MANAGING DISASTER RESPONSE: -A GLIMPSE BEHIND THE SCENE

As tornadoes dance across the Midwest leaving wrecked communities and lives in their wake, rivers overflow their banks in many states and wind-blown wildfires scorch parts of California; even as coastal regions already devastated by recent storm damage begin to plan for yet another looming hurricane season ahead, I sit at my keyboard wishing I possessed the words to share with my readers something of what I know first-hand is going on behind the television scenes we all see.  Much of my later life has been spent as a trained and experienced Emergency Manager, working both in the field with responders and in the darkened rooms where those who direct the efforts join forces to coordinate a disparate range of people and resources – the unseen and unsung heroes of disaster response and recovery.

            My brain cells overflow with memories of sharing the crammed interiors of Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) where hastily-rigged phone lines, radios and generator-powered laptops link a raft of highly-trained Emergency Management specialists who organize and oversee every facet of what the armies of responders in the field are doing. At the center of this “madhouse” of voices, chalkboards and interplay is a nationally-recognized system of functions which must be performed, usually identified by a designated “ESF” number (Emergency Specialty Function). People may come and go, but the function remains manned and the position within the EOC occupied. Thanks to a high level of cross-training, an individual might end up managing a handful of ESF assignments – especially when personnel constraints conspire to take a toll on people who may be working double shifts. In one situation where my usual specialty had been managing volunteers and donations (a gigantic task all by itself), I have also covered resource coordination and fuel deliveries, animal control, and damage assessment – all critical ESF responsibilities - almost simultaneously - sometimes with a phone in one hand and a mobile radio in the other.

            It is an “article of faith” in the Emergency Management community, that there is always one person in charge, and in hard-hit Hardee County, Florida during Hurricane “Charley”, where most people working in the EOC in Wauchula had lost their own homes and had family members at risk, the Commander at any particular time carried a hand-carved and very distinctive “baton” as he-or-she walked around the upstairs room we occupied; one of the few buildings still left standing in the county seat. The “passing of the baton” as leadership changed was both visual and smilingly symbolic.

            In that particular situation, a high degree of cooperation and communication between EOC staff was necessary: with high temperatures and high humidity, I had to consult with Health & Medical folks when I had volunteers bringing prepared food into the community, and volunteer families bringing children might find worthwhile service for their kids walking dogs and feeding pets at our makeshift sanctuary in the Fairgrounds where we had up to 2,000 domestic pets to deal with at any given time. (Not counting errant alligators which had to be corralled.)

            With dozens of large borrowed generators performing needed services at several public utilities, coordinating diesel fuel deliveries and keeping track of it all was just one part of resource management in a county which would not see power restored for weeks, and “Damage Assessment” went on daily.

            My admiration for such entities as LOWE’S, PETCO, and WALMART went up several notches as I saw them set up distribution points for trucked-in supplies at central locations. CAUTION NOTE:  Plastic money doesn’t work in disasters and cash is essential.  Vehicle operation is restricted, gasoline pumps don’t work, but flat tires are plentiful with nails, screws and mixed debris everywhere. One of my personal pleasures was to drive our official van into back streets where I would invite little kids to jump in to enjoy ten minutes of air conditioning; the “Thanks” and smiles on their mostly non-English-speaking faces was one of my special rewards.

            Utah is one of many states that participate in EMAC – the Emergency Management Assistance Compact – an agreement which permits our E.M. people to offer help to stricken states when needed, and I was grateful for chances to be deployed as a representative of our state. I have worked with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and wild fires, and I have found that our Utah cadre are welcomed and respected everywhere for our professionalism and sense of caring. Perhaps more than any other memory, I will always cherish the sense of camaraderie which bonded together these makeshift teams of dedicated professionals.

Hardee County’s Emergency Operations Center from which 17 “functions” were coordinated during Hurricane “Charley”. The desk in the foreground was the author’s position when not alternating with partners in the field.

