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Editorial: Looking ahead
September 15, 2005
The question that arises, naturally enough, in the wake of the horrifying destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast, seems to be as follows:
When a calamity, natural or otherwise, of similarly appalling proportions afflicts the Vineyard, will we be prepared to efficiently undertake the first response and to coordinate the follow-up with state and federal authorities?
When The Times posed this question, in several variations, to leaders of the emergency management community, the answer leads us to conclude that there is work to be done. And that is understandable. So, what's the first step?
"In my opinion," Chuck Cotnoir, Dukes County Emergency Management Director, told The Times this week, "as the Dukes County Emergency Management Director, and this opinion may not be shared by others in the emergency management field, the primary lesson appears that emergency managers, along with political leaders, must pre-plan for the worst case scenario and must be skilled in making decisions in a timely manner."
Among the important hurdles that stand between us and the smooth and effective response to an historic, worst-case catastrophe, is the community's very nature. We are a few people, scattered over six independent communities, and coordination has not been a historic hallmark of our relations with one another.
Underscoring this difficulty, Mr. Cotnoir told Times writer Janet Hefler that, "there is little or no interaction between the town governments, as a group, and those agencies that are either private entities with Island-wide significance, such as the Martha's Vineyard Hospital and the Steamship Authority, entities that reside in one town but have an Island-wide significance and are used by the whole island such as Martha's Vineyard High School, or are entities that are regional in nature such as the Martha's Vineyard Transit Authority."
When we discover, in reviewing the response to Katrina's assault, that communication and coordination among political and emergency management leaders at all levels certainly worked against the potential effectiveness of the pre-storm and immediate post-storm response, the weakness in the Vineyard's current disaster planning will be apparent. Mr. Cotnoir coordinates the disaster preparation and response of county departments and the efforts of those Island communities whose leaders request the county's assistance. The towns must communicate directly and individually with state emergency managers. There is in this system a built-in potential for confusion and lapsed communication and poor coordination. Addressing these issues should be an important priority for town leaders. There is certainly a better way to coordinate disaster response among the six towns, and town leaders can find it if they elevate disaster preparedness to a high position on their crowded agendas.
Knowing that a disaster of colossal proportions is possible, that it is not predictable, that there are weaknesses in our preparedness structure, and that the sad destruction and loss of life on the Gulf coast brings these issues sharply into focus, there can be no sound reason for delaying an effort to identify specific problems and to find solutions that can be implemented without delay. If the lessons of Katrina go unlearned and unaddressed, there will be no comfortable retreat for today's leaders whose responsibility it is to confront these life and death questions.
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