Report: federal search and rescue teams unready

Posted by David Lightman at 11:23 am CDT

The federal government's urban search and rescue operations are badly underfunded, understaffed and largely unprepared for disasters like possible hurricanes, a Department of Homeland Security report found today.

The urban program, created 18 years ago largely as a way of rescuing people trapped in large buildings, has evolved into a national effort to quickly respond to terrorist acts, hurricanes and other national disasters. The system relies on task forces, consisting largely of local emergency personnel.

But the task forces are often far from ready to perform its tasks, the DHS Inspector General said in a 23-page report. "The task forces did not achieve (urban) system objectives and standards because of delays in their hiring of full time staff to administer day-to-day activities, budget constraints, and system management staff shortages," the report said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is charged with coordinating and monitoring the program. Of seven task forces DHS studied, six fell below 50 percent of the urban system standards for operational readiness.

FEMA officials said they recognize the weaknesses and are making progress in correcting them. The report was to be released today by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., top Democrat on the Senate homeland security committee, at a campaign stop with first responders.

Lieberman was critical of FEMA, saying that "it is gravely disappointing to receive this report, that shows the systemic failures of FEMA's urban search and rescue teams. Our local communities rely on these federal teams in times of catastrophe, yet this report shows that these teams are still not prepared to perform their duty to assist our state and local responders."

Such readiness consists of having adequate trained and qualified personnel as well as disaster-trained dogs ready for immediate deployment. But during site visits to the seven task forces, DHS found: Mandatory training requirements were not met.

Medical and immunization requirements were "either not met" or unavailable to investigators. Member availability for deployment was hard to gauge because "the task force did not continuously update the members' status as to vacation, injury, etc."

Some canines were not properly trained and "were not available for exclusive task force use." DHS found other problems. None of the task forces had good records showing what equipment was on hand, and all but one was "significantly deficient" in its recordkeeping, and thus the task forces could not say how well maintained equipment was.

FEMA itself came in for sharp criticism. The agency "had not scheduled any on-site operational readiness reviews and had scheduled only five on-site financial compliance reviews" last year. It had no standardized way of assessing possible performance, and did not adequately analyze what kind of funding the task forces would need.

FEMA officials counter they are moving ahead swiftly with plans to correct any problems. In a letter to the DHS inspector general, Michael W. Lowder, deputy director of the FEMA response division, said his agency is working with the nation's task forces to bolster their administrative staff. And, he said, work is proceeding on "developing a comprehensive operational readiness evaluation process." He expected a report on progress by June, but when the inspector general sought comment in June, FEMA said it had nothing further to add.

(David Lightman is Washington bureau chief for the Hartford Courant which is owned by the Tribune Co.)

Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant