By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 4, 2008
More than a year after officials in the Washington area began drawing up plans for a large-scale evacuation, they have produced a guide that falls short of their original goals because of differences over turf and individual jurisdictions' plans for confronting a catastrophe.
Backed by a $1.4 million federal grant, officials intended to create a unified evacuation plan in case of a terrorist strike or other disaster. But they scaled it back to a guide for governments in the Washington area, with a database of highways, shelters, buses and other resources.
Some analysts said the document reflects a worrisome lack of coordination in one of the world's prime terror targets. But others said the original goal was too ambitious, given the absence of detailed local plans and the region's division of authority.
"What we decided was: You can't have one operational plan across state, commonwealth and District for evacuation," said Chris Geldart, the representative for the D.C. area at the Department of Homeland Security. "But what you can do is understand what is everybody's plan and how they fit together."
He called the guide a significant advance and said it would provide the building blocks for a more integrated regional plan.
The project made clear the patchwork nature of planning for a catastrophe in the area, according to a final draft obtained by The Washington Post. Some major thoroughfares out of the District narrow into smaller roads in Maryland, where they are not considered evacuation routes. The database includes more than 80 large evacuation shelters in the District and Maryland but none in Virginia, where officials are still compiling that information. And, unlike most jurisdictions, Prince George's County is not contemplating a large-scale evacuation, saying residents would be safer if they stayed off jammed roads.
Such differences reflect the divided authority in a region encompassing 17 cities and counties spread over two states and a federal district. New York's mayor can order his city's 8 million residents to leave, but "there is no single individual that may issue an evacuation order" for the 5 million people in the Washington region, the guide says.
Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, said it was "just stunning" to hear of the differences in local plans.
"The solution to this has to be an understanding among jurisdictions, not just agreeing about evacuation routes, but about who's in charge," he said.
But officials said a direct chain of command is not possible, because individual governments have authority over their own first responders and other resources.
George W. Foresman, a former Homeland Security undersecretary for preparedness, said the original goal was too ambitious.
"The premise of having a single plan is great, as long as you've figured out individually, in each of the jurisdictions, what you need to be doing. But I don't think we had gotten to that point yet," he said.
Officials acknowledge that it is unlikely they'll ever need to empty the entire D.C. area. In many emergencies, such as a release of hazardous chemicals, it is considered safer for people to stay indoors. But Homeland Security has urged the Washington area to improve its disaster planning, judging it "not sufficient" in a survey after Hurricane Katrina.
The new guide bluntly outlines the difficulties of a big evacuation. Most people in the area are expected to flee in their cars. But even in a typical evening rush period, a majority of the designated evacuation routes operate at 120 percent of capacity or more, the guide says.
Some designated passages out of the District are not considered evacuation routes by neighboring jurisdictions. For example, MacArthur Boulevard tapers from six lanes to two in Maryland, where it is not considered an evacuation corridor, the guide notes.
Andrew Lauland, Maryland's homeland security director, said that reflects differing philosophies of the city and its neighbor.
"If you're evacuating a city, you get [residents] out as quickly as possible," using all the main roads in a relatively small area, he said. But a state such as Maryland wants evacuees to use its highway system and will direct them to different routes depending on the location and nature of the disaster, Lauland said.
In the case of MacArthur Boulevard, transportation officials would probably redirect District vehicles onto several smaller roads to reach Maryland's highways, officials said.
For those without cars, evacuating could be chaotic.
Although Metro trains could whisk people out of the District, the system might be shut down in a disaster. The guide identifies 105 pickup points in the region, such as the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and Metro stations, where those on foot could board special buses to leave town.
But, the guide notes, many jurisdictions have yet to arrange for such provisions as bottled water or portable restrooms at their pickup points.
And although the guide provides a database of more than 6,600 vehicles maintained by 27 transit agencies, it "does not make the assumption that a sufficient amount of trained, licensed drivers will be available." Part-time or off-duty bus drivers might be especially difficult to locate, the report points out. It expresses particular concern about transportation for the disabled, sick and elderly.
"The availability of ambulances and other emergency medical transportation resources may be quickly overwhelmed, particularly if there is a need to evacuate medical facilities," it says.
Darrell L. Darnell, director of the D.C. homeland security office, which coordinated work on the guide, acknowledged that it doesn't solve many potential problems.
"Every jurisdiction is going to have to look at that and come up with their own solutions," he said. "What it does do is give us a common set of priorities we all need to work on."
The guide was compiled as many local governments were expanding their evacuation planning and preparing potential shelters. Northern Virginia has been drawing up a detailed regional plan.
Janet Clements of Virginia's Department of Emergency Planning said it didn't submit the names of large Northern Virginia shelters for the regional evacuation guide because officials were in the process of surveying them. They will eventually be added.
But "there's not a lot of stadiums and convention centers on the Virginia side," she said. The state plans to use its universities as evacuation sites and will try to find more "big box" facilities that can be converted to shelters, she said. For smaller emergencies, schools will generally be used as shelters.
Congress has said the lack of a regional database of evacuation shelters contributed to an "ineffective and inefficient response" to Hurricane Katrina.
Local governments remain divided over revealing their evacuation plans to the public. Montgomery County, for example, does not plan to publicize its evacuation routes or shelters, saying it wants to maintain flexibility depending on the crisis. The District, in contrast, is publishing guides for each of its eight wards, detailing evacuation routes and shelters.
Local officials said they were confident they could work around their differences in a crisis. And they noted that the Red Cross has a complete list of shelters.
David Marin, chief of staff for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), said that the evacuation guide is important but that it does not go far enough. A resource database "is not a substitute for educating people in advance about what to do" in an emergency, he said.
"Six and a half years after 9/11, we should be further along than this," he said. "We're still not ready for prime time."
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