Remarks by Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff at the Emergency Management and Disability and Aging Populations Conference

Release Date: 06/30/06 00:00:00

Washington, D.C.

Emergency Management and Disability and Aging Populations Conference

June 30, 2006

Secretary Chertoff:  Alex, thank you for that introduction and for your remarks, which I think are very meaningful and very significant.  We have actually had a tremendous partnership working with Alex and with Secretary Mike Leavitt and with some of our other agency partners, including the Department of Defense and Department of Transportation as a team, trying to ensure that all Americans get the benefits of preparedness and safety when we confront natural and man-made disasters.

I also want to thank Patricia Morrissey from HHS as a conference co-sponsor; Dan Sutherland, our own officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties as a conference co-sponsor; Claudia Gordon, who is a senior policy advisor in the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, who I was very pleased in the last few weeks to award the Secretary's Gold Medal for her work on disability issues, particularly in Katrina.  She was very hard-working in leading us to make sure that we always focused on those who need our help in dealing with that unprecedented catastrophe.

I also want to praise the governors of over 40 states and the Mayor of the District of Columbia for sending Homeland Security advisors and emergency managers to this conference.  I think it reflects the importance we all place on planning, and particularly planning for those with disabilities, to make sure that when we face an emergency or a natural disaster or a manmade disaster, we are taking all the steps we need to protect all Americans.

I know you've been working diligently for many months to improve your state plans, under deadlines that were imposed by Congress, by our own departments, at the federal level and by your own governors.  And for you to take the time to travel to Washington and spend several days here for this conference is commendable and appreciated, and a recognition of the importance you place on this work.

Secretary Leavitt and I wanted to co-sponsor this conference because improving emergency preparedness response and recovery for people with disabilities and for our nation's seniors is one of the top priorities for both of our departments and for the entire field of emergency management.

The issues involved affect a large proportion of our population, and groups that are unfortunately sometimes overlooked in our society.  As we look back on the impact of Katrina and Rita, we know a disproportionate number of the fatalities were people above the age of 65 and people with disabilities who were unable to evacuate quickly.  We know a disproportionate number of the people who suffered in the weeks and months after Katrina and Rita were those who had serious medical needs, found themselves suddenly without the support systems that had allowed them to live independently and productively, were those without needed medications, were those who had to live in shelters, hotels or trailers that simply were not accessible.

Much of this suffering is entirely preventable if we plan for it in advance.  We need to encourage individuals with disabilities, seniors and their families and caregivers to be better prepared for emergencies.  We need to emphasize that it is a civic duty for every individual and every family to prepare themselves to the extent they are able to do so.

But we also need to make sure that government at all levels is able and has done the planning necessary to step in an fill those gaps that individuals and families are not able to fill themselves.

There's another way in which we need to make sure we are careful and intelligent in the way we address the people in this country who do have disabilities or who are seniors.  The fact of the matter is, they have tremendous talents to offer in emergency planning and preparedness.  And so we need to integrate the talent of people with disabilities in the emergency management planning process itself.  

People with disabilities do not want to be, and they should not be, merely passive consumers of assistance rendered by others.  They should be active participants in the process of designing, implementing and executing on emergency plans that affect their own lives.

People with disabilities want to roll up their sleeves and get in the trenches with emergency management officials to find solutions that work.  They have a tremendous amount to offer, because they bring a unique blend of energy, experience, ideas and personal determination to these issues.

So we need to recognize that people with disabilities, their families, and the organizations that serve them have to be partners in the process of emergency planning.

Now, as a nation, we have made a lot of progress over the last year, and particularly over the past several months, to be better prepared for this hurricane season, and that includes a specific focus on progress as it relates to those who are disabled, or who are senior citizens.

Now, preparedness is national responsibility, but not a federal responsibility alone.  Rather, it is a responsibility shared by federal, state and local governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and individual citizens -- all of whom need to be doing and all of whom are doing their part.  At the federal level, we're actively working to integrate lessons from our experiences of last year so we are better prepared to support all the other levels of government and private citizens facing this hurricane season or any other natural disaster that comes upon us suddenly or with foreseeability.

We've established and strengthened our preparedness functions, made sure they're integrated and made sure we are looking at the challenge of planning for disasters in a holistic fashion, one that looks at homeland security and emergency preparedness not as separate elements of government activity, but as integrated and unified elements of what we need to do to face catastrophes.

We've given FEMA new tools and new leadership that it needs and deserves, including bringing on board senior leaders with more than a hundred years of combined, hands-on, disaster management experience.  I know Chief Paulison was here earlier this week to discuss some of the important work he and Admiral Harvey Johnson have been doing to boost FEMA's commodity tracking capabilities, emergency communications and victim assistance.

For the first time, we've also pre-designated federal leadership, including principal federal officers well in advance of a disaster.  We have told them to go down and get acquainted with and start to work alongside state and local officials so that they do not introduce themselves when the tropical storm winds are first appearing.  That means we now have, for the first time, experienced disaster management teams already in place in those areas of the country in which they will be serving.

But also starting last year, and really within a matter of days after Katrina hit, we've begun to take steps to make sure that we are particularly focused on those vulnerable populations and getting them very much involved in the planning and preparation process.  So we have added a civil rights, civil liberties liaison to our joint field office standard operating procedure.  This disability subject matter expert will be actually positioned on the staff of the principal federal officer, and that person will be there to make sure that at every step of the process of implementing and executing our disaster plans, we are taking account of the needs and we are taking account of the imperative to serve the needs of those who are disabled or who are seniors.  

Of course, we're continuing to conduct community preparedness outreach and training through critical programs like the Citizens Corps, which has almost 2,000 councils nationwide, and through the READY campaign.  

READY is now in the final stages of producing new materials specifically targeted to individuals with disabilities and the elderly, working with the National Organization on Disability and with the Red Cross.  These materials will be a valuable resource to emergency managers as you work with these communities to improve preparedness.

Now, as many of you know, we completed recently the Nationwide Plan Review of state and urban area emergency plans and submitted that report to Congress.  As part of this process, I specifically directed the review to include a rigorous examination of how communities plan to prepare, inform, evacuate and care for people with disabilities.  In March, our Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties secured 11 disability subject matter experts to review these plans.  The team designed a detailed assessment tool to evaluate the level to which states and urban areas are integrating people with disabilities into the emergency planning process.  This work was ground-breaking.  Subject matter experts on disability issues had never before examined state and local emergency operations plans with this type of assessment tool that is particularly formulated to deal with these disability issues.  The findings of these experts are featured in the final report of the nationwide plan review.  And more important, we expect that this evaluation will be a catalyst for specific improvements in state and local emergency operations plans.

We are also including disability issues in a number of terrorism and disaster exercises, including the FEMA regional hurricane exercises and our national-level TOPOFF 4 top officials disaster and catastrophe exercise program.  Our Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was an active participant in the recent series of hurricane preparedness exercises in New Orleans, Providence, Atlanta, and Philadelphia that were designed to assist all levels of government in preparing for the upcoming hurricane season.  We've been collaborating with the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and other volunteer organizations active in disasters to address areas of improvement needed in our nation's shelters and in our citizens' preparedness focused on these issues.  

And we've developed a web-based resource center that includes dozens of important technical assistance materials to assist emergency managers as they confront and grapple with these challenges, and that will help people with disabilities to become better prepared.  This resource center found at www.disabilitypreparedness.gov is a great complement to our Ready.gov website.

I could go on with discussion of more improvements, but I know a lot of these have actually been the subject of discussion during this conference.

But I want to finish with one more.  We now have in place an incident management team that focuses specifically on response and recovery for people with disabilities.  This team was born in the days and weeks after Katrina made landfall and met on a daily basis by telephone and in person with individuals with disabilities, their families, their service providers, and their advocates.  The team functioned as a conduit for complaints and requests for assistance, helped direct private sector offers of assistance to the appropriate locations and entities, and worked closely with other government agencies to rapidly formulate responses to challenges in the affected regions.

The work of that incident management team will be more effective in future emergencies because we've now institutionalized it through the Joint Field Office Civil Rights, Civil Liberties Liaison.

In closing, I want to thank the Interagency Coordinating Council on Emergency Preparedness and Individuals with Disabilities.  Over 20 federal agencies participated in this council, which our Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has the privilege to lead.

This council has been critical to our efforts to better serve people with disabilities and to serve our seniors.  And I want to thank each of the agencies for their continued cooperation, teamwork and innovation.  I also want to observe to you that this issue of helping to ensure that those with disabilities and those who are senior citizens are fully incorporated into our planning and preparedness process has commanded the attention of the highest levels of our government.  Not only Alex and my deputy, not only Secretary Leavitt and myself, but the President himself has been kept fully up to speed with the attention we are paying to this very, very important problem at every step of the way and are building better capabilities for hurricane season and for dealing with disasters.

So thank you for the great work you've done and you've accomplished on these issues in the first two days of the conference.  I encourage you to continue with this productive approach on the final day, and to take back to your governor’s specific and concrete results from the work you do here.  

What we're looking for this season -- whether it be hurricanes or earthquakes or even a manmade terrorist-inspired disaster is a plan and an ability to execute against that plan that fully addresses the needs of every single American -- whatever their condition, whatever their age, whatever their economic status -- so that we truly act as a single country in preparing those of our fellows who need our help in a time of greatest need.

Thank you very much for your commitment and for your attendance.  

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