricane Katrina: Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the
Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters." We found that
your report is thorough and makes a significant contribution to the DoD
action plans to improve the Department's support to civil authorities
during domestic disaster incidents. Many of the GAO's observations were
also identified by DoD during earlier internal after-action reviews. We
appreciate the detail of your report and believe it will help us as we
move forward.
We request you make several changes to the draft report. In general,
our comments fall under two broad categories. First, the report calls
for a greater DoD role during domestic disaster response. While we
agree with the general thrust of your recommendation, striking the
appropriate balance between the military's primary warfighting role
overseas and the need to support civil authorities at home is a
difficult, but fundamental issue. DoD will continue to work as part of
a unified interagency effort with other Federal, state, and local
agencies to plan for and respond to domestic disasters and catastrophic
events. The goal is to enhance the capacity of other agencies and state
and local governments to perform their assigned responsibilities during
domestic disaster response, with the continued ability to call on U.S.
military support when required by the circumstances. Until that goal is
achieved, however, the Department will be prepared to respond even more
rapidly and with more resources to another catastrophe in the United
States should the capacity of civilian agencies be overwhelmed.
In addition, as Lieutenant General Honors points out in his May 1,
2006, letter to you (attached), the title of the draft GAO report is
misleading in that it does not recognize DoD's extensive planning and
exercise schedule prior to August 29, 2005. We agree that we can plan
and exercise better. However, our planning and exercise schedule prior
to and during the 2005 severe weather season enhanced DoD's ability to
conduct the largest, fastest response to a civil disaster in the
nation's history. This is not to imply we can't improve - we can and
will do better. Our attached comments enumerate many positive steps
underway to posture ourselves for future support to civil authorities.
We hope you will incorporate them in the final version of the report.
Again, let me take this opportunity to thank you and your staff for
producing a thorough report.
Sincerely,
Signed By:
Paul McHale:
Attachments:
As stated:
GAO DRAFT REPORT - DATED APRIL 14, 2006:
GAO CODE 350755/GAO-06-643:
"Hurricane Katrina: Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the
Military's Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters"
Department Of Defense Comments To The Recommendations:
GENERAL: We found that your report is thorough and makes a significant
contribution to the DoD action plans to improve the Department's
support to civil authorities during domestic disaster incidents. Many
of the GAO's observations were also identified by DoD during earlier
internal after-action reviews. We appreciate the detail of your report
and believe it will help us as we move forward.
Echoing the comments of LTG Honore, 1st Army Commander, while the
report's emphasis is correctly on better planning and more stressing
exercises, the title could mislead if enough focus is not given to
DoD's extensive planning and exercise schedule prior to August 29th of
2005. We agree we can plan and exercise better. However, our planning
and exercise schedule prior to and during the 2005 severe weather
season enhanced DoD's ability to conduct the largest, fastest response
to a civil disaster in the nation's history. In addition, in concert
with both internal lessons learned processes and White House
initiatives, DoD is not just "beginning to take action" but rather has
been aggressively taking action and accelerating our plans. For example:
* By June 1, 2006, DoD will:
- Co-locate permanent Defense Coordinating Officers (DCOs) at FEMA
regional offices:
- Finalize emergency response plans:
- Revise the National Response Plan (NRP) and plan for a significant
DoD role in catastrophe response:
- Support DHS in developing an analysis and planning capability:
- Fold National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) & National
Security Agency (NSA) support into normal DoD civil support processes:
* DoD has released a Defense its Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA)
Standing Execution Order (EXORD) that authorizes Combatant Commanders
to:
- Deploy Defense Coordinating Officers/Defense Coordinating Elements
(DCO / DCE):
- Task DoD installations as Base Support Installations:
- Deploy Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS):
- Place on Prepare to Deploy Orders: Deployable Communications,
Helicopters, Aerial Reconnaissance, Patient Evacuation:
* DoD has developed pre-scripted Mission Assignments for FEMA:
- Done at request of FEMA, with cost estimates:
- 18 broken out in 7 Emergency Support Functions:
* DoD is undergoing an extensive exercise preparation:
- Catastrophic Assessment Task Force III (CATF III) (Executive Level)
on Hurricane Preparedness:
- USNORTHCOM ARDENT SENTRY /CJSC POSITIVE RESPONSE 06:
- 5 FEMA Regions will host 6 Table Top Exercises:
* DoD's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) calls for "Building
Partnership Capacity." The QDR execution roadmap will include training
of DHS planners and assistance in developing disaster assistance plans
for consequence management and catastrophic events:
Finally, the Report should not advocate or create an expectation of too
extensive a role for DoD in domestic disaster response. Domestic
response, except under extraordinary circumstances, is led by DHS, with
DoD and other agencies in support. Striking the appropriate balance as
to the military's role in civil affairs is a difficult but
fundamentally significant exercise --DoD capabilities are critical and
should be called upon when required by the circumstances. Our partner
agencies need to ensure their capabilities are fully resourced,
planned, and exercised as well.