Finding access into storm-ravaged buildings in search of trapped and injured survivors in a region of widespread damage is a primary and dangerous undertaking. In the author’s opinion, Florida – not surprisingly - has the most highly-organized and best-coordinated Emergency Response master plan in the nation.                Al Cooper Photos

THE “STREET SINGER” WHO COULDN’T READ MUSIC

In a world in which we properly honor with highest praise, the accomplishments of those who have risen to the top of their chosen profession or vocation following years working their way through the halls of academe in order to earn that distinction, I think we too easily write off the miracle of amateurism. If, as Merriam Webster asserts, an amateur is a “dabbler”, a “dilettante”, a “non-professional” or a mere “tinkerer”, we have to wonder why we hold in such high esteem people like William Shakespeare, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin and Thomas Edison to name just a few “non-experts” who helped to change the world. (Being a backyard astronomer myself, I can’t help but note that almost all comets charted in recent years were discovered by amateurs, i.e. David Levy who found 22!)

            The “dabbler” about whom I write on this Memorial Day, was born in Byelorussia on May 11, 1888 to a Jewish family of 8, and was given the name Israel Isidore Beilin. His father was a Cantor in the nearby synagogue, and the family was very poor.  It was not a good time to be a Jew in Russia amid the pogroms (organized and state-sanctioned massacres of Jewish people) that saw the death or ejection of entire communities by the thousands. Later in life, the only memory of that period which lingered was a scene of himself at the age of three lying in the dusty road and watching his family home and all its belongings burning to the ground.

            The “New World” and its statue of liberty beckoned to a people who had no other hope, and the Beilins were one of many displaced Jewish families settling in the “ghetto-like” lower East side of New York City, where they were lucky (and thankful) to find a cold-water basement room from which to start a new life. Prospects for a livelihood were meager at best, and young “Izzy” sold newspapers and sang Yiddish songs for his neighbors, sometimes being paid a nickel. He decided that he would like to become a street singer, and taught himself to play an old broken-down piano. His small hands had a limited spread, so he played only the black keys, as he began to invent the music for which he would make up words and then sing, so all his music was written in one key – f sharp major.

            At some point, a friendly showman printed out some of Beilin’s sheet music, but mistakenly signed it “I. Berlin”, and so Irving Berlin, the New York City “Street Singer” who could neither write nor read music was “born”. Young Berlin lived at a time and in a place where “folk” lyrics and “tin pan alley” rhythms were hitting their stride, and small-theater musicals reflected the search of a dynamic and effervescent population for a source of happiness and wellbeing in a city racing to become the world’s largest and most ethnically-diverse.

            The fact that he couldn’t write his own music was no problem, since he was surrounded by friends who happily carried out that chore, among whom were those who also had access to the presses needed to print sheet music – a growing industry and income producer. And as for his other problem, he soon acquired what was known as a “transposing piano” which he called his “Buick”, since it featured a shifting lever which could convert his music to the key of C.  Asked years later about this musical handicap, he said “since I don’t know the rules, I am free to break them”; and break them he did with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “Annie Get Your Gun”, and musical scores which focused the world’s attention on a New York street called “Broadway”.

            In all, Irving Berlin’s talent gave us 19 Broadway plays, 18 Hollywood films, and at least 1500 popular songs, 25 of which became “Number 1 hits”; pieces of Americana such as “I Got the Sun in the Morning”, “Easter Parade”, and “White Christmas” which remains today the highest selling song in American history.

            In 1918, in the closing days of World War I, Berlin enlisted, and trained at a camp in New York State. Filled with a sense of patriotism he composed the words and music for a song he felt the country needed, its three-word title inspired by something he heard his grateful mother utter each and every day of her life. When The Great War ended, he quietly filed the music away. Twenty years later, in 1938, believing that a new war in Europe was about to engulf her own country, a singing sensation with the name of Kate Smith asked Irving Berlin to write a patriotic song for her to sing. Instead, he reached into his desk drawer and handed her something called “God Bless America”, destined to become America’s “second national anthem”, and one of the most-loved Memorial Day gifts any American could give to his country. Not bad for an “amateur”; not bad at all!

NOTE:  Irving Berlin assigned all future profits from “God Bless America” to the Boy Scouts of America, and the National Girl Scouts. He died in 1989 at the age of 101.