USACE’s EM experts are often called overseas to provide humanitarian support to other nations, through requests submitted through the departments of State or Defense. Recent examples include the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2011-2013 floods in Australia.
A view from a U.S. Navy rescue aircraft of the Oso, Washington, area March 22, 2014, following a mudslide that submerged a neighborhood and killed at least 42 people. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can dispatch personnel from among a group of more than 40 planning and response teams when called upon to respond to such disasters. U.S. Navy photo
Despite their small footprint, Field Force Engineering teams – small expeditionary teams of military and civilian specialists – are equipped with TeleEngineering: the capability to reach back to USACE research centers, engineers, and laboratories and apply the organization’s full knowledge base and skill set to a situation.
Disaster as Opportunity: Recovery
In recent years, in part because of the magnitude of the damage caused by storms such as Hurricane Sandy (2012) and Hurricane Katrina (2005), the nation’s EM leaders have shifted more attention to what happens after this initial response – the “recovery” phase, in which the affected communities attempt to return to normal living and rebuild facilities and institutions. In 2011, FEMA released the “National Disaster Recovery Framework” (NDRF) to serve as a companion document to the NRF. The NDRF provides a similar overarching structure for intermediate (weeks into months) and long-term (months into years) activities, aimed at rebuilding communities that are both less vulnerable and more resilient.
The NDRF enumerates several key recovery support functions (RSFs); USACE is the lead for RSF #5 (infrastructure systems), which aims at rebuilding and engineering infrastructure in ways that increase resiliency and reduce future risks; USACE is also a supporting organization for RSF #6 (natural and cultural resources), aimed at preserving, rehabilitating, and restoring natural or cultural resources or historic properties. The framework strongly encourages the appointment of local disaster recovery managers to help coordinate long-term efforts among all recovery support functions.
Since Hurricane Sandy, the NDRF has been used on several occasions to coordinate post-disaster recovery.
The NDRF was not formally implemented, said Durham-Aguilera, until after Hurricane Sandy. “That caused an absolute sea of change, and not only in how the federal team does long-term recovery,” she said. “It’s also caused us to start doing our planning for recovery even when we’re still in the response and immediate recovery phase.”
Post-Sandy recovery efforts, still underway, have so far been fueled by $5.4 billion in disaster relief funding appropriated by Congress. USACE has completed repairs on dozens of Sandy-damaged waterways and structures, restored 25 engineered coastal beach projects, and is at work on more than 100 other projects in the region – including several new engineered beach projects on the New Jersey coast – to reduce the risk of future coastal storm damage to areas that were vulnerable when Sandy struck.
USACE experts are also at work on a study to determine the best way to reduce coastal damage risks for northern Atlantic Coast communities, and recently, in partnership with FEMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, developed a set of map services to serve as a planning tool for New York and New Jersey officials working to rebuild. The maps, along with a sea level-rise calculator developed by USACE, show the anticipated expansion of floodplains associated with future sea level elevations, highlighting areas likely to be at risk from a 1 percent annual chance flooding event (a “100-year flood”).