Response Policies

• Biden Administration Issues Jones Act Waiver for Foreign-Flag Tanker (Government Executive, May 13, 2021): The Jones Act is often cited as an obstacle to disaster response capabilities during disasters.
• The Biden Administration Is Recruiting Feds Across Government to Assist With COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign (Government Executive, April 8, 2021): The Homeland Security Department is using a provision of post-Hurricane Katrina law for just the second time ever for the initiative.

Strategic National Stockpile

• America’s Stockpiles Are Hardly Strategic (Defense One, February 9, 2021): This article argues that the country needs to assess the value of current stockpiles before assembling any new reserve of critical commodities (in the aftermath of COVID-19).

Response Technologies and Innovations

• The National Guard’s Fire-Mapping Drones Get an AI Upgrade (Wired, September 29, 2020): Combining UAV and AI technologies is helping to improve the mapping of active wildfire activity.

Infrastructure Response

• CenterPoint Energy officials apologize after lengthy Houston power outages from Hurricane Beryl (CNN, July 25, 2024)

Response Issues / Analysis

• Delta and disasters push FEMA close to the breaking point (Politico, September 8, 2021): An unprecedented convergence of disasters is straining the capacity of the Federal Emergency Management Agency close to its limit, as it grapples with a historic wildfire season, devastation from Hurricane Ida and the surging Covid-19 outbreak.”

Recovery

9/11: Inside 20 years of disaster recovery efforts (Houston.Com, September 8, 2021): “Twenty years ago the members of Texas Task Force One rode in to the chaos of Lower Manhattan and became part of an unprecedented search and rescue effort. Since then, the task force has been deployed dozens of times to search for survivors in the aftermath of hurricanes and earthquakes, as well as provide support during national security events.”