Containment, cancellations and quarantines — the Pentagon’s latest plans for dealing with...

We have to take this seriously and honestly. We should not take the approach that the risk is low. We need to take the approach that the risk is high due to the catastrophic nature of coronavirus.

When I conducted risk management for my units, I identified potential catastrophic events and ways to mitigate the severity of the risk. Some people will make the mistake of using probability to assess the risk and accept the risk. The problem of that approach is should the improbable happen, it will be catastrophic. It was thought improbable the waters would exceed the levees in New Orleans, but it happened, leading to catastrophic events.

It would behoove of the USG to be planning and coordinating with the disparate agencies, cabinets, military, and state authorititis for cohesive and comprehensive actions. State Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) also need to plan and coordinate with local authoties. This can be infinitely difficult due to depth and width of all the entities and their capabilities. The USG conducted a sweeping After Action Review (AAR) after the Hurricane Katrina disaster response. I hope that we learned from that AAR. I will point out two recommendations made in the AAR. It was planned the military would partake in the operations, but nobody defined what the needs were from the military. It was identified that patients in critical care be moved away from the area of the disaster before it struck.

One of the inherent problems for a national response is pencil pushing agencies are not good at planning and coordinating. We should not expect FEMA to be the funding and execution agency. We are fortunate that the commander of Army North, LTG Laura J. Richardson, at Ft Sam Houston will plan, coordinate, and supervise the military response.
Army North has a world class facility and a staff of diverse experts. The military is the only organization that I know capable of moving mountains relatively quickly, which is a huge capability.

So yes, I hope the USG is planning and coordinating as I have mentioned. The disaster relief efforts in New Orleans proves planning and coordinating after a catastrophic event is an endeavor wrought by tremendous amount of futility.

a/k/a Business as usual...

Going to be a long, painful process.