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Bobby Block and Christopher Cooper from the Wall Street Journal have published a new book that discusses the failures of the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Two of the most interesting aspects of their analysis are the abject failure of the National Response Plan and the bottleneck of information that formed at the Homeland Security Operations Center:

At the Department of Homeland Security, federal efforts following disasters were dictated by the newly minted National Response Plan. Though billed as a plan for all disasters, it made a sharp distinction between garden-variety calamities such as Gulf hurricanes and more severe catastrophes — generally terrorist attacks. By the department’s reckoning, standard disaster response fell to local governments, backstopped by FEMA, while a catastrophic event assumed the states would be immediately overwhelmed and required a massive response from the federal government.

In the run-up to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, there were calls within Homeland Security and the White House to pre-emptively declare the tempest a catastrophe and put the federal government on heightened alert — “leaning forward,” as department officials liked to say. But senior Homeland Security officials resisted, arguing that FEMA was perfectly capable of handling a hurricane. “I did not feel it was imperative,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said later.

Likewise, Matthew Broderick, the director of the Homeland Security Operations Center, or HSOC, saw no reason for extraordinary action without definitive proof that there was a catastrophe in New Orleans. And his view of what constituted a catastrophe was pivotal: As HSOC commander, he was responsible for giving Mr. Chertoff and the White House virtually all of the ground intelligence they would receive during the disaster.

I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet but I am anxiously awaiting my copy especially with endorsements like this one from HLSW:

Block is one of the top DHS beat reporters, and Cooper came to the WSJ from the Times-Picayune, so I’m expecting the whole book to be a worthwhile read, in terms of synthesizing the narrative of the response to Katrina.

Read a longer excerpt here.

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Tom Reynolds is an EMT with the London ambulance Service who has been writing one of the web’s most popular EMS related blogs, Random Acts of Reality, for years and I have been a fan pretty much since its inception. As far as EMS blogs go it is the most palatable and honest of the lot and its honest approach spares the jaded EMS professional all of the “touchy-feeliness” of most others.

The UK’s Friday Books has announced the release of Reynolds’ first book, the aptly titled Blood, Sweat & Tea. According to the publisher:

From the tragic to the hilarious, from the heartwarming to the terrifying, the stories Tom tells give a fascinating - and at times alarming - picture of life in inner-city Britain, and the people who are paid to mop up after it.

It’s that last bit that I like.

Reynolds has inspired a lot of us in the EMS blogging community through his candor and success as both an award-winning blogger and, now, author. (We hope those book awards start rolling in soon, Tom. Congrats! - eds.)

Yeah, I know it’s not exactly technology-related but would it kill you to read a book?

Via Random Acts of Reality

Updated - I just got this email from the author today (7/26):

Nothing on a US release - publishers are looking or a US
publisher as I write this.

So far it looks like Amazon on import…

-Tom

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