SECTION NEWS
Emergency Management/Homeland Security Committee
By Ernest B. Abbott and Otto J. Hetzel
Ernest B. Abbott is chair of the Emergency Management/Homeland Security Committee and can be reached at FEMA Law Associates, 805 15th Street, N.W., Suite 1101, Washington, DC 20005, 202/326-9319, eabbott@fema-law.com. Otto J. Hetzel is a vice-chair of the Committee and can be reached at 5015 Allan Road, Bethesda, MD 20816-2719, 301/229-5910, ottol@hetzel.com. Lai Sun Yee is also a vice-chair of the Committee and can be reached at 1401 S. Joyce Street, Apt. 1506, Arlington, VA 22202-1883, 518/457-8913, lmyee1@gmail.com.
The Committee’s major activity for this year was organizing and conducting a two-day Legal Table Top Exercise: “The Law and Catastrophic Disasters: Legal Issues in the Aftermath,” which took place March 5–6, 2009, in Alexandria, Virginia. Ernest Abbott and Otto Hetzel were the Exercise Program co-chairs. Over 100 participants with experience in the legal challenges created by disaster events (such as Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, wildfires, and the Columbine shootings) were presented with a hypothetical disaster and asked to identify and discuss the liabilities, legal requirements, and tasks for lawyers during this disaster “event.” Discussions were organized into six different legal subject matter areas: public health/medical; public safety; public/private education; judicial, legal services, and electoral systems; housing/shelter; and, infrastructure restoration and environmental remediation. These areas reflect the wide range of public and private institutions—and associated legal specialties—affected by catastrophic eventsIn the Exercise Scenario, radioactive “dirty bombs” exploded at three different sites roughly three weeks before Election Day 2009: on a terminal at “O’Kelly International Airport” in “Bigton,” Illinois, in a city transit train in the O’Kelly Airport transit station, and at “ Badger University Hospital” in “Middleson,” Wisconsin. The Badger Hospital explosion was a much larger scale explosion, with significant casualties arising from the blast; a radioactive plume from this explosion then drifted over other hospital and university facilities, sporting events, residential communities, and the courthouse complex. The O’Kelly explosions caused the extended closing of the nation’s busiest airport—and passengers on an adjacent city transit train spread radioactive contamination to a number of parts of the city. The specific Exercise Scenario with its radioactive aspect was one unfamiliar to all participants (we are fortunate not to have experienced this type of disaster in America). But the result—unusable schools, housing, and legal and court facilities; evacuation orders, shelter facilities, and self-evacuations; disruption to the medical system, and more—were circumstances familiar to Exercise participants who had faced other disaster events and stimulated discussion of generic legal lessons drawn from participants’ prior disaster experience.
Legal problems frequently lag events; it takes time for people and institutions to identify their losses and to look to the legal system for compensation, redress of grievances, and other relief. Accordingly, the breakout discussion groups (covering the six legal subject matter areas) each met three times to deal with three different time periods in the Scenario. The “Response Phase” covered the immediate aftermath of the event, when immediate action is required to save lives and protect property. But the majority of discussion took place during the “Stabilization/Reentry Phase,” after emergency conditions had stabilized, and the “Recovery/Litigation Phase,” when legislatures investigate and all involved must discover who will ultimately bear the costs imposed by the event.
A report combining the information that was developed from the Exercise will be produced this summer and will be incorporated in training materials for state and local government lawyers and local officials who may confront such issues in their own locales.
The Exercise was held in conjunction with the Mid-Year Meeting of the National Emergency Management Association, a number of whose members participated. It was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security provided by its grantee, the National Legal Preparedness Program, Institute for Public Safety and Justice of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) that presented the Exercise along with administrative support from the Center for American and International Law. Additional sponsors were the National Emergency Management Association; the International Municipal Lawyers Association; the Center for Homeland Defense and Security of the Naval Postgraduate School; and, in addition to the Section of State and Local Government Law, the American Bar Association’s Special Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness, the Standing Committee on National Security Law, the Sections of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice and Health Law, and the Young Lawyers Division.
