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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Type of event: Interview of Jerome M. Hauer

Date: March 30, 2004
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Emily Walker
Team Number: 8
Location: George Washington University, Ross Hall, ih Floor
Participants - Non-Commission: Jerome Hauer, former Director Office of Emergency
Management NYC (1996-1998); currently the Director of the Response to Emergencies
and Disasters Institute at George Washington University
Participants - Commission: Emily Walker, Mark Bittinger

Commission staff spoke with Mr. Jerome (Jerry) Hauer, former Director of the Office of
Emergency Management (OEM), New York City under Mayor Giuliani, in order to get
background information on the creation of the NY City OEM and to understand in more
detail his views on the current status of OEM and emergency preparedness in NYC which
were included in an Op Ed piece he wrote for the New York Times (attached). We were
interested in hearing his views in order to assess his desirability as a witness at the
upcoming May hearing.

Hauer explained that in 1993 Mayor Giuliani felt that emergencies would be something
that would define his mayoralty. Giuliani felt that it was critical for a mayor to ensure
that emergencies were well run. There were two incidents that led him to create the
Office of Emergency Management. First, there was a fire bombing in the subway at the
City Hall Station. The mayor was unable to get the full story on the event and felt that
the coordination between EMS, fire, and police was disjointed. The second event was a
water main brake in Brooklyn. It was a huge street collapse and the mayor heard about it
on TV. No one called him. According to Hauer, this led the mayor to set up OEM.
Evidently there was a great deal of disagreement in the mayor's office as to whether or
not this was needed. However, Ray Downey was supportive and he asked Jerry Hauer to
apply for the job. Jerry met the mayor and was hired in October 1995 and started the
office on February 1, 1996. He felt that the mayor was very committed to managing
emergencies better. The mayor gave Jerry much leeway in setting up the office and
agreed with most of his recommendations along the way. Jerry said that he briefed the
Mayor regularly on his activities; as frequently as once or twice a week.

Jerry Hauer said that he built a robust staff with very strong people with credentials in
emergency management. His main achievements were: 1) interagency planning
involving 40-50 people from various agencies (local, state and federal); 2) table-top
exercises and full scale exercises every 4-8 weeks; 3) interoperability of police/fire

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during an emergency). In this regard, Jerry said that OEM set up a process and a database to
identify the location of all the supplies and vendors they felt an emergency could call for and put
together numbers and locations for these supplies.

Hauer gave an example of a huge ice storm incident in Staten Island where the police were
commanding the command center and the phones were down and the police didn 't want anyone
there. The issue that Hauer faced .at OEM was that in order to open a command center the police
had to give permission. So he recommended and Giuliani agreed with setting up a command
center for OEM independent of the police.

Hauer said that he felt that the OEM command center needed to be within walking distance of
City Hall. He looked everywhere in early 1997 to find appropriate space. He toured dozens of
buildings including some municipal buildings. He then looked at 7 WTC and there was a
brokera e floor with no pillars, high ceilings which 'was structurally reinforced and the engineers
liked it. 9/11 Closed by Statute he
felt that it would be good enough for OEM. They did a threat assessment t at inc u assessing
damage from bombs and other known attacks, but they did not do a test for another building
falling into the building.

When asked about the fuel on the 3rd floor (with a day tank on the 7th floor), he said that it was

•
surrounded by concrete in an enclosed area. He said that the fuel storage was approved by the
Port Authority, the City, and the Fire Department. He said that the Fire Department inspected
the fuel tanks and signed off on the plans. He said that they now deny having approved it and
accused some of having selective memory. The reason OEM went above ground was because of
the over 600 water main breaks in the city per year and the fact that this part of town had the
oldest water mains.

He said that OEM did have a fully operational back up at One Police Plaza. Unfortunately on 9-
11, this back up was not operational due to electrical and phone line outages. Hauer knew that
OEM personnel went first to the fