The Pacific Northwest is a very dangerous place when the ground shakes. It is best not to be in contact with the ground when it does. What options are there for avoiding contact with the shaky ground? Flying would shield us from seismicity, but so would being aboard a vessel at sea. Ships, like aircraft, are not in contact with the ground, and tsunamis are a shallow water phenomenon. Mariners have long known that at-sea vessels survive earthquakes and tsunamis. Pacific Northwest mariners, in particular, are noted for surviving fierce storms. The Pacific Northwest mariner infrastructure, with its global affiliates, is therefore in a position to help save lives in the event of a Cascadia megaquake and hasten response and recovery to seismic events. It is therefore critical for local, state, federal, and international Pacific Northwest mariners to become allies in governmental disaster response and take full advantage of nautical and marine resources for emergency executions. It is theorized that the development of a nautical/marine/air/land Pacific Northwest natural disaster government execution stratagem would reduce Cascadia Megaquake casualties and cost estimates.
Follow up:
Seismicity can come in different forms, and all are welcome to share thoughts on their experiences with it. My contribution to the topic will focus on Marine Seismicity, where there is the combined possibility of earthquake and Tsunami. I assert that we have an opportunity to improve our Response and Recovery prospects to this type of disaster by taking advantage of our seismic resistant maritime infrastructure as well as potential Civil Engineering projects as further resources of marine community Preparation, Mitigation, Response and Recovery.
The following offering garnered a response from the Directors of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware:
Aug 2018
To: Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey Ca, the Disaster Research Center of the Univ of Delaware, and the 13th Dist of USCG
From: John Harpe
[email protected]
Please forgive the FB submission. I am and always have been a Civilian and FB is my current connection with your able facility.
Re: Wa St group seeks NPS/DRC Academic investigation of a proposed augmentation to Govt response plans for the Pacific NW Cascadia Earthquake.
Background: Shortly before retiring from a 35 yr career as a Wa St Firefighter, Paramedic and Resp Therapist, I contributed to a Hospital Em Prep Committee. The focus one day was the Governors final Wa St Cascadia Earthquake Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, (CEMP), and Resiliency Plan. After being briefed on the worse case casualties, the long term and difficult Recovery, and how our own Wa St Natl Guard Units were going to have to dig themselves out before being able to respond, I was ORDERED to think outside the box and suggest anything else to possibly improve this. The concepts I accidentally shared at that meeting have since been of great interest to my small circle Civilian Em Prep colleagues, one of whom referred me to NPS/DRC
Though I have no Naval training, I have a great deal of Incident Command exposure and found myself using it long before the Federal Govt adopted it. When contemplating my orders to think outside the box on Cascadia, my first concern was establishing a safe Command Post for our Governor. Being a Science geek, I had learned deep water vessels do not feel the effects of Earthquakes nor Tsunami’s. Thus, it was concluded this would probably be the safest place for the Incident Command Post during and after Cascadia in all Washington State, especially west of the Cascade Mountains. It was also realized Wa St waterways would provide safe, accessible and dependable Coms, Logistics, Medical facilities, aircraft launch and recovery, Civilian accountability, etc. This also led to the realization that local Communities could cache accessible Disaster Relief Supplies on deep water. Road Dept’s, PUD’s, Red Cross etc, all would make Govt Disaster and NGO disaster efforts available to respond immediately, not the 14-30 days post earthquake currently forecasted in the Resiliency Plan.
Upon seeking further peer review of these concepts, I was most fortunate to eventually make the acquaintance of a Ret USN Commander, who in 1989 used USN assets to address the Loma Prieta earthquake. He is also a FEMA Region X Instructor. His assessment of these proposals: “Frickin Brilliant!” He has taken these concepts to his FEMA Superiors and reports some version of them will be reviewed by DHS Sec Nielsen. It was this retired CMDR who referred me to you. He also asked a USN base …. if Reserve Ships could be made available for such a purpose. I’m not privy to the response.
It is also realized that dedicated post disaster assets based at Sea is not only in the best interest of the United States, but in the interest of all countries along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Thus, resources could be combined, offsetting costs to implement and maintain.
Current Wa St CEMP has limited water/amphibious contribution. It is our view the Cascadia Earthquake prep, mitigation, response and recovery must have a major maritime contribution. Again, our waters will be the only place left intact. Wa St is capable in this regard, having a Ferry system in its Dept of Transportation, as well as numerous other Govt and private owned maritime capabilities. Washington is a State of Mariners. Even the Indigenous Native Americans have a long history upon those waters should history check, they being our oldest mariners. Wa St is capable of this.
