Canton on Emergency Management

Berlin, Haiti and A Lesson From History

I've frequently said that there's really nothing new under the sun and that we can learn valuable emergency management lessons by studying history, particularly the history of crisis. We emergency managers often think almost exclusively in terms of natural disasters, a tendency that is probably as frustrating to our Homeland Security colleagues as is the perception that they think solely in terms of terrorism is to us. So we sometimes need to stretch ourselves when it comes to our research and not just look at historical natural disasters.

During the past week I've been following the operations in Haiti, as many of my friends and colleagues have been doing. Over the years, I've learned that most emergency management issues are logistical in nature - you have to identify what is needed, find it, and get it to the right people. We are certainly seeing this in Haiti, where logistics is hampered by the use of a single airport and limited infrastructure.

It occurred to me that we have faced this situation before, albeit in a very different environment, in Berlin in 1948-49. Following World War II, Germany was divided into four occupation zones and Berlin, which was about 100 miles within the Soviet Zone was divided into four sectors. After a series of escalating crisises, the Soviets halted all surface transport to Berlin in June 1948. Only two air corridors guaranteed by treaty remained. Some two million people were cut off with limited supplies.

The Allies responded by mounting the most ambitious airlift ever attempted. Berlin need some 1,534 tons of food daily, plus another 3,475 of coal and gasoline. This would increase by another 3,000 tons as winter approached. To meet this need, the Allies improvised a system that was delivering some 8,893 tons per day by April 1949, more than had previously been brought in by rail before the blockade. The system relied on a single point of control, maximized use of limited numbers of aircraft, and quick ground turnaround times.

Now clearly there are tremendous differences between Haiti in 2010 and Berlin in 1948. While Berlin still had significant damage from the war, it had been on the road to recovery for three years. Templehof airport was in much better shape than the one at Port au Prince. More importantly, for all their squabbles, the Allies were more cohesive and more hierarchical than the vast array of international aid groups trying to get into Haiti.

Still, much of what was done to streamline operations during the Berlin airlift might have helped the situation in Haiti. The airlift was run like a railroad, with a single point of control for determining flight schedules. Each aircraft got only one chance to land and were turned around if they missed it. Aircraft were limited to a specific type that could be loaded and unloaded quickly. Crew remained with the aircraft and took off as soon as it was unloaded. Supplies were consolidated and prioritized at staging areas. Heavy equipment was disassembled and flown into improve and build new airfields.

We have done this before. There is a lesson in the Berlin airlift that could help inform our planning for future catastrophes. We would be foolish not to add it to the lessons we're currently learning (or relearning?) in Haiti.

January 2010 Newsletter: Learning from TSA's Failures

Download Newsletter January 2010

And A Child Shall Lead Them: What A Toy Can Teach Us About Security

In my last blog, I talked about the diminished respect that the Transportation Security Agency was experiencing as a result of their reactive and ludicrous policies. I based my comments on a sampling of media reports and comments to various professional email lists and blogs. However, I overlooked a very interesting source for gauging public opinion on TSA - the customer reviews at Amazon.

It seems Playmobil issued a toy set in early 2008 called the Playmobil Security Check Pointthat comes complete with a passenger with roll aboard luggage and two security screeners. Leaving aside the strange choice of theme for a children's toy, what is really instructive are the Customer Reviews. Every one of the comments I reviewed used humor to send the same message (and not always in a nice way!): we don't take TSA or their procedures seriously. Here are some samples:

• It's too bad that they never came out with the "Pat-Down" edition, where fat guards are groping women for weapons, and turning customers away who refuse the degrading method of search.
• This toy would be a lot more realistic with about 350 people standing in line for an average of an hour.
• I especially appreciated the enclosed signed photo of Michael Chertoff and his letter explaining how necessary it is to start educating today's youth early with toys like these, especially as their elders just don't seem to be taking the whole thing seriously, what with posting snarky reviews on Amazon and all...
• I'd like to see some diversity in one of the guards and perhaps the other guard could have some drool dripping from it's lip to reflect the extremely low IQ needed to obtain this type of position.

Note that these comments were posted in early 2008, before TSA's latest fiasco. One wonders what these folks would say if this toy were being issued now. It might be tempting to dismiss these comments as attempts at humor by marginal elements of society but when you hear the same message from professionals in security and emergency management and read reports by reputable journalists and publications, you have to believe that something is wrong with TSA's approach to security.

Enough Terrorist Theater?

Like many of you, I have been following the Christmas Day terrorist event and the resulting political theater that has resulted from it.What has been interesting to me is not the the event itself but rather the public outrage that is being directed at the Transportation Security Administration.

As someone who has worked in local government, I know that there are times when it is politically important to be seen to be doing something, anything, to react to a crisis, even if that action is really meaningless. This sends a message that you are 1) taking the event seriously and 2) doing everything possible to deal with the crisis. However, this time TSA has just gone too far.

When the terrorists of September 11th seized planes using box cutters, TSA missed that they were successful because of the element of surprise, not their weapons, and took away our pocket knives, knitting needles, and other sharp, pointy objects. This despite the fact that not even Chuck Norris could hold off a hundred angry passengers with a one-inch Swiss Army Knife while he whittled his way through the reinforced cockpit door.

When another terrorist tried to light his shoes on fire, TSA required us to remove our shoes for inspection, forgetting that the limited amount of explosives that can be contained in a shoe has to be carefully placed to be effective and that there are generally two other passengers in proximity to the terrorist.

Next came the scare that terrorists would use binary explosives and TSA took away our water bottles, perfumes, and 4.5 ounce toothpaste tubes, despite arguments by experts that binary explosives are complicated and unstable and unlikely to be used successfully by terrorists.

We went along with all of this because it seemed to make sense at the time. After all, the people charged with our protection were being cautious and reacting to actual events. But this latest knee jerk reaction goes too far. Does anyone feel safer because you can't go to the toilet, work on your projects, read or watch a program for an hour before landing? How do you feel about a pat search?

In putting such ludicrous procedures in place, TSA is sending the wrong message and calling into question all of their procedures. It suggests that TSA cannot think creatively or pro-actively and can only react to past events.  The result is a considerable loss of reputation and respect. We are now seeing airports refusing to implement the new searches and articles in the media comparing the number of terrorists caught to the number of TSA employees arrested for various crimes. People are viewing TSA, rather than terrorists, as the problem.

What ever happened to the concept of risk analysis? TSA continues to view passengers as problems rather than allies and insists on perpetrating the myth that we can be protected from everything at all times. The simple fact is that terrorism, like crashes, are a risk that we take every time we travel by air. We need to accept it and move on. TSA does a decent job of keeping us safe but it is unrealistic to expect that they will be successful every single time. TSA needs to make us partners in their efforts to keep us safe, not treat us likethe enemy - passengers have demonstrated on several occasions, starting with September 11th, that they are willing to be part of the solution. Knee-jerk reactions create more disruption in an industry already on the ropes and, far from keeping us safe, actually furthers the terrorist goal of destroying us economically.