Recommendation 1: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
provide the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security with
proposed revisions to the National Response Plan (NRP) that will
address fully the proactive functions the military will be expected to
perform during a catastrophic incident, for inclusion in the next NRP
update. (Page 28/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: Partially concur. The proposals of the GAO report are
valid as an interim solution. DoD will have a more robust disaster/
catastrophe response role. To the extent that local, state, and Federal
civilian responders do not have the resources or expertise to handle a
particular disaster, there is no other institution in our nation other
than DoD capable of promptly marshalling the necessary capabilities.
Further, it would make no sense for the U.S. Government to create a
stand-by capability the size of the U.S. Armed Forces dedicated solely
to catastrophic events - man-made or natural. However, too much
reliance on DoD is also not desirable. DoD assets exist primarily for
use in DoD's national security mission and may not be available for a
domestic response. The long-term focus of the U.S. Government (both
legislative and executive branches) should be to fund and develop more
robust DHS capabilities for planning and execution of the Federal
government's response to domestic disasters.
Additionally, with regard to the National Response Plan, proactive
military functions can be identified in all 15 major disaster
scenarios. DoD is already working with DHS and other Executive Branch
partners to develop plans against these scenarios and to revise
appropriate portions of the NRP.
Recommendation 2: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
establish milestones and expedite the development of detailed plans and
exercises to account fully for the unique capabilities and support that
the military is likely to provide to civil authorities in response to
the full range of domestic disasters, including catastrophes. The plans
and exercises should specifically address the:
* use of reconnaissance capabilities to assess damage;
* use of communications capabilities to facilitate support to civil
authorities;
* integration of active component and National Guard and Reserve
forces;
* use of search and rescue capabilities and the military's role in
search and rescue; and:
* role the military will be expected to play in logistics. (Page 28-29/
GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: Partially concur. DoD has extensive logistics
capabilities and expertise that can be used as a template for standard
domestic disaster relief interagency cooperation. The draft GAO report
makes several comments suggesting a lack of FEMA readiness to deal with
the logistics required for natural disasters on the scale of Hurricane
Katrina. Although the DoD remains ready in a supporting role with
regard to logistics, planning for and executing responses to natural
disasters is the clear responsibility of FEMA and individual states.
Additionally, DoD domestic disaster relief exercises that lack active
participation by other government and non-government agencies are of
limited utility. The gaps and seams that were highlighted during the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina between military and civilian government
agencies can be addressed in current exercises with appropriate focus
and committed civilian participation. These exercises should be
detailed enough to include the projected prioritized flow of identified
forces, their required sustainment, and logistical support.
USNORTHCOM, as the geographic Combatant Commander for most U.S.
territory, should take the lead in planning for domestic disasters.
USNORTHCOM Plans and Secretary of Defense Standing Execute Orders
(EXORDS) are signed or under final development regarding DoD's response
to domestic disasters. Examples of planning and exercise initiatives
include:
* Development of USNORTHCOM CONPLAN 2501: "Defense Support of Civil
Authorities" to be signed this Spring:
* Development of pre-scripted mission assignments in support of DHS /
FEMA.
* Conduct of USNORTHCOM mission analyses / vulnerability assessments
* Co-location of permanent Defense Coordinating Officers in the 10 FEMA
Regional Offices:
* Standing Defense Support to Civilian Authorities (DSCA) EXORD signed
April 28, 2006:
* Identification of DoD installations for FEMA Operational Staging
Areas and Mobilization Center Operations:
* Support to the DHS/FEMA Tabletop Exercise in FEMA Regions I, II, III,
IV, and VI:
* Conducted 140-150 conferences/tabletop exercises since Hurricane
Katrina. *Hosted Federal Coordinating Officer and Defense Coordinating
Officer Conference:
* Development of DoD/DHS damage assessment Concept of Operations
(CONOPS) using both aircraft and ground assessment teams:
- Development of a USNORTHCOM and USSTRATCOM framework to provide pre-
coordinated initial assessment options:
* Development of communications packages in support of first
responders, small staffs, and large staffs:
Additionally, consistent with the DoD Strategy for Homeland Defense and
Civil Support, DoD Active Component's focus should be to complement,
but not duplicate, the National Guard's likely role as an early
responder to a tactical emergency. For example, states have access to
tactical assets such as security forces, either through state agencies,
their own National Guard, or through the Emergency Management
Assistance Compact process. On the other hand, states do not have easy
access to Federal strategic assets, such as the Air and Space recon/
damage assessment capabilities provided by various federally-owned
sensor arrays. Clear delineation, when possible, between Title 32 and
Title 10 capabilities, will help create executable plans. For this
reason, planning and exercises should include local, state, (HLS and
National Guard), and Federal (DoD, DHS) representatives and should
stress the responders with the highest degree of realism possible - to
the breaking point if possible.
Recommendation 3: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Chief of the National Guard Bureau (NGB) to work with the
state governors and Adjutants General to develop and maintain a listing
of the types of capabilities the National Guard will likely provide in
response to domestic natural disasters under state-to-state mutual
assistance agreements with the associated units that will provide these
capabilities. In addition, the GAO recommended that the Secretary of
Defense direct the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to make this
information available to U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Joint Forces
Command, and other organizations with Federal military support to civil
authority planning responsibilities. (Page 29/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: Partially concur. This effort is underway in the form of
the Joint Capabilities Database (JCD) developed and maintained by
partnership between NGB-J5 and the 54 Joint Force Headquarters-State.
As part of the JCD implementation, the National Guard Bureau has
identified a need to place a contractor in every state/territory/
district to facilitate planning and provide in-depth integration
analysis for employment of the National Guard in support of the
homeland.
Identification of specific units --aside from command headquarters --is
no more feasible for the National Guard than it is for the active
component, as most forces/capabilities are multi-mission capable and
subject to deployment. Aligning specific forces to specific contingency
plans when execution is not imminent is often of limited benefit.
Accordingly, we recommend the following text change in the first part
of Recommendation 3: "associated units that will provide these
capabilities" to "associated units that could provide these
capabilities."
USNORTHCOM is engaged in better understanding the capabilities of
National Guard units. Examples of USNORTHCOM initiatives to further
this understanding include:
* Hosted USNORTHCOM Commander's Hurricane Conference:
* Met with 54 State and Territorial Adjutants General:
* Established a permanent NGB desk in the USNORTHCOM Command Center to
provide situational awareness of National Guard activities and
movements:
To enhance the goal of an integrated, executable plan, the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau should include USTRANSCOM in the distribution of
this information to the Continental United States (CONUS)-based
Combatant Commanders. As a direct support command to USNORTHCOM,
USTRANSCOM oversees several key active duty and reserve component
capabilities that also reside in the National Guard.
Recommendation 4: The GAO recommended that the Secretary of Defense
establish milestones and identify the types of scaleable Federal
military capabilities and the units that will provide those
capabilities in response to the full range of domestic disasters and
catastrophes covered by DoD's Defense Support to Civil Authorities
(DSCA) plans. (Page 29/GAO Draft Report):
DoD RESPONSE: Partially concur. We recommend the following text change
to Recommendation 4: "will provide those capabilities" to "could
provide those capabilities." This change emphasizes that while DoD has
these assets, they may not always be available depending on other
national security missions. The Department of Homeland Security should
take the lead on interagency cooperation and coordinate milestones with
the primary governmental and non- governmental participants.
Scalable capability packages have been developed in conjunction with
pre-scripted Requests For Assistance and USNORTHCOM CONPLAN 2501.
Continuing DoD guidance is to leverage wartime force structure and
training, and not to build capabilities primarily focused on DSCA.
ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS:
* The GAO should recommend that the Department of Homeland Security and
Department of Defense conduct at least one fully integrated exercise
annually. This exercise should involve the command centers at tactical,
operational, and strategic levels for both Departments, responding to a
common, jointly designed catastrophic scenario. It should be of
sufficient scope and duration to require a national response for both
response and recovery phases.
Comment: Major DoD and DHS joint exercises (ARDENT SENTRY and TOP
OFFICIALS, respectively) are currently de-coupled and typically involve
only response cells from one Department supporting the exercise of the
other. Furthermore, in the past these exercises, when conducted
concurrently, have not been integrated and synchronized as to training
objectives. Additionally, the scope and duration of the exercises did
not allow for extensive interplay under a stressful environment.
* The GAO report on pages 3, 4, and 15 describes the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau (NGB) as having overall responsibility for
military support to civil authorities programs for the states. While
the NGB does have impact o state programming, the overall
responsibility remains with the state governors. We recommend revising
these statements accordingly.
FIRST ARMY COMMENTS: Our comments above do not repeat the issues raised
by LTG Honore, but they remain valid DoD inputs to the report.
Damage Assessment and Situational Awareness: DOD's unique damage
assessment capabilities, especially air-and space-borne, are important
additive factors in the initial assessments of a disaster. USNORTHCOM's
damage assessment annex for disaster response, in part exercised
successfully during Hurricane Rita, will provide these unique DoD
capabilities when appropriate and authorized.
National Guard and Title 10 integration: DoD acknowledges that although
superb planning occurred in both Title 10 and Title 32 headquarters,
the planning was not as integrated as we desire. On the other hand, the
superb execution of an integrated National Guard/Active Duty mission is
well described by the First Army response.
Search and Rescue Integration: DoD acknowledges that better integration
of interagency and Title 32/Title 10 assets would have led to greater
efficiency for the Search and Rescue mission. However, it is worth
noting that the operation was conducted safely - a considerable
accomplishment under the extreme conditions of Hurricane Katrina's
aftermath.
ADDITIONAL LINE-IN / LINE-OUT COMMENTS:
1. Page 2, Para. 3, 1st sentence: Beginning with " ... envisions a
greater reliance on...," replace end of sentence to read: "...envisions
a greater reliance on the Reserve component, especially the National
Guard."
2. Page 10, Para. 2, Last sentence: After " ...a local military
commander...," insert "...when requested by local civil authorities..."
and then delete following phrase "civil authorities or the public."
3. Page 14, Para 2, 4th sentence: in last part of sentence " ...concept
of operations using National Guard and Reserve capabilities...",
replace "using" with "envisioning intense coordination with" and
replace "capabilities" with "forces."
4. Page 15, Para. 2, line 2: Delete entire second sentence starting
with "First," and replace with "First, Northern Command and State
National Guard response planning was not coordinated."
5. Page 19, Para. 1, 2nd sentence: After the ending phrase "...the
federal response indicate that the military," insert "(Active Duty and
National Guard):"
6 Page 20, Last Para, 1st sentence: After "...portion of disaster
response operations," insert "and ensure interoperability." Also, after
1st sentence which ends with "under the NRP." , insert a new sentence
that reads "While DoD communications systems are developed to provide
the warfighter with reliable communications for military operations,
DoD communication capabilities have significant civilian support
applicability."
* Insert this same new sentence on page 5, Para 3, before the last
sentence which reads "However, neither the NRP,... ."
7. Page 21, 1st Partial Para, last sentence: After "...local officials
were overwhelmed and...", delete "Department of Homeland Security and
DOD waited for requests for assistance rather than deploying a
proactive response,..." and insert "DoD did not anticipate the need to
supplement lost or degraded civilian communication capabilities nor did
DoD receive requests for assistance in this category," .
8. Page 26, middle page, first bullet: Change "synchronize surveillance
and reconnaissance requests and assets" to "synchronize damage
assessment assets." Rationale: The use of the term "ISR" in a domestic
setting, regardless of how benign or in what circumstances, could be
considered controversial by some. DoD prefers to use the term "damage
assessment."
9. Page 28, bottom page, 3rd bullet: Insert "planning" at the end,
following "Reserve Forces"
10. Appendix I, SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY:
* Under Commands, add "US" before both Transportation Command and Joint
Forces Command.
* Under Commands, move these lines to their respective military
services:
- Move "Air Mobility Command" to USAF:
- Move "Surface Distribution and Deployment Command" to Army:
- Move "Military Sealift Command" to USN:
* While each entity above uses the term "command," these three
organizations are "service" component providers to USTRANSCOM, a
unified "command."
Department Of The Army:
Headquarters First United States Army:
4705 N Wheeler Drive:
Forest Park, GA 30297-5000:
May 1, 2006:
Office of the Commanding General:
Ms. Sharon L. Pickup:
Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Pickup:
After reviewing the draft GAO report, I am concerned that the report's
recommendations fail to properly account for DoWs preparations and
historic response to Hurricane Katrina The title of the GAO Report
itself, "Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the Military
Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters," implies that DoD was
unprepared to execute its assigned tasks which is factually incorrect
as supported by DoD's actions. A more fitting title for the report is
"Assessment of The Military Response to Catastrophic Natural
Disasters." Additionally, it must be noted that throughout the
Hurricane Katrina response, all DoD forces operating in the Gulf were
working in support of and in accordance with the regulatory and policy
guidelines established by civil authorities. DoD should not be used as
a vehicle to counter the perceived shortcomings of these regulatory and
policy guidelines.
The explicit purpose of planning efforts is to prepare for future
execution. The report fails to address proactive measures taken by DoD
forces prior to landfall. First Army conducted planning and exercises
in response to six earlier storms (Arlene, Cindy, Dennis, Emily,
Franklin and Irene) of the 2005 Hurricane Season. Proactive measures
were taken by First Army prior to designation as a Joint Task Force
(JTF). These measures included publishing warning orders and a planning
order, identifying and submitting a request for capabilities, and
deploying Defense Coordinating Officers (DCOs) and Defense Coordinating
Elements (DCEs) to all the potentially affected states prior to
Hurricane Katrina's landfall. Early relief efforts were enhanced as a
result of these efforts.
With DoD relief efforts for Katrina underway, the ability to
preposition capabilities proved effective as the Gulf Coast was faced
with the landfall of Hurricane Rita As Hurricane Rita approached, JTF-
Katrina pre-positioned key assets that contributed to a timely and
effective response. Learning from our response to Rita, DoD again took
proactive actions in preparation for the subsequent landfall of
Hurricane Wilma in Florida by directing the pre-deployment of a Title
10 command and control element. However, prior to the arrival of the
command element, the Governor of Florida turned down (denied) the DoD
offer of support. Without the consent of a state's leadership
(governor), pre-deployment of Title 10 forces in preparation for a
pending disaster will remain constrained.
Certainly there are many lessons to be learned. However, the proactive
DoD stance recommended within the report exceeds DoD authority in
accordance with the current National Response Plan. For DoD to be more
proactive, this report should address changes to key policy issues.
