Glenn Cannon, Assistant Administrator for Disaster Operations, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

DomesticPreparedness met with Glenn Cannon, Assistant Administrator for Disaster Operations, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA's assistant administrator for disaster operations discusses the “New” FEMA, reorganized in accordance with the 2006 Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, and the reconfigured agency’s operational, pro-active, and situationally-aware orientation. New FEMA efforts to “operationalize” its responses, for both “notice” and “no-notice” events; the establishment of national and regional incident management assistance teams (IMATs); bottom-up New Madrid Fault planning with the American Red Cross; planning liaison with the Department of Defense and U.S. Northern Command. FEMA’s engaged-partnership philosophy and its “leaning forward” posture for incident command in advance of a declared disaster; the increased importance of situational awareness. How FEMA’s new “gap analysis” tool is generating requirements, influencing funding, and translating into specifics in emergency management assistance compacts (EMACs); the common operational picture provided by the directorate’s National Coordination Operations Center; FEMA’s deployable disaster communications suites. The sequential interface between FEMA’s Disaster Operations Directorate and its Logistics and Disaster Assistance Directorates; the interface between FEMA’s urban search and rescue (USAR) task forces and Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMATs) – which are now under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Overview Of The FEMA ReorganizationCommand And ControlAuthorities Within The Disaster Operations DirectorateOperational Liaison With Other Agencies