One Year After Sandy, Two Wishes

October 13 is the UN International Day for Disaster Reduction, which is focusing on disability and disaster resilience this year. There is a thoughtful article on the Thomson Reuters Foundation website that lists seven themes common to international efforts to reduce disaster risk:

1. Reducing disaster risk needs to involve everyone.

2. Local capacity should be increased.

3. Good practice knowledge should be shared.

4. National plans and development strategies should integrate risk management.

5. Public awareness must be improved.

6. Accountability and clearer metrics should support action.

7. Access to early warnings must be timely and equitable.

Here are two suggestions to improve All-Hazard planning in New Jersey that incorporate these themes about communication, community, and accountability.

Legislation that Requires All Government Workers to be Disaster Service Workers

Since 2005, California requires all government workers to be Disaster Service Workers as part of their employment, which means they can be assigned to support activities that protect public health and safety during a disaster. During a declared emergency they must report to their department supervisor or to a departmental staging area.

This law is not about First Responders – police, fire services, emergency medical services, health departments, and public works - who are already committed to reporting to work. This is about staffing essential logistics activities that would support these positions: shelters, food and medical deliveries, clinics, warehouses, phone banks, IT, inventories, clerks, supervisors – what it takes to support an operation.

California Government Code Section 3100-3109 states in part:

"It is hereby declared that the protection of the health and safety and preservation of the lives and property of the people of the state from the effects of natural, manmade, or war-caused emergencies which result in conditions of disaster or extreme peril to life, property, and resources is of paramount state importance…in protection of its citizens and resources, all public employees are hereby declared to be disaster service workers…"

New Jersey doesn't have this mandate. During the first critical days after Sandy made landfall, many volunteers did not respond because they had taken a hit. Only the handful of government workers designated as Essential Personnel, many of them managers, were obligated to report to work. Everybody else that reported did so in spite of knowing that they could have refused, and some did.

California has already figured out the problems: training, unions, Civil Service. When we have regional disasters the plan should not be to rely on volunteers alone to man essential services.

Legislate Terrorism Preparedness into the N.J. Radiological Emergency Response Plan

N.J.S.A. 26:2D-37, and other sections of the Radiation Accident Response Act, specifically limit the definition of an emergency response to a radiation accident that occurs at a nuclear facility or during a transportation accident. The regulations as presently written omit a mandate to plan for a response to a nuclear event if it is caused by an act of terrorism outside of the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone.

The EPZs in New Jersey are two 10-mile areas around the Oyster Creek and the Salem-Hope Creek nuclear power plants where minimum standards for planning and drilling are mandated by the Act.

Radiological preparedness in N.J.S.A. 26:2D-37 et seq. should include a mandate for agencies in all localities in NJ to prepare specific plans for responding to a detonation of a nuclear bomb by terrorists.

This would effectively expand nuclear preparedness planning beyond the 10-mile EPZ into the rest of NJ. This mandate would not need approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since this is about nuclear bomb preparedness, not nuclear facility preparedness. For the same reason, the nuclear power industry would not need to do a cost effectiveness analysis because they would not have to fund it.

If it is impractical to mandate preparedness for nuclear terrorism throughout N.J., a pilot program should be considered for counties within the 20-mile Dangerous Fallout Zone surrounding major urban centers that are within or proximate to N.J.

The Dangerous Fallout Zone (DFZ) from a 10 kiloton bomb temporarily peaks at 10,000 milliroentgens/hour, or about a million times ambient background radiation in coastal N.J., at twenty miles from ground zero. A ten kiloton bomb is the size chosen by federal planners for their hypothetical scenarios, and is about the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

The radiological planning documents already developed for the two 10-mile EPZs could be provided to communities within the 20-mile DFZ in order to facilitate their planning.

There is precedent for adding a new requirement like nuclear terrorism preparedness to these regulations. In 1985, requirements to reduce risks from radon exposure were added in N.J.S.A 26:2D-62; and most recently in 1989, tanning booths in N.J.S.A 26:2D-82.

Initiating this mandate would be consistent with recommendations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2012 that all states need to begin requiring preparedness plans for responding to Improvised Nuclear Devices (IND):

“Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires nuclear powerplants to have emergency plans for their facilities and the immediate surrounding area, no Federal entity requires States or localities to have public health emergency plans for nonpowerplant radiological and/or nuclear (RN) incidents, such as a terrorist attack.”

Right now, an easy way to compare local radiological plans in counties with a 10-mile EPZ to plans in the rest of N.J. would be to weigh them, or see which plan could hold open a door and which could be slipped under one.

RESOURCES

Mountfort, Helen. 11 Oct 2013 11:45 AM. What should a new disaster risk reduction deal focus on?  Overseas Development Institute. http://www.trust.org/item/20131011105216-nmht8/?source=hpblogs

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Accessed 10/11/13. International Day for Disaster Reduction (13 October). http://www.unisdr.org/2013/iddr/#.UlgLTj_D_Gg

Disaster Service Workers

California Government Code Section 3100-3109 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=gov&group=03001-04000&file=3100-3109

2005 California Government Code Sections 3100-3109. Service Workers And Public Employees.  Government Code Section 3100-3109. http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2005/gov/3100-3109.html

California Department of Public Health. Accessed 10/11/13. Serving California in a Disaster. Public Employees as Disaster Service Workers. http://www.epotraining.com/uploads/Disaster_Service_Worker_Training.ppt

Orange County Department of Education. Accessed 10/11/13. Disaster Service Worker Status. http://www.ocde.us/Emergency/Documents/Disaster_Serv_Wkr_Status.pdf

Radiological

National Security Staff and Office of Science and Technology Policy (NSSOSTP). June 2010. Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation (2nd ed.) National Security Staff Interagency Policy Coordination Subcommittee for Preparedness & Response to Radiological and Nuclear Threats. National Security Staff Interagency Policy Coordination Subcommittee for Preparedness & Response to Radiological and Nuclear Threats. http://www.remm.nlm.gov/PlanningGuidanceNuclearDetonation.pdf

Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. 1/2012. Local Public Health Preparedness for Radiological and Nuclear Incidents. OEI-04-10-00250. http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-04-10-00250.pdf

U.S. Government Accountability Office. Mar 11, 2013. Emergency Preparedness: NRC Needs to Better Understand Likely Public Response to Radiological Incidents at Nuclear Power Plants. GAO-13-243. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-243