Being academically oriented, I am aware of the power of Research to solve problems. The CMDR and I support the idea of thorough scientific peer review. We seek a Student from your facility who may be willing to make this the focus for Thesis submission. We seek the Scientifically published answers to two questions:
1. Do Sea based Emergency Operations Centers, Coms, Logistics etc, improve Recovery outcomes to Earthquake affected Coastal Communities?
2. Do prepositioned Sea based local Disaster mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery assets improve the Recovery of Coastal Earthquake Communities.?
I am not in the business of pre disaster analysis, but feel strongly that such a capability would greatly improve current Cascadia Earthquake casualty and cost estimates.
Thank you for your attention. But mostly I thank you for your service.
This proposal received the following reply:
Dear Mr. Harpe,
Many thanks for your Facebook message to the Disaster Research Center. My name is Jim Kendra. Tricia Wachtendorf (copied here) and I are directors of the Disaster Research Center and we are also authors of American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11. Thus we have considerable interest in the value of maritime resources in emergency management in coastal or riverine areas. By way of a brief introduction, I used to be a Merchant Marine Officer,(during editing this was Capitalized). And one of our faculty is a retired Submariner, (editor Capitalized) so we have some shipping expertise here.
The problem you set out in your letter is an interesting one: can maritime resources be stationed so as to provide incident command or logistical support functions to an area affected by a disaster—in your case, an earthquake.
Experiences of maritime support in disaster response are widely varied across the military and civilian sectors so that the challenge is first, distilling the appropriate lessons and then, choosing the best set of policy options based on suitable metrics of effectiveness and efficiency.
Here are some recent relevant examples:
Ferries filled in for damaged highways after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.
Ferries and boats of all description evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from Manhattan on 9/11
On 9/11, the Pilot Boat New York served as a coordination center around Lower Manhattan.
A Ready Reserve ship generated shoreside electrical power in New Orleans after Katrina.
The Military Sealift Command makes extensive use of “prepositioning ships” located around the world to support our military and, of course, naval forces routinely provide command, control, and coordination functions.
Roll on/Roll off ships from the Ready Reserve Fleet have been used to shelter first-response vehicles from hurricanes in the Gulf Coast
Substantial maritime assets from the Navy and Army deployed to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, providing medical care and building temporary seaport facilities. The Army Transportation Corps has some very cool equipment for this function.
The Massachusetts Maritime Academy training ship deployed to New York after Hurricane Sandy to provide accommodations for disaster workers.
Among others, and just as a starting point, some principal questions to answer might include: identification of relevant stakeholders who would sponsor and use this resource; the design and suitable outfitting of a vessel (bearing in mind challenges of interoperability that are often unresolved even in shoreside settings; deciding on a dedicated-use vessel or one that would have other non-disaster functions; its location (e.g., it can’t be at the dock if a tsunami approaches); cost (of course!); and other such matters.
It could certainly be an interesting question for a thesis or policy statement project, particularly for someone who has interests that cut across emergency response and public policy domains. At the moment, we don’t have students who are free to undertake this but we can keep it in mind when a new cohort of students arrives this fall. Alternatively, something of this sort might interest the students who attend the Naval Postgraduate School in California, which has a program in homeland security and emergency preparedness.
Thanks again for reaching out to us. We appreciate it and certainly please be in touch if you’re aware of any developments that bear on the problem. We’ll do the same.
Sincerely,
Jim Kendra and Tricia Wachtendorf
James M. Kendra, Ph.D., CEM
Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration
Director, Disaster Research Center
Adviser, UD Chapter, International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM@UD)
www.sppa.udel.edu
drc.udel.edu
www.facebook.com/disasterresearchcenter
Thanks to this response, I felt I had specific objectives to achieve. A lot of the content herein has tried to address the Directors concerns.
As an odd discovery on a subsequent internet search, I found reference to Team Rubicon Region X “Operation Marvin Shields”. This was the exact same name I suggested to the Commander at our first meeting.
Being a complete novice as to how we approach disaster stratagems but very appreciative of the reply, I felt I had to keep pressing the issue and submitted the following to the Director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado/Boulder. This somehow got her email attention, and my eventual invitation to introduce the mentioned concept to the 2019 Natural Hazards Center Convergence Conference.