The following excerpt from the report is indicative of other issues
that are addressed in the enclosure. From page 23 of the GAO Report:
"While tens of thousands of people were rescued after Katrina.the lack
of clarity in search and rescue plans led to operations that . were not
as efficient or as safe as they could have been." It should be noted
that while JTF-Katrina deployed into a crisis response environment
there were zero safety-related aviation accidents throughout the relief
effort.
I hope the comments here and in the enclosure help refine the final GAO
Report. I look forward to the GAO's final report and if I can be of
further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Russel L. Honore:
Lieutenant General:
U.S. Army Commanding:
Response to Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on Hurricane
Katrina "Better Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the Military
Response to Catastrophic Natural Disasters"
GAO Report Section: Results in Brief pages 4-8.
Issue #1. "...DOD, in its own emergency response plan, did not fully
address the military capabilities that could be needed to respond to a
catastrophic natural disaster." Reference page 4 of GAO Report.
First Army Response. First Army's routine planning process involves
applying Effects Based Analysis to identify potential requirements in
response to an impending natural disaster. Before Hurricane Katrina
made landfall, First Army submitted a request for capabilities (Title
10) to U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) on 28 August 2005 that
identified the following potential requirements:
* Satellite phones.
* Utility aviation (OH-58, UH1H or UH60) for aerial recon, damage
assessment and C2.
* Maritime capability for inter-coastal waterway search and rescue ops
and transportation of supplies and equipment.
* Medium lift aviation for movement of critical supplies and personnel.
* Medical evacuation aviation units with capability to support
evacuation, Search and Rescue (SAR) missions.
* Engineer/transportation units with watercraft assets for the gulf
coast area.
*Engineer portable power generation equipment (minimum 30kw capability)
and operators.
* Medical detachments (sanitation/veterinary) with capability to
support mass temporary housing.
* Construction/bridge/utility, type engineer units with capability to
restore lines of communication (remove and haul debris, repair roads,
provide emergency bridging, emergency restoration of infrastructure to
include repair/restore power/gas/water lines).
* MP units with capability to provide force protection and safeguard
DOD assets as required.
* Transportation units (medium truck companies) with capability to
provide haul/transport in high water.
No two crisis responses are the same, and a detailed plan cannot
address every individual response effort. Each and every storm has a
vote. Retaining the ability to respond to a crisis of this magnitude
may often require the movement of the response forces outside the path
of the storm in order to retain their capability. A storm of the
magnitude of Hurricane Katrina covered a large geographical area as it
made landfall.
Subsequent movement back into the affected areas to provide an
immediate response was initially hindered due to the destruction of
roads, bridges and airfields.
Issue #2: "...DOD's planning did not call for the use of the military's
extensive reconnaissance assets to meet the National Response Plan
(NRP) catastrophic incident annex's requirement for a proactive
response to catastrophic incidents." Reference page 5 of GAO Report.
First Army Response: There are legal and regulatory restrictions on the
ability to use DoD collection (reconnaissance) assets and products
domestically. Conducting damage assessments is not a DoD mission.
However, JTF-Katrina was ready to respond to properly approved requests
for reconnaissance support received from FEMA, state, or local agencies
fulfilling their damage assessment responsibilities under the NRP. JTF-
Katrina acted promptly on immediate response issues, working
collaboratively and in support of state, local, and federal officials
to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate great property
damage. JTF-Katrina supported the priority of effort per the governors
in the affected states during the early response phase, which was
Search and Rescue (SAR) and not damage assessment reconnaissance.
Issue #3: "...the National Guard and federal responses were coordinated
across several chains of command but not integrated, which led to some
inefficiencies and duplication of effort." Reference page 6 of GAO
Report.
First Army Response: JTF-Katrina efforts were coordinated across state
and federal agencies. The Joint Task Force (JTF) - Katrina Commander
traveled daily throughout the Joint Operations Area (JOA) coordinating,
collaborating and maintaining situational awareness. DoD (JTF-Katrina)
also placed representatives in key offices throughout the JOA to
facilitate relief efforts. Brigadier General Mark Graham and a team of
Fifth Army planners represented JTF-Katrina within the Louisiana
Emergency Operations Center (EOC) during relief operations. In
addition, USNORTHCOM Defense Coordination Officers (DCOs) and Defense
Coordination Elements (DCEs) were placed in support of both the
Mississippi and Louisiana EOCs to maintain situational awareness and
support coordination. As relief efforts in Alabama were concluding, JTF-
Katrina redirected the Alabama DCO and DCE to Gulfport, MS, to further
enhance the coordination of DoD relief efforts.
Issue #4: "...the search and rescue operations of the National Guard
and federal military responders were not fully coordinated, and
military operations were not integrated with the search and rescue
operations of the Coast Guard and other rescuers." Reference page 6 of
GAO Report.
First Army Response: Initial Hurricane Katrina response operations were
conducted within a crisis environment. The hurricane destroyed all
commercial means of communication, navigational aids, and power within
the affected area.
