How Empowering Local Communities Can Improve Disaster Response

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October 31, 2012

Hurricane Sandy in New York City.

The Heritage Foundation has been arguing for years that local communities and individuals, not the federal government, should take the lead in disaster response. Hurricane Sandy should serve as a reminder of the need for these reforms.

In 2007, Heritage’s James Carafano, Jennifer Marshall and Lauren Hammond explained what this “grassroots disaster response” would look like:

The greatest advance that America could make in preparing for catastrophic disasters is to build better individual-based programs, a culture of preparedness, and resilient and self-reliant communities.

Achieving this goal requires thinking differently. Throwing money at states through homeland security grants or turning the responsibility over to the federal government entirely will not make Americans much safer. Instead, Washington should play a limited role, enabling and encouraging states and communities to take the lead by empowering individuals to care for themselves and others during disasters.

Do you think the federal government needs a different role in responding to disasters like Hurricane Sandy?

Comments (6)

Ellen - October 31, 2012

The federal government should only assist in disaster response when the Governor of the state requests it. Local grass roots efforts are much more efficient and less costly than having the federal government send help.

mach37 - October 31, 2012

“NO” to federal government response to emergencies that are not nationwide.

Medra Pattillo - October 31, 2012

The Federal Government should be there to supplement or augment local and state efforts. It should not have the primary responsibility for responding to disasters. The Federal Government should fill in where local and state governments need assistance. This would be a more efficient, less expense, and overall better way to respond to disasters.

Don Eagling - November 1, 2012

I was Chief Author & Editor of the “Seismic Safety Manual” for the US Department of Energy (1996), and wrote the chapter on Emergency Planning. History tells us that the first responders are local, not Federal, always. Our planning counseled that in a wide spread disaster, a DOE site should plan on being on it’s own for up to 3 days before help from Federal sources can be expected. It’s not only history, it’s common sense.

Robert Calabro - November 1, 2012

The strengh of America is in our communities. We built our country from the bottom up, not the top down. The government that is closer to the problem should respond first. The Federal government’s role should be limited to financial support. A trust fund should be set up to fund these grants. However, there should be an ironclad rule that Congress cannot borrow from the fund like they have borrowed from Social Security and the highway trust fund. What we are witnessing today is a change in weather patterns. the Pacific is getting colder and the Atlantic is getting warmer. The states involved must look at building codes and discuss the cost of building a levee system in the most vulnerable areas. Regards RC.

Jas Fleming - November 1, 2012

The model you describe is the current model being developed throughout the country. The local incident commander on-site is the person who directs the response – state and national resources are supposed to coordinate with the local commander before taking action.
Check out the website of the national VOAD (Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster: http://www.nvoad.org), the websites of the state-level VOADs and the sites of the local COADs (Community Organizations Active in Disaster). These groups are actively organizing and planning for disaster on a local level because “all disasters are local.”
This work has been going on since 1970. The model has proven itself many times to benefit the incident survivors.

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