State Perspective - Florida

Craig Fugate has served as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management through two administrations, from his 2001 appointment by then-Gov. Jeb Bush to his reappointment by Gov. Charlie Crist in 2006. In 2004, Fugate oversaw the state’s response to four major hurricanes—Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. In 2005, he administered the largest mutual-aid response in the state’s history: 7,000 state and local officials who served along the Mississippi Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Fugate began his career as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic with Alachua County Fire Rescue, attaining the rank of lieutenant and serving 10 years as the county’s emergency manager. Fugate joined the Division of Emergency Management in May 1997 as chief of the Bureau of Preparedness and Response.

Q. What are your office’s responsibilities within the state?

A. Our job in Emergency Management is to manage the state’s response to disasters. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has the lead for terrorism. We are the state administrative agency for all federal grant funding, but we do not administer those funds independently. Our Domestic Security Oversight Council, made up of stakeholders from around the state, distributes funds, primarily on a regional basis, based on prioritization of needs.

Q. How did the state’s response procedures evolve over the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons?

A. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was a watershed event that changed fundamentally how we deal with disasters. But in ’04 and ’05 we refined it even further. After Hurricane Andrew, there were large areas in Miami-Dade County where it took over a day just to assess damage. Then, coming into the 2004 season, we realized that it still took about 72 hours to get resources into an affected area. I asked my people why it took so long. They’d say, “Well, we’ve got to wait for the locals to determine how bad it is.”

Well, if a big hurricane is coming, we know it’s going to be bad. So we began systematically pre-positioning resources as close as we could to areas we knew would be affected, then moving in as soon as possible afterward. People would say, “But you don’t have a mission.” Well, our people are pretty smart. If they see something that needs to be done, they’re going to take care of it until they link up with the local governments.

We refined it through 2004, and by the time Katrina hit, we were able to get into areas much quicker than before. We actually had some units going over on Monday night (August 29, 2005, 12 hours after landfall), scouting the roads, and by Tuesday morning, we were there doing search and rescue.

By Wednesday, we were getting rather frustrated because we kept hearing from other states that they were still assessing, still mobilizing, still staging; that they couldn’t get to the coast. We were telling them, “We’re here, and it’s bad, and we’re working, and we need more stuff.” You can do all the damage assessments in the world, you’re not changing the outcome.

We now follow a set of deadlines covering the first 72 hours of a response. The first priority is to re-establish contact with the area impacted, and that means we can physically get into the area. The second priority is to secure the affected area, and we want to do that within about 12 hours of the winds dropping down to a point where we can operate. Then we want to get a primary search done for the injured within the first 24 hours. Within 72 hours, we want stabilization: getting enough medical capacity either back up or bringing it in, enough water or shelter, food, emergency fuel. At that point, things aren’t necessarily getting any better, but they’re not getting any worse.

These are very aggressive goals. But look at any number of disasters—the number of lives saved diminishes rapidly after 24 hours. If you’re still mobilizing or staging or doing assessments, you’re not going to be getting to the injured fast enough.

Q. How do you ensure that you have adequate resources?

A. With hurricanes, at least you see them coming, and you can start bringing things online. We also maintain a logistical warehouse in Orlando, where we keep about 200 tractor-trailer loads of water, assorted meals ready-to-eat, and other products packaged and palletized, ready to go for any incident, particularly ones we don’t know are coming.

We also work very closely with major retailers. Our goal is to get them re-opened quickly so that they can do what they do best, which is retail, and we can focus on areas that don’t have that service, either as a result of the disaster or because the stores weren’t there in the first place.

Q. How do you coordinate with those retailers?

A. Through the Florida Retail Federation. They actually have a seat in the emergency operations center, and they serve as a conduit. As we put out situation reports and updates, they forward those out to all their companies.

Q. Are those retailers responsible for their own security?

A. Yes. But one of the big challenges they said they faced, particularly in areas where very few stores were open, was long lines. We tell them we expect them to provide security to the best of their ability. But if it becomes a public-safety issue, we’ll provide it up to and including the National Guard.

Q. Can you tell us about your agency’s motto, Semper Gumby?

A. Always Flexible. We stole that from the Marine Corps. In a disaster you have to be focused on outcomes, not on achieving them in a set manner.

Take Hurricane Ivan in 2004. We had stockpiled everything as close as we could to Pensacola, loaded it up on tractor-trailers, and planned to ride in like the cavalry. Then we lost the bridge carrying Interstate 10 westbound into the city. The only detour took 200 miles on two-lane highways all the way through Alabama and back. And there were a quarter million people waiting with no running water, high temperatures, high humidity, and no relief in sight. And oh, by the way, the clock is ticking, because this is the first full day after the storm. You’ve got to get water there today. Next thing you know, we’re preparing an airlift and shifting water procurement to points west.

Q. How do you characterize your office’s relationship with the federal government?

A. It’s healthy. But since Katrina, I’m troubled by the tendency of the federal government to come in heavy in all disasters, even smaller ones, which could lead to complacency among the states. I think you’ve got to strike a balance and put more onus on state and local governments to do more with their resources before they default to the feds.

Q. Has the state conducted any major exercises lately? 

A. We had the opportunity last year to do a no-notice exercise based on a terrorist attack against the governor and his cabinet, resulting in the death of one third of the agency heads and the incapacitation of others. The remainder had to reconstitute their agencies and get state government back on its feet. It really put things into perspective. These agencies had continuity-of-operations plans that were in foot-thick books—much too complicated. That drill made it crystal clear that if these plans aren’t understandable and intuitive, they won’t help.

Q. What are your agency’s goals for the coming year?

A. Well, we were the first state emergency management program to receive full accreditation under the Emergency Management Accreditation Program, and we’re up for re-accreditation this year.

We also have just revamped our emergency operations center, called the State Warning Point. Our state fusion center, over at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, needed added information during incidents to determine if there would be any additional impacts or if any separate events were occurring.

We renovated the Warning Point to put the meteorologists, planners, and duty officers’ workstations in the same area. We’ve also increased the amount of information coming in so that we don’t end up waiting for federal agency reports.