On the morning of 30 August 2005 Task Force Eagle (Louisiana National
Guard) established an ad hoc flight operations center "Eagle Base" at
the Superdome parking garage that effectively controlled the initial
Search and Rescue (SAR) effort in the vicinity of New Orleans. This
flight operations center included personnel from Army National Guard,
Air National Guard, Navy and Coast Guard. SAR operations were conducted
with "analog systems" and tactical manual methods using grids drawn on
available maps. At the peak of SAR operations there were over 230
helicopters flying daily in support of relief efforts. On 1 September
2005, 3 days after landfall, the Navy was operating P3 Orion aircraft
over New Orleans assisting in air space coordination for the relief
effort. As the Joint Operations Area matured, additional and more
robust control methods were emplaced to support the relief effort. All
methods applied to control the flight operations proved to be effective
as there were "no" helicopter safety related accidents throughout the
entire Hurricane Katrina recovery effort.
GAO Report Section: The Military Response Was Massive 16-19.
Issue: "Data concerning the military response were not always fully
documented in the midst of the Hurricane Katrina crisis, but it is
clear that the military had a huge impact on response and recovery
efforts." Reference page 19 of GAO Report.
First Army Response: JTF-Katrina published a daily Commander's
Assessment that was distributed to subordinate commands, DCOs/DCEs,
USNORTHCOM, FORSCOM, National Guard Bureau and others. Coupled with
daily conference calls, JTF-Katrina collaborated and coordinated its
hurricane relief efforts within the JOA. Within these assessments JTF-
Katrina captured and reported ongoing relief efforts. Copies are
available upon request.
GAO Report Section: Several Factors Affected the Military Response,
pages 19-24.
Issue: "...many responding military units from outside the affected
states were assigned missions within established geographical
boundaries but the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard units had
functional missions that cut across the geographical boundaries.
Furthermore, in New Orleans, the geographic boundaries were not the
same as the city district boundaries." Reference page 22 of GAO Report.
First Army Response: Operational boundaries were established based on a
unit's ability to cover an area given their mission assignment. An
overlap of operational boundaries was inevitable given the capability
of the National Guard to perform law enforcement functions where Title
10 Soldiers could not perform these functions in addition to supporting
the relief effort Operational space may exceed jurisdictional
boundaries in many cases.
GAO Report Section: Appendix 1: Scope And Methodology. Military
Services, pages 31-32.
Issue: "Joint Forces Land Component Commander, 82nd Airborne Division,
Fort Bragg, N.C." as listed under "Military Services, U.S. Army."
Reference page 32 of GAO Report.
First Army Response: This statement is not correct. As the JTF-Katrina
Commander, I elected to retain the role of Joint Forces Land Component
Commander. The 82d Airborne Division Commander was never designated as
the Joint Forces Land Component Commander.
The following are GAO's comments on the Department of Defense letter
dated May 5, 2006, and its attachments.
GAO Comments:
1. See the "Agency Comments and Our Evaluation" section, which begins
on page 36.
2. Many of the actions DOD cites were not completed when we ended our
review, and several are still not completed, so we cannot evaluate
their effectiveness. We continue to believe that "DOD is beginning to
take action" is accurate.
3. Our report distinguishes between disasters and catastrophes and
emphasizes the need to plan for extensive use of DOD capabilities
during catastrophes, when other responders are overwhelmed. Our report
does not call for expanded use of DOD capabilities during disasters.
4. See the comments on our first recommendation in the "Agency Comments
and Our Evaluation" section.
5. See the comments on our second recommendation in the "Agency
Comments and Our Evaluation" section.
6. See the comments on our third recommendation in the "Agency Comments
and Our Evaluation" section.
7. USTRANSCOM is one of the agencies that would be included in our
recommendation that the National Guard Bureau make the information
available to "other organizations with federal military support to
civil agency planning responsibilities."
8. See the comments on our fourth recommendation in the "Agency
Comments and Our Evaluation" section.
9. We have addressed this comment in the report.
10. Our report makes reference to DOD's use of reconnaissance assets
during Hurricane Rita.
11. While we have added additional information about DOD's integration
efforts, these additional efforts do not diminish our finding that
integration problems led to inefficiencies and duplication of effort.
12. Although aviation officials expressed safety concerns to us, we
agree that the fact that military search and rescue efforts were
conducted under extreme conditions without any aviation accidents
constitutes a considerable accomplishment, so we have revised our
search and rescue section.
13. We evaluated these technical comments and incorporated them as
appropriate.
14. Our report recognizes that the military forces, which responded to
Hurricane Katrina, were operating within existing regulatory and policy
guidelines, such as the NRP, DOD's Strategy for Homeland Defense and
Civil Support, and the current mobilization authorities, and the report
recommends adjustments to some of these guidelines.
15. The focus of this report was the preparation for and response to
Hurricane Katrina, not Hurricanes Rita and Wilma. However, where
appropriate, we have incorporated information about lessons learned
from Katrina, such as the use of reconnaissance assets to assess damage
from Hurricane Rita.
