This lesson gives you an overview of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Logistics Section. This lesson explains:

• The FEMA Logistics mission.
• The logistics functions at FEMA HQ, FEMA regions, and in the field.
• How to formally request FEMA assistance.
• Unique challenges of the FEMA Logistics mission.

Kevin: FEMA is a customer-service oriented agency. We do emergency response but we work for our customers. So, whoever that survivor may be whoever that state is whoever that local person is we work for them.

Mike: The logistics function has a major role to play. That role is to ensure that the requirements laid out by Operations are fully supported. To perform that mission, we need to make sure that we have sufficient operational facilities, that responders have the resources they require to perform their duties, that matters of health and safety are actively addressed to ensure the workforce has a good environment to work from, and to bring all those resources together requires a team effort all the way through the federal family.

Matt: We’re always prepared to do what we have to do to see that the American people receive the resources they need to recover.

[FEMA Logistics supply trucks deliver materials for a new Joint Field Office where FEMA and state partners share office space during a 2008 response to Tropical Storm Fay on Orlando Florida]

Narrator: The FEMA Logistics mission is to plan, coordinate, and sustain a federal-level capability to response and recovery operations for domestic emergencies and special events. In other words, FEMA’s mission is to coordinate and support everyone else’s mission. FEMA must move life-sustaining as well as operational resources into a disaster area within a 12 to 24 hour period and account for those resources.

[Mobile Disaster Recovery Center in northeast Harris county in Jacinto Texas set up to make it easier for residents who sustained damage from Hurricane Ike to apply for assistance]

Narrator: For those of us in FEMA Logistics, the challenge is compounded in that we do not own many of the resources we are moving; we don’t own the vehicles that deliver these resources and we can’t know, in advance and with certainty, the types or amounts of these resources that are needed by the impacted population.

[FEMA personnel leave Denver Colorado for Texas to support operations ahead of Hurricane Dean August 2007]

Narrator: The scope and impact of a disaster cannot be known in advance. Therefore, our preparation activities must be adaptable to meet a variety of potential situations. We must keep our plans and response flexible, ready to be modified as changes unfold.

A static logistics system, where specific products in a defined quantity are delivered over scheduled routes, cannot react to the shifting conditions surrounding a disaster. You will learn how FEMA Logistics, in this unique environment, functions differently from logistics in any other organization.

Scott: FEMA Headquarters Logistics has, from our perspective, a role of being a supporter. Helping us meet the requirements that are put upon us at the state and local level. And to be there to help us develop policies and procedures that will make everything run smoothly so we are all kind of working from same sheet of music and making everything clear and concise so that we don’t have mix ups, we don’t have short falls and we don’t make mistakes when the balloon goes up and we have to jump at a moment’s notice.

Mel: When I’m responding to a disaster usually either at the state Emergency Operations Center or at the Joint Field Office after it’s been established I’ll reach back to FEMA Headquarters primarily through Etaskers or some of our other systems to request resources that are needed that I know that are in storage for example at the distribution centers or disaster information systems clearing house where we’ll have our IT assets stored so I’ll reach back to FEMA Headquarters for resource support.

Kevin: For Headquarters, their job is to support us. We actually become the customer of our Headquarters. The NRCC or whoever the Logistics Chief is on the NRCC at the national level will reach out to us for our requirements or whatever is coming out of Ops. Any ARFs, mission assignments or things of that nature that we may have created to let them know what is coming down the pipe. Obviously because all our assets are national assets so Headquarters needs to be involved in any decision we make.

A successful response to disasters begins with strong leadership. Logistics Management at FEMA Headquarters continuously coordinates emergency logistics planning and preparedness through its five divisions.

Distribution Management Division – The Distribution Management Division manages a comprehensive supply chain, warehouse, and transportation operation. This division coordinates with strategic alliances to distribute resources.

Logistics Operations Division – The Logistics Operations Division serves as the central reporting element for all logistics actions.

Plans and Exercises Division – The Plans and Exercises Division provides logistics plans and exercises for short- and long-term readiness requirements.

Property Management Division - The Property Management Division develops the concept of operations and processes for property visibility, accountability, reutilization, and disposal.

Business Management Division – The Business Management Division provides fiscal, personnel, and administrative services.

FEMA Headquarters Logistics developed the concept and defined the role of the National Logistics Coordinator to serve as the single integration point for all national level resources required to support a disaster. To maintain this mission capability, FEMA Headquarters Logistics works continuously to build:

• A professional workforce.
• Collaborative relationships that allow FEMA to meet customer requirements.
• Business processes to implement an integrated logistics system.
• A logistics management system that supports property accountability and maintenance.

Each FEMA region is responsible for maintaining and supporting its permanent facilities. They hire and manage a regional cadre of disaster logistics reservists ready to respond.

FEMA regions develop and maintain regional plans, policies, and procedures that are in line with national strategy to ensure regional response capability for any disaster scenario. The regions work within the regional area of responsibility with federal, state, and local partners to pre-identify response capabilities and possible resource short-falls to develop a logistics strategy for all hazards.

In response to a disaster, the FEMA office in the affected region stands up a full Logistics Section responsible for filling all disaster-related requirements. This involves filling requests for logistical assistance from state and federal partners. When filling these requirements, the Logistics Section sources, acquires, ships, tracks, and distributes resources. This involves coordination with FEMA Operations, Logistics Management Directorate (LMD), the private sector, other federal agencies, and the state. Requests for logistical support include the following:

Facility support and acquisition

Supply and equipment acquisition

Evacuation support

Medical service provisions for federal responders

Following a Presidential Disaster Declaration (PDD) the regions establish a temporary field operation as close as possible to the impacted area. The Logistics Section locates, assesses, acquires, establishes, and maintains temporary disaster-specific facilities. These facilities may be Joint Field Offices, Incident Support Bases/staging areas, Responder Camps, Joint Operation Centers, or Disaster Recovery Centers. Response and recovery operations are conducted through these and other temporary field facilities through the life of the disaster.

Let’s look at the disaster response responsibilities of various groups and see at what point FEMA Logistics gets involved.

Local, state, and tribal emergency response groups

State Emergency Management Agency (EMA)

State Governor

FEMA Logistics

To ask for federal support or technical assistance, a request must be submitted to FEMA on an Action Request Form, or ARF. The ARF is the official document for requesting federal assistance.

Official request for assistance

Assistance given

Official request for assistance – A state-authorized official must sign and date the ARF for the federal assistance to be processed. By signing the ARF, the state is officially requesting assistance and waiving liability stating that the support needed is beyond local or state resources or contracting capabilities. ARFs are jointly validated by FEMA Operations and FEMA Logistics and a decision is made whether to fill the requirement with internal FEMA assets or to assign the requirement to another federal agency.

Assistance given – Upon receiving the ARF from Operations, FEMA Logistics quickly ramps up to move large amounts of relief supplies into the impacted area. This can be a challenging task as commodities must be identified, ordered, tracked, received, staged, and distributed in an area with a damaged infrastructure.

Mel: States ask for FEMA support through an Action Request Form or an ARF, basically upon signing an ARF the state is saying that this is a requirement that they have that is outside their state resource capability and they are asking for FEMA assistance on that. Also by signing the ARF the state is committing to paying their cost share portion of the expense associated with bringing that resource into the impacted area. For example, commodities, a state may submit an action request form or ARF for, for example, 500 truckloads of meals or probably more accurately 1000 liters of water to support an impacted population. An ARF is the form the state uses to request federal assistance. The Mission Assignment is a mechanism where FEMA tasks other federal agencies with providing resources.

Kevin: The States are going to base their requirements on the local communities and what they say they need. The State will decide whether they can actually support that. If they feel they cannot then they’ll fill out an Action Request Form or an ARF and that will be passed up through the chain into the RRCC. Again, we’ll look at our support mechanisms and see how we can best serve them. The ARF will be vetted and then we’ll do a mission assignment if it’s required. If FEMA, if we ourselves cannot support this then a Mission Assignment can be done to any of our ESF partners who can decide if whether they can support that mission.

Matt: An ARF is an action request form and generally comes from the states—those are the most common types of ARFs but we can receive an ARF from another federal agency that’s in support of the mission. The Red Cross could submit an ARF to Operations saying, “Hey you asked us to provide meals for X number of people and our resources will only allow us to provide meals to Y number of people”. This is the delta these are the resources we need to fulfill that delta.

Besides maintaining supplies in our own distribution centers, FEMA Logistics continually researches supply sources—developing and maintaining contracts with private enterprises—to provide commodities during a disaster.

These relationships enable us to source requirements from a wide variety of entities and physical locations throughout the country. For example, instead of moving resources from the nearest distribution center, which still may be hundreds of miles away from the incident, Headquarters Logistics may be able to procure and move the same resource from a partner much closer to the location where needed.

These relationships also expedite FEMA’s ability to get required resources to the disaster survivors while also often minimizing costs associated with having to store and maintain these resources in its own facilities.

When working with private sources, FEMA advises on the urgent nature of the distribution effort and endeavors to pre-establish time frames. As our partners are aware, many of these resources are life-sustaining.

Scott: FEMA Logistics is there to support any requirements that comes across and I think we do that very well. Where I think the expectation is though is that we can do it and pull a magic rabbit out of a hat. And we’re no different than everybody else, we have to see the request, we have to develop the requirement, and we have to be specific when we go out and we’re doing some kind of procurement, and it’s not something that you can do at the drop of a hat, it takes time to initiate that. So I think the most important thing for the states is to plan ahead and think out and to look at their true capabilities and then to really look at what the expectation is they are going to put on the federal government to come and support them. And expect that we are there to support them, not take it over and run it for them. We don’t want to do that it’s not our mission. And so we do that, and we develop a very strong partnership with them and we try and build on their capability, their existing capability, to ensure they are moving forward and they are meeting their mission and supporting their constituents and the folks that they’re there to support.

Mel: We have a multitude of resources at our disposal. The one request that I would have as a logistics chief to any agency seeking our support is help us to identify your requirement. Often our customers just come to us with a problem and we’re presented with a problem that we’re asked to solve. I ask that our customers, whether it be a state or another federal agency, help us identify a solution to the problem. It just helps us more rapidly fulfill the resources that would be associated with solving that problem.

Kevin: We need some planning on their part. If they can pre-determine or at least give us an idea of what their population needs are in case of an event so that we can better support them in a timely and efficient manner. You aren’t hurting as bad if we are ahead of the curve. Any pre-planning they can do on their end prior to these events would greatly help our mission.

Mike: The more consistently that the planning and preparedness activities apply the Incident Command System and National Incident Management System the more effective we will all be when we meet together at a particular disaster to provide a response.

Matt: I really think that, as a whole, the state and federal family we work together really well. But I also think it’s important to note that a lot of our resources come from contractors, third-party providers and sometimes those things aren’t readily available or it takes time to get these resources in the pipeline.

If the states could give us some advance notice of future requirements what that would allow us to do is better source those requirements and provide them in a more timely manner. And they’ll end up with a better product. It’s been my experience that on occasion the state will come to us at the very, very last second and have a requirement for a resource that we don’t have and we have to go source. And it’s a very short timeframe in which they need it. Sometimes as little as 8 to 12 hours. When that happens, we don’t get to go out and source the proper resource for them, we end up with something that kind of works, it kind of doesn’t and it might cost too much, it might not be of the best quality. Advance notice of pending requirements would be a great benefit to everybody.

FEMA Headquarters Logistics, FEMA Regional Logistics, and FEMA Field Logistics work together to provide an efficient and flexible logistics capability to get life-sustaining commodities and services to the impacted population and the responders. FEMA Logistics simultaneously coordinates with other government and private agencies that may assist in the operation.

In this lesson, you learned:

• The FEMA Logistics mission.
• The logistics functions at FEMA HQ, FEMA regions, and in the field.
• How to formally request FEMA assistance.
• Unique challenges of the FEMA Logistics mission.