Y2K may swamp disaster relief

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Potential Y2K disruptions may be so numerous that federal agencies and the military may not be able to respond to all the problems.

Recently obtained government documents and interviews with federal officials confirm that emergency planners are worried that too many simultaneous problems could overtax the system.

“By themselves, such disruptions are manageable. But the unique challenge the Y2K problem presents us with is the potential of numerous disruptions happening all at once, which will place additional burdens on the most well-equipped emergency response mechanisms,” said John Koskinen, Chairman of the President’s Council on the Year 2000 Conversion to an internal FEMA workshop for federal agencies and private sector business leaders.

“We’re good at responding to individual challenges. We need to be just as good about responding to multiple challenges. We need to be thinking about how to best respond to the possibility of failures in a number of community systems that operate communications, emergency services, health care, public works and utilities, and transportation,” Koskinen added.

The federal government has been actively engaged in planning a system to coordinate responses to Y2K disruptions from federal and local government agencies. The system is headed up by FEMA and the Department of Defense.

Presidential and Department of Defense directives combine to give authority to the military to assist civil agencies in times of national emergency. The Y2K computer bug may cause so many problems that the ability of the military to respond to national defense threats could be compromised.

The Department of Defense claims to be prepared for Y2K problems, “however past DOD responses typically have been applied to localized acute situations, most of which have not been simultaneous. By contrast, the Y2K problem has the potential to involve a large number of events that occur over broad geographic areas, within a short time frame,” according to a DOD memorandum issued by John J. Hamre to all military department secretaries.

Hamre expressed grave concern that there would be so many Y2K problems that the military could not provide assistance to all civil agencies requesting help. He gave specific guidelines for local commanders to establish priorities before responding to requests for help from civil agencies. He authorized local commanders to take action as needed without approval from higher officials under certain conditions.

“Within the United States, local commanders may undertake immediate, unilateral, emergency response actions that involve measures to save lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage, only when time does not permit approval by higher headquarters. Overseas, immediate response may be undertaken when time is of the essence and humanitarian considerations require action,” described Hamre in the memorandum.

Requests for military assistance to civil agencies must be submitted through FEMA or the Department of State. The National Guard will respond to requests from state governors or through an executive order from the president.

The priorities established in the memorandum provide for the maintenance of national security followed by protection of domestic issues.

Priority 1. The military will not divert resources that could compromise operational readiness. This includes direct support to the National Command Authority, conduct of ongoing or imminent military or intelligence operations, conduct of nuclear command and control and maintenance of defense and commercial infrastructures.

Priority 2. Resources in military units and combat support organizations, to include the Reserve Components, assigned to support standing operations plans must be monitored closely, particularly if they fall within early execution (first 60 days) of Timed Phased Force and Deployment Data.

Priority 3. Maintenance of domestic public health and safety through maintenance of emergency services to include fire, ambulance, police, hospitals, and related communications. This also includes maintenance of air traffic, rail, port, and ship navigation systems, as well as food distribution centers, and public information dissemination through press, television, and radio.

Priority 4. Maintenance of the economy and the nation’s quality of life.

Hamre designated FEMA as the agency which would handle requests from civil agencies for military assistance. One FEMA official is concerned that the potential exists that there could be more Y2K problems than what they can handle at one time.

FEMA recently held a meeting of federal agency and private sector infrastructure officials to discuss contingency plans for possible Y2K problems. Very few of those who attended would admit any problems would take place. Despite this, FEMA is planning for problems and is concerned the number of challenges could quickly get beyond their ability to respond.

“One by one they said they’ve spent millions and they’ve tested things and they’re checking things over,” explained Jerry Connolly of FEMA. “There was discussion of international impact. No one there felt that this was going to be the crisis of all crises. But at the same time they’re concerned about sporadic problems throughout the states and the extent that numerous sporadic problems may result in situations that are beyond the states’ capability of responding, and therefore the states may come in to the federal government and request assistance. That’s where we fit in. That’s why we have our emergency support team up.”

Connolly is the assistant to the director for FEMA’s office of Response and Recovery. His job will involve coordinating response to Y2K problems and restoring things to normal. He believes he may have his hands full.

“We have to be up and alert just in case the ‘what if’ situations occur. We’re prepared and the federal agencies we’re involved with are prepared as well,” he said in a phone interview.

“I’ll tell ya. I’ve responded to disasters over 25 years. I’ve probably never planned for anything as significant, substantially prepared like this,” he commented. He added that FEMA is just being prudent to make the many preparations that are under way.

A recent internal memorandum from FEMA director James L. Witt was made available to WorldNetDaily. That document reveals plans to place all FEMA offices and employees on high alert for the Y2K rollover period.

Connolly explained that the alert applies to the national and regional offices of FEMA. He said they are normally equipped to handle 10 to 15 simultaneous disasters.

“The idea of handling 50 or more is definitely a challenge,” Connolly admitted. “We’ve come up with at least an approach to handling those. What we plan on doing is, once the president declares an emergency declaration, that would allow us to do anything. Any measure to save lives and protect property.

“Probably in reality we’ll end up paying for a lot of police and fire overtime. We may end up paying for shelter expenses if the Red Cross couldn’t handle it. For the most part, any what we call reconstitution of the various sectors that are affected by computer problems, that would be up to the computer owners and the utilities and what have you to fix. We wouldn’t get involved in fixing the utility electrical grids or whatever. We’d be addressing the people problems that resulted from it,” Connolly explained of the plans to restore order.

If communications are out, or just difficult, FEMA officials will have difficulty getting orders from above and may wait for approvals. To ease the problem, each of the 10 regional FEMA directors has been designated as a federal coordinating officer, giving them power and authority to make all their own decisions without orders from above.

“So we’ll have pre-designated who’s in charge of the region, and who would be the deputy for each of the states, and that deputy in turn would almost be the person in charge for that particular state reporting to their boss back in the capital city,” explained Connolly.

In an effort to make it even easier to handle multiple Y2K problems, the 2,500 FEMA regular employees will be supplemented by 4,000 disaster reservists.

“On top of that we have all the various federal agencies. And we have what we call our federal response plan. It’s signed by 26 federal agencies and the Red Cross. Those 26 agencies and the Red Cross are available to augment all of our locations as well,” explained Connolly, hopeful that the plan will be adequate enough to cover all the potential problems.

The Department of Defense has designated the period of Sept. 1, 1999, through March 31, 2000, as the Y2K transition period. FEMA has similar plans and will put all of its people on high alert from Dec. 28 until Jan. 4.

“At our level in Washington, and in the 10 regions they would also have what we call the emergency support function agency. (Other federal) Agency’s staff there as well so we would have the federal agencies staffed in Washington. We would have all the federal agencies staffed in our 10 regional cities, and we would have our people on site at each state getting ready in case there’s a problem, and if there was we would dispatch teams to those states. There’s a lot of people to go around. If we would have 50 emergency declarations, I won’t kid you, it would be a challenge, but we’re prepared at least with that skeleton out there,” stated Connolly.

He agreed that the American public always comes through in a time of disaster. People fill sandbags, dig trapped victims out of holes, and do what they have to do without panic and disorder.

“That’s true. No question about that,” Connolly agreed.

So then why doesn’t the federal government tell the public the true potential for Y2K problems? Why not give the public an opportunity to be better prepared within their own homes rather than rely on federal shelters?

“John Koskinen (chairman of the President’s Council on the Year 2000 Conversion) just the other day said (in a meeting Connolly attended) — and he was saying it to the private sector primarily, but I’m sure he meant it to the general public as well — he was saying ‘Don’t expect,’ and he was speaking for the president at this point. He said, ‘Don’t expect government to solve all your problems. Especially if we have 50 different states that are all overwhelmed by certain activity.’ He made a point of saying that people have to be self-reliant,” explained Connolly.

Despite his response, Connolly then repeated the universal government recommendations to the public.

“FEMA’s message has been, treat this as you would for a storm that you’d normally be prepared for. We never tell people that we’ll be there before 72 hours. For the first 72 hours you need to plan to basically be on your own before we’re able to bring in water, before we’re able to bring in food, before we’re able to bring in shelter or medical supplies or what have you. It takes that much time to mobilize. In a case like this, you can only spend so much money in pre-staging activities and things like that.

“I guess the answer is the public has to be prepared to be on their own, at least for a while. We’re trying to get that message across,” warned Connolly, even though he was not prepared to recommend having more than a 72-hour kit as part of that preparation.