Disaster Response Post-Mortem: Key Success Factors in Emergency Management
This paper presents a formal post-mortem memorandum evaluating multi-agency disaster response performance following a major incident. Drawing on the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the Incident Command System (ICS), and the National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF), the paper identifies five key success factors — competency, compliance, comprehensiveness, communication, coordination, and culture — and explains how each shapes large-scale, multi-jurisdictional response. The paper also addresses how success in disaster response can be measured and how drills and evaluations should be designed to capture both observable performance and deeper institutional, cultural, and perceptual variables that shape real-world outcomes. Hurricane Katrina serves as the primary illustrative case throughout.
- Introduction and Purpose: Memorandum framing and debriefing rationale
- Situational Analysis: Three-phase disaster assessment process and objectives
- The Five 'C' Key Success Factors: Competency, compliance, comprehensiveness, communication, coordination, culture
- Designing Disaster Response Evaluation: Drill and test design for evaluating preparedness factors
- Measuring Success and Conclusion: NDRF criteria for evaluating successful disaster response
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses a concrete organizational framework — the five "C" success factors — to give structure to an otherwise broad topic, making it easy for readers to follow the argument across multiple agencies and jurisdictions.
- Grounds abstract principles in a well-known real-world case (Hurricane Katrina), which gives the analysis immediacy and credibility.
- Balances prescriptive guidance (what responders should do) with critical reflection (how organizational culture and perceptual bias can constrain even well-prepared teams).
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied policy analysis: it takes established federal frameworks (ICS, NIMS, NDRF, PPD-8) and evaluates their practical strengths and limitations through the lens of a specific incident. Rather than simply describing the frameworks, the author interrogates how real-world factors — agency reorganization, cultural norms, push-versus-pull coordination approaches — affect implementation. This moves the paper beyond description into genuine analytical argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a purpose-setting memorandum framing, then moves through situational analysis (three-phase assessment model), the five "C" success factors (each addressed as a discrete subsection), evaluation design (how drills and tests should be constructed), and closes by linking evaluation criteria to the NDRF. Each section builds logically on the previous one, moving from diagnosis to prescription.
Introduction and Purpose
The purpose of this memorandum is to debrief the disaster incident of December 4, 2014, in Metropolis, State, as reported to Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS.gov) — the national online network of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — which is maintained in order to more readily communicate lessons learned, best practices, and innovative ideas for personnel and communities engaged in homeland security and emergency response (LLIS, 2008). The LLIS website and its contents are provided for informational purposes only (LLIS, 2008). While LLIS does not represent the official positions of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it serves as an important forum for clarifying and focusing the learning with which federal agencies are charged.
Post-mortem debriefing sessions are expected of incident commanders and those who conduct response field training as part of an organizational mission. Ideally, debriefing sessions with responders should occur following the end of any prolonged incident response, and within reasonably close temporal proximity to that close. Debriefing sessions are important in several ways, including providing responders with an opportunity to give early feedback on response operations. Through this feedback loop, trainers gain insight critical to the design and improvement of training courses that are truly valuable to responders. Accordingly, the framework described above compels this memorandum and largely dictates the information shared herein.
The information in this memorandum is organized according to the steps and objectives of a situational analysis, consideration of the key success factors related to managing a disaster of this magnitude and scope, identifying criteria for the efficacy and expediency of response, and discussing potential assessments to gauge the key response success factors.
Situational Analysis
The situational analysis process covers three phases of disaster response: initial, interim, and final assessments. The data that is collected and analyzed must address the disaster type, imminent hazards, major problems, and available resources. The depth of assessment must extend to life safety, available lifelines, access routes, essential facilities, and coordinated implementation of a comprehensive response. Life safety is always the first priority of situational analysis, as indicated by the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services: "First and always, assessment must focus on immediate emergency needs for life, safety, protection of property and essential services" (Miske, 2006; "NYS," 2013).
The objectives of situational assessment for purposes of debriefing include the provision of comprehensive and timely reports on the scope and impact of a disaster, accurately and appropriately informing the public, assessing the effectiveness and appropriateness of decision-making at all relevant levels, and assessing and adjusting the provision of recovery assistance and disaster resources ("NYS," 2013). In addition, the systemization of information must address assessment and collection, analysis and collation, and dissemination — all of which must articulate together to facilitate consistent, efficient communication and collaboration.
The Five 'C' Key Success Factors
The threads that can be pulled through the fabric of disaster response are fundamentally those of competency, compliance, comprehensiveness, communication, coordination, and culture. These attributes are integrated throughout disaster response management, yet each must be robustly addressed as a distinct consideration, since the five "Cs" play pivotal roles in each phase of disaster response management. Indeed, the five "Cs" are pillars for managing large, multi-agency, and multi-jurisdictional response programs.
While it is readily apparent that competency is a critical factor in the effective implementation of disaster response management plans, it is important to consider how competency is developed and how it must be sustained. A more detailed discussion of this factor follows in the section on designing disaster response evaluation tools and processes.
The success factor of compliance is an indicator of fidelity to existing, time-tested, proven protocols that are essential to effective inter-agency functioning. The overarching National Incident Management System (NIMS), the National Response Framework (NRF), and the Incident Command System (ICS) provide guidelines for conducting disaster responses that — through their very existence — serve as comprehensive communication and coordination frameworks. The ICS definition provided by the United States Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance illustrates this point: ICS is "a set of personnel, policies, procedures, facilities, and equipment, integrated into a common organizational structure designed to improve emergency response operations of all types and complexities" ("ICS," 2004). One key reason for complying with the ICS framework is that it is a scalable, adaptable mechanism that references a familiar hierarchy, enabling people from diverse areas and disciplines to conduct efficacious responses to disaster events, thereby fostering collaborative functioning within initiatives directed at homeland security ("ICS," 2004).
Multi-agency planning is the base from which effective, comprehensive implementation must proceed. A primary function of the Incident Command System is to provide an optimized structure for first-on-scene responders that promotes rapid, accurate, and comprehensive response ("ICS," 2004). Indeed, a key success factor in disaster response is the degree to which people from multiple agencies — who are unaccustomed to working together on a routine basis — achieve seamless communication and operational plans (Moynihan, 2009).
An integrated communication plan is a crucial component of effective disaster response management. A sure path to failed incident management is a communication system that is inadequate to the response context, subsequently resulting in a communication breakdown. The challenge is to ensure that voice and data communication systems are effectively integrated at levels that enable communication across personnel, agencies, and jurisdictions.
Under non-crisis conditions, coordination evolves gradually as participating organizations develop incremental mutual adaptations as a matter of course (Moynihan, 2008). The working relationships that emerge over time form a basis for mutual regard, trust, and a sense of reliability (Moynihan, 2008). However, under the crisis conditions of disaster response, not only has prior contact been limited, but first responders must rapidly come together as a unified body to perform many extraordinarily difficult tasks for which they may have limited experience (Moynihan, 2008). The pre-established roles and responsibilities mapped by federal protocols serve to expedite the coordination of personnel and resources.
Moynihan (2008), citing the early sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, argued that coordination is more effective when agencies assume a "push" approach to disasters rather than a "pull" approach. The most apparent indicator of this switch from pull to push was the change to vocal command by the Department of Defense (DOD), rather than detailed, exacting request processes. A push approach enables leaders to make use of deep organizational knowledge, to understand "how organizational standard operating procedures will limit or further responsiveness," and to make adjustments to their original assumptions about a disaster event, thereby adapting their response to a better fit.
Khademian (2002) argued that agency leaders cannot be expected to easily modify or establish organizational culture. However, if more than one cultural mode exists within an organization, recognition by leaders that switching cultural modes can bring about a more effective response can substantially improve a collaborative effort (Weick, 2001). An example of a demonstrably effective cultural switch took place during the collaborative response to Hurricane Katrina: the DOD abandoned strict adherence to Joint Directorate of Military Support (JDOMS) procedures, which were designed to prevent the DOD from committing to "unsuitable missions or engage in unnecessary interagency action," and pursued a more aggressive course of action best characterized by the military "can-do" spirit and "willingness to work around rules to achieve a mission" (Moynihan, 2008, p. 6). As Moynihan (2008) wrote: "One should not underestimate the importance or difficulty of culture switching. It requires an ability to recognize what cultural attributes exist within an organization, and when each cultural attribute is appropriate" (p. 6).
References
FEMA Community Planning and Capacity Building. (2014, July 24). Retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/national-disaster-recovery-framework
Khademian, A. (2002). Working with culture: The way the job gets done in public programs. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press.
Khademian, A. (2001, July 18). Is silly putty manageable? Looking for links between culture, management, and context. In J. Brudney, L. O'Toole, & H. G. Rainey (Eds.), Advancing public management: New developments in theory, methods, and practice. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Lessons Learned Information Sharing (LLIS). (2008, December 12). The Federal Emergency Management Agency response to the Greensburg, Kansas, May 4, 2007, tornado after-action report. Retrieved from https://www.llis.dhs.gov/docdetails/details.do?contentID=39054
Miske, J. (2006). Disaster response and homeland security: What works, what doesn't. Westport: Praeger Security International.
Moynihan, D. (2008). Collaboration amid crisis: The Department of Defense during Hurricane Katrina teaching note. Collaborative Government Initiative. Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC). Syracuse, NY: The Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Retrieved from http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/uploadedFiles/parcc/eparcc/cases/Moynihan-%20Teaching%20Notes.pdf
Moynihan, D. (2009). The network governance of crisis response: Case studies of Incident Command Systems. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19, 895–915. Retrieved from
New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. (2013). Disaster assessment guidance. Retrieved from
Review of the Critical Incident Response Plans. (2003, December 1). Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/
The Incident Command System (ICS), Chapter 7. (2004). Center for Excellence in Disaster Management & Humanitarian Assistance.
Weick, K. E. (2001). Making sense of the organization. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, Ltd.
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