16. We modified the report to show that commands had issued planning
and warning orders prior to Katrina's landfall. However, our report
emphasizes the need for deliberative, advanced planning in addition to
crisis action planning.
17. We continue to believe that the solution to long-standing damage
assessment problems requires military involvement.
18. The First Army comments provide additional information about the
aviation picture over New Orleans, but as stated in the report, search
and rescue tasks were being assigned from two sites that were not
integrated. This led to some duplication of effort.
19. Military officials told us that many of their troops worked
directly with local officials and performed whatever tasks were most
needed. They said that many of these tasks were not captured in
official statistics or mission assignments.
20. We agree that some operational overlap was inevitable, but
limitations in planning led to inefficiencies and some duplication of
effort.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Sharon Pickup (202) 512-9619:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, the following individuals also
made contributions to this report: John Pendleton, Assistant Director;
Krislin Bolling; Ann Borseth; Alissa Czyz; Amy Dingler; Michael Ferren;
Richard Geiger; Kenya Jones; Tina Kirschbaum; Patricia Lentini; Brian
Mateja; Thomas Mills; Elizabeth Morris; Robert Poetta; Gina Saylor;
Natalie Schneider; Frank Smith; Leo Sullivan; and Steve Woods.
[End of section]
Related GAO Products:
Preparedness:
Reserve Forces: Actions Needed to Better Prepare the National Guard for
Future Overseas and Domestic Missions. GAO-05-21. Washington D.C.:
November 10, 2004.
Reserve forces: Observations on Recent National Guard Use in Overseas
and Homeland Missions and Future Challenges. GAO-04-670T. Washington
D.C.: April 29, 2004.
Homeland Defense: DOD Needs to Assess the Structure of U.S. Forces for
Domestic Military Missions. GAO-03-670. Washington D.C.: July 11, 2003.
Chemical Weapons: FEMA and Army Must Be Proactive in Preparing States
for Emergencies. GAO-01-850. Washington D.C.: August 13, 2001.
Federal Response:
Military Personnel: Full Extent of Support to Civil Authorities Unknown
but Unlikely to Adversely Impact Retention. GAO-01-9. Washington D.C.:
January 26, 2001.
Military Operations: DOD's Disaster Relief Assistance in Response to
Hurricane Mitch. GAO/NSIAD-99-122R. Washington D.C.: March 29, 1999.
Hurricane Katrina: GAO's Preliminary Observations Regarding
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. GAO-06-442T. Washington D.C.:
March 8, 2006.
Command and Control:
Disaster Management: Improving the Nation's Response to Catastrophic
Disasters. GAO/RCED-93-186. Washington D.C.: July 23, 1993.
Disaster Management: Recent Disasters Demonstrate the Need to Improve
the Nation's Response Strategy. GAO/T-RCED-93-46. Washington D.C.:
January 27, 1993.
Disaster Assistance: DOD's Support for Hurricane Andrew and Iniki and
Typhoon Omar. GAO/NSIAD-93-180. Washington D.C.: January 18, 1993.
Recovery:
Interagency Contracting: Problems with DOD's and Interior's Orders to
Support Military Operations. GAO/T-RCED-93-46. Washington D.C.: January
27, 1993.
(350755):
[End of section]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Throughout this report, we use the term military to refer to the
combined efforts of the National Guard and the federal military force.
We use the term DOD to distinguish between the federal military
response commanded by Northern Command and the National Guard response.
During Katrina, DOD's federal military response consisted of active-
duty military personnel and reservists who volunteered to be part of
the federal response.
[2] GAO, Disaster Assistance: DOD's Support for Hurricanes Andrew and
Iniki and Typhoon Omar, GAO/NSIAD-93-180 (Washington, D.C.: Jun. 18,
1993).
[3] GAO, Hurricane Katrina: GAO's Preliminary Observations Regarding
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery, GAO-06-442T (Washington, D. C.:
Mar. 8, 2006) and GAO, Statement by Comptroller General David M. Walker
on GAO's Preliminary Observations Regarding Preparedness and Response
to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, GAO-06-365R (Washington, D. C.: Feb. 1,
2006).
[4] White House, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons
Learned, (Feb. 23, 2006), House of Representatives, A Failure of
Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to
Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina,
(Feb. 15, 2006), and Senate, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still
Unprepared, (May 2006).
[5] 10 U.S.C. §12304.
[6] GAO/NSIAD-93-180, and GAO, Disaster Management: Improving the
Nation's Response to Catastrophic Disasters, GAO/RCED-93-186
(Washington, D.C.: July 23, 1993).
[7] Other agencies have supporting responsibilities for most of the
emergency support functions. For example, both the Department of
Homeland Security and the Department of Commerce have supporting
responsibilities for 13 of the 15 functions. The Department of Homeland
Security is also involved in the remaining two functions where it is
not a supporting agency. It is the coordinating agency for the external
affairs function, and is the departmental head of FEMA, which is a
supporting agency for the firefighting emergency support function.
[8] Before the National Guard troops are actually sent to another
state, the emergency management assistance compact is generally
implemented through a specific memorandum of agreement that is signed
by the sending and receiving states.
[9] Title 32 U.S.C. §502(f).
[10] On September 7, 2005, the Deputy Secretary of Defense authorized
the placement of National Guard personnel into Title 32 status,
retroactive to August 29, 2005.
[11] Section 12304 of Title 10 of the United States Code prohibits the
involuntary activation of National Guard and Reserve members for
domestic disaster operations. Under 10 U.S.C. §12302, the President
must declare a national emergency before he can involuntarily activate
National Guard and Reserve members, but under 10 U.S.C. §12301 (d) he
can activate National Guard and Reserve volunteers for any purpose. The
Posse Comitatis Act and DOD policy prohibit the use of federal military
forces to perform law enforcement functions. 18 U.S.C. §1385, DOD
Directive 5525.5.
[12] Title 42 U.S.C. § 5170b(c).
[13] Northern Command has responsibility for the major homeland defense
and military support to civil authorities plans for the 48 contiguous
states and Alaska. However, other commands have responsibilities for
the military support to civil authorities plans that cover Hawaii, U.S.
territories, and some specific functional areas, such as medical
support.
[14] GAO/NSIAD-93-180 and GAO/RCED-93-186.
[15] The United States Northern Command Functional Plan 2501 was
originally issued by the United States Atlantic Command as Commander,
United States Atlantic Command Functional Plan 2501-97, Military
Support to Civil Authorities, on February 2, 1998.
[16] Department of Homeland Security/Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection/ National Communications System.
[17] 10 U.S.C. §12304.
[18] Department of Defense, Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil
Support, June 2005.
[19] GAO/NSIAD-93-180 noted that the legislative intent of the Title 10
limitation was to prevent Reserve personnel from being activated
frequently, which could cause problems with their employers, but noted
that we would expect Reserve units would be activated for disaster
assistance only when there is a catastrophe. We further stated that any
changes to the call-up authority may need to consider limitations on
the number of units/personnel that can be activated as well as the
period of activation.
[20] GAO, Hurricane Katrina: Comprehensive Policies and Procedures are
Needed to Ensure Accountability for International Assistance, GAO-06-
460 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 6, 2006).
[21] The White House, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina:
Lessons Learned, February 23, 2006.
[22] A Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan
Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane
Katrina, U.S. House of Representatives, February 15, 2006.
[23] The First United States Army had responsibility for responding to
hurricanes and other disasters in Minnesota and states east of the
Mississippi River, including Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. The
Fifth United States Army had responsibility for responding to
hurricanes and other disasters in the remaining states, including
Louisiana and Texas. Both commands had mobilization and training
responsibilities as well.
[24] GAO/NSIAD-93-180.
[25] The Federal Response Plan was issued in 1992 and was replaced by
the National Response Plan in 2004.
[26] GAO/RCED-93-186.
[27] DOD Directive 3025.1, Military Support to Civil Authority.
[28] DOD Directive 3025.15, Military Assistance to Civil Authority.
[29] GAO, Disaster Assistance: DOD's Support for Hurricanes Andrew and
Iniki and Typhoon Omar, GAO/NSIAD-93-180 (Washington, D.C.: June 18,
1993), Disaster Management: Improving the Nation's Response to
Catastrophic Disaster, GAO/RCED-93-186 (Washington, D.C.: July 23,
1993), and Disaster Management: Recent Disasters Demonstrate the Need
to Improve the Nation's Response Strategy, GAO/RCED-93-46 (Washington,
D.C.: Jan. 27, 1993).
GAO's Mission:
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional
responsibilities and to help improve the performance and accountability
of the federal government for the American people. GAO examines the use
of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides
analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make
informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO's commitment to
good government is reflected in its core values of accountability,
integrity, and reliability.
Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony:
The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no
cost is through the Internet. GAO's Web site ( www.gao.gov ) contains
abstracts and full-text files of current reports and testimony and an
expanding archive of older products. The Web site features a search
engine to help you locate documents using key words and phrases. You
can print these documents in their entirety, including charts and other
graphics.
Each day, GAO issues a list of newly released reports, testimony, and
correspondence. GAO posts this list, known as "Today's Reports," on its
Web site daily. The list contains links to the full-text document
files. To have GAO e-mail this list to you every afternoon, go to
www.gao.gov and select "Subscribe to e-mail alerts" under the "Order
GAO Products" heading.
Order by Mail or Phone:
The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2
each. A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent
of Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or
more copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent.
Orders should be sent to:
U.S. Government Accountability Office
441 G Street NW, Room LM
Washington, D.C. 20548:
To order by Phone:
Voice: (202) 512-6000:
TDD: (202) 512-2537:
Fax: (202) 512-6061:
To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs:
Contact:
Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm
E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470:
Public Affairs:
Jeff Nelligan, managing director,
NelliganJ@gao.gov
(202) 512-4800
U.S. Government Accountability Office,
441 G Street NW, Room 7149
Washington, D.C. 20548:
