Managing Disasters through Public–Private Partnerships

Ami J. Abou-bakr

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781589019515
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Affairs & Administration
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, generated a great deal of discussion in public policy and disaster management circles about the importance of increasing national resilience to rebound from catastrophic events. Since the majority of physical and virtual networks that the United States relies upon are owned and operated by the private sector, a consensus has emerged that public-private partnerships (PPPs) are a crucial aspect of an effective resilience strategy. Significant barriers to cooperation persist, however, despite acknowledgment that public–private collaboration for managing disasters would be mutually beneficial.

Managing Disasters through Public–Private Partnerships constitutes the first in-depth exploration of PPPs as tools of disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, and resilience in the United States. The author assesses the viability of PPPs at the federal level and explains why attempts to develop these partnerships have largely fallen short. The book assesses the recent history and current state of PPPs in the United States, with particular emphasis on the lessons of 9/11 and Katrina, and discusses two of the most significant PPPs in US history, the Federal Reserve System and the War Industries Board from World War I. The author develops two original frameworks to compare different kinds of PPPs and analyzes the critical factors that make them successes or failures, pointing toward ways to improve collaboration in the future.

This book should be of interest to researchers and students in public policy, public administration, disaster management, infrastructure protection, and security; practitioners who work on public–private partnerships; and corporate as well as government emergency management professionals and specialists.

CHAPTER ONE
The Emergence of Disaster-Oriented PPPs

In the last decade the United States has witnessed no fewer than twenty-one significant disasters within its borders. These include natural and man-made disasters that range from devastating terrorist attacks to catastrophic floods, hurricanes, electrical blackouts, and wildfires.¹ Beyond its borders, the United States has been engaged in Afghanistan since October 2001 in the single longest war in American history; American troops were also in Iraq from March 2003 to September 2010.²

Significant international events have also weighed heavily on the US public and private sectors. Some of the more significant incidents since the millennium include the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, the bombings of expatriate compounds in Saudi Arabia and suicide bombings in Morocco in 2003, the Madrid train bombing and the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004, the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, the catastrophic earthquakes that shook Haiti and Chile in 2010, the Icelandic volcano that halted all transatlantic air travel for several weeks in 2010, and the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. This list does not include the global public health risks posed by the anthrax attacks in Washington in 2001, SARS in 2002–3, the avian flu pandemic in 2005, or the global H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009–10.

While the regularity of disasters has served to underscore the importance and potential value of cross-sector cooperation, no two events prioritized disaster-oriented public–private partnerships (PPP) in the minds of the American public and private sectors more than the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although man caused one crisis and nature the other, each was pivotal, shocking the public with its scale and scope while exposing areas of national vulnerability, and each disaster created a heightened awareness of the benefits of cross-sector cooperation.

Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 made the formation of disaster-oriented PPPs a more urgent priority for both the public and private sectors. In this chapter I use specific examples of cooperation between government and the telecommunications, finance, and retail industries to demonstrate how the sectors have cooperated during these crises and how this cooperation has been valuable to US disaster response capabilities. The examples illustrate three key points. First, private-sector distribution networks and technological know-how allowed industry to provide goods and services faster than government could during a disaster. Second, the private sector proved itself to be an invaluable partner after the attacks of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Third, in the crisis generated by both disasters, national interests and corporate interests aligned to make cooperation a shared priority for the public and private sectors.

I also explore the organizational development of federal policy relating to disaster-oriented PPPs in the United States. I track disaster-oriented PPP policy from 1995 to the present to understand how these partnerships developed, how the framework evolved over time, and how these PPPs were prioritized after 9/11 and Katrina. By tracking the historical development of the partnership framework here, the groundwork is established for a more critical exploration of the existing guidelines for cross-sector cooperation in chapter 2.

THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VALUE OF DISASTER-ORIENTED PPPS

The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) were an awakening. Not only were the attacks on civilian targets within US borders; they also forced the nation to acknowledge that unless the critical infrastructure owned and operated by the private sector was better protected, America would be vulnerable.³ Prior to 9/11 the three al-Qaeda attacks carried out against the United States occurred overseas and targeted US military or government installations.⁴ With 9/11, al-Qaeda brought its attacks to the United States, targeted civilians, generated fear in the public, and prioritized matters of defense and security within both the public and private sectors. The attacks of 9/11 constituted attacks on private networks, and using private networks to devastating effect. This use of private infrastructure created the awareness that the private sector had a significant role to play in developing the country’s resilience following terror attacks. The 9/11 Commission Report warns the American people: “The lessons of 9/11 for civilians and first responders can be stated simply: in the new age of terror, they—we—are the primary targets. The losses America suffered that day demonstrated both the gravity of the terrorist threat and the commensurate need to prepare ourselves to meet it.”⁵

The attacks also forced the public sector to acknowledge openly the national vulnerability caused by having such a significant amount of American infrastructure in private hands. The 9/11 Commission Report says “the private sector controls 85 percent of the critical infrastructure in the nation. Indeed, unless a terrorist’s target is a military or other secure government facility, the ‘first’ responders will almost certainly be civilians.”⁶ The commission’s formal acknowledgment of the importance of the private sector in preparedness represented a dramatic shift from earlier approaches to national security, where responsibility for disaster preparedness and response was seen to be the sole responsibility of local law enforcement, the military, and government.⁷ The events of 9/11 highlighted the importance of public–private cooperation and made it no longer a question of whether the private sector had a role to play in counterterrorism and national security but one of what that role should be and how effective PPPs could be facilitated.

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that natural disasters have just as much potential to cause panic and disruption as terrorist incidents. As with 9/11, Katrina underscored the value of PPPs and established their applicability to man-made as well as natural disasters. “Coming four years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the hurricanes of 2005 dramatized the frailties of our nation’s disaster response system.”⁸ While the government, and particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), struggled to respond, private-sector corporations were, in many cases, the first responders, delivering food, water, blankets, and other vital necessities to those stranded. The US Chamber of Commerce reported: “Private-sector assistance during and following the major 2005 hurricanes—Katrina, Rita and Wilma—totaled about $1.2 billion, 25 percent of that in products and services, the remainder in cash contributions.… At least 254 companies made cash or in-kind contributions of $1 million or more.”⁹

While 9/11 generated a widespread acknowledgment of the private sector as a terrorist target and highlighted the importance of disaster-oriented PPPs in terms of protecting critical infrastructure vis-à-vis terror threats, Katrina illustrated the capacity of the private sector to serve not only as a defender and protector of national systems and assets but also as a capable and willing responder to all types of disaster, be they caused by man or nature.

The roles of the Verizon Corporation, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and the New York Stock Exchange during 9/11, as well as the role of the Walmart corporation during Hurricane Katrina, illustrate how and why the development of disaster-oriented PPPs has become valuable to the public and private sectors in the last decade. These examples provide a basis for understanding the role several key industries played in disaster response and how the private sector demonstrated its value as a partner.

9/11: A Response from the Telecommunications Sector, Verizon

When the south tower of the WTC collapsed on 9/11, all mobile phone capabilities were lost at Ground Zero.¹⁰ The restoration of mobile phone communication at Ground Zero was urgent—first responders needed mobile phones as backup for their failing radios, mobile phones could be used by survivors trapped in the rubble to call for help, and, once restored, mobile-phone tracking devices could be used by rescuers to locate survivors.¹¹ The mobile-phone network—the equipment, technology, and the capability to restore communication—rested in the private sector. Verizon owned the wireless tower that collapsed on the south tower of the WTC (called a switching station) and was responsible for most of the area’s telecommunications networks. The public sector could not repair the network independently, so it immediately turned to Verizon.

Verizon was quick to respond. In a September 12, 2001, press conference, the vice-chairman of Verizon’s telecom group described the area around the WTC as “probably the most telecommunications-intensive area in the world.”¹² They owned the switching station on the south tower and nearly five hundred Verizon employees had been in WTC tower 1 during the attack. While most Verizon employees were on lower floors and escaped, at least a dozen employees who were known to be above the impact zone had been instructed to ascend to the roof and lost their lives when the tower collapsed.¹³ The corporate headquarters of the organization, the Verizon Building, was located directly across the street from the WTC. The building remained structurally sound but it sustained serious damage. Burning rubble from the WTC was piled for seven stories around the Verizon Building. The most damaged section of the building contained Verizon’s most critical equipment, and collapsed steel and concrete had damaged Verizon’s underground cable vaults (thereby disrupting landline and Internet communication for Lower Manhattan) and had severed critical electrical feeders, water mains, and sewer piping.¹⁴ Verizon had a vested interest in cooperating with the government: Verizon employees had been victims of the attack and may have been among the survivors who were trying to use mobile phones as a lifeline, the company headquarters had been damaged, and millions of customers throughout Lower Manhattan were without coverage, including emergency response teams, the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and other key resources.

The public and private sectors immediately realized the importance of cooperation. Authorities in New York City cleared the rubble to help Verizon repair vehicles gain access to Lower Manhattan and even helped bypass a great deal of bureaucratic red tape to bring a fuel tanker into the city, very near the WTC site, so that Verizon could fuel a generator necessary for them to do their work.¹⁵ The New York City police also forcibly removed a number of parked cars that blocked Verizon engineers’ access to a critical substation.^16...