Coordinating Transportation Services In Response To Disasters

Coordinating transportation services in response to disasters (both anticipated and unexpected) represents a major challenge to all levels of government, and is bound to involve actions that span the non-profit, private, and government sectors. In addition, private citizens are both a key resource and potential impediment to achieving an orderly and successful evacuation sparked by response to disaster. The ability to understand who is responsible for what aspects of the evacuation is vital to providing an effective response, and in order to truly understand the workings of responses to future emergencies, it will be essential to identify the responsible actors, the mechanisms of assessing needed actions, and the means by which these actors will communicate during evacuation activities. For example, according to Keith Bea, in a 2005 CRS Report (RS22235), “Disaster Evacuation and Displacement Policy: Issues for Congress”, “…the Department of Transportation (DOT) Regional Emergency Transportation Coordinator (RETCO) coordinates with state and local authorities on ‘issues such as movement restrictions, critical facilities closures, and evacuation.’” While the identification of the coordinators for the various parties for the actual emergency evacuation is important, there is, perhaps, the larger question of how the plans to evacuate are coordinated among stakeholders and potential partners. How do states, municipalities, parishes, counties, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Coast Guard, National Guard and Local Emergency Planning Committees create realistic evacuation scenarios. How do these plans seek to involve both public and private transportation providers? How do these plans interface with local, and state departments of social services to develop a list of people who are likely to be in need of special transportation services? While theses are not the only important questions relating to the nature of coordination of transportation services in evacuation planning, they represent the starting point that will yield further paths of needed investigation to

understand and analyze the existent process.