ASSIGNMENT

Implications of 9/11

When I arrived in Washington DC in June of 2001, is the new Chief Information Officer at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I'm pretty sure that only a few people within the small circle of folks in Washington knew what Homeland Security was. I knew about it because I did my research prior to arriving at my new duty station. And I knew that there was a bill on Capitol Hill sponsored by a representative Mac thorn Barry of Texas, which was to create a Department of Homeland Security, which was to be built around fema. So I did read about that in preparation for that possibility. But at the time Themis focus was on natural disasters and there was really no thought to how we would respond to an event, a terrorism, although there were plans in place and other things, they were just gathering dust on the shelves. Well, in September 11th was a sunny day, not unlike the day we're having today. We were in Big Sky, Montana for the national emergency managers Association annual conference. And I was there to be introduced to the state emergency managers as the new chief information officer for fema. I was up in my room watching CNN news as I usually do when I'm on travel. And the news programs switch to this photo of one of the World Trade Center towers with a big gash on the side. It was a sunny day in New York City to and I just remember looking at it and wondering what was going on. They were speculating that it might have been a private plane, that it's straight off course. A former National Transportation Safety Board official chimed in saying that that wasn't an accident because there was a one mile airspace restriction around the towers. And right about the time he made that statement, there was a huge explosion as one of these passenger planes hit the second tower. I remember jumping up and running downstairs to find out what we were going to do. As I got downstairs, the director of fema, his public affairs person, and another person it aside. We're already rushing out the door. They were heading down to Bozeman, Montana to catch a flight back to Washington DC. And my responsibility was to remain at the hotel, to set up a communication center in the hotel ballroom. And so I'm running around trying to find networking equipment which the hotel didn't have. And eventually I plug my laptop into a phone line. And as it turned out, it was the only phone line that we were able to keep open. So my little laptop became the nerve center for fema West, if you want to call it that out in Big Sky, Montana. We had a big screen TV up where we were watching events unfold in New York. And then subsequently we heard about things happening at the Pentagon. And there was even talk about possibility of something happening that the capital. And we were just convinced that we were at war, that this was a change in the whole fabric of how we dealt with this issue as Americans. And the airspace restrictions were put into effect not long after that. So we spent four days after 9, 11 in Big Sky, Montana. And it was a time of reflection for a lot of us because we were now trying to reassess our jobs. We're going to be what it was we're going to do when we return home. I got back to Washington DC on Saturday of that week and after some rest and some time with my family, I went right into work. And that began a period of several weeks of long hours, weekend hours, just trying to reformulate the American government for this new threat. And it was interesting because it was the one time I can remember in all my time in Washington DC that there was no political agenda at play. Everyone banded together. We all felt like we were in the same boat together. I don't think I've ever experienced that before or since. And it was around that time that people started talking about the need to consolidate all of these various departments that existed in the federal government that we're dealing with. Issues related to who, what they called Homeland Security, which by now was a buzzword that everyone was aware of. And that was what led to the creation of the Office of Homeland Security. And I was involved in a lot of the task force meetings and other sessions that we're planning this organization and putting it together. And in the month of June of 2002, the president came on to announce the formulation of a Department of Homeland Security. The office was a White House office and didn't have the authority to bring a lot of these organizations together, but this Department of Homeland Security was going to do that and fema was going to be a part of this new department. I remember the director of fema talking to me on the phone because once again, I was on travel. And he told me your life is about to get very busy as that wasn't already. And I was involved in the transition team that helped to put together some of the first operational plans and develop the procedures for what was to become the new Department of Homeland Security. And throughout this entire process, we were trying to do something that hadn't been done since the creation of the Department of Defense. We were bringing a 160 to a 180 disparate pieces of the federal government together into one department. And it's been a work in progress since then. It took the Pentagon several decades to finally start to get things right. And I know that even as we speak, the Department of Homeland Security has gone through a lot of issues, both political, administrative, and professional, and trying to perform its duty. It was a sobering time to be involved in the ground floor, bringing that together. And I have never forgotten that and never forgotten the impact that it had on the American people. And if I had anything that I would want to take away from that and share with others. It's the fact that we need to continue to recognize that the thread is out there. The threat didn't go away with the creation of this department. And it's very important for us to understand that Homeland Security doesn't emanate from Washington DC. They're there to consolidate Washington DC's response to homeland security incidents. But it's going to happen in our community, is going to happen with our first responders. It's going to happen with our local emergency management organizations. Those are the people that have to be prepared and work in coordination with the federal government to ensure that what happened on 911 doesn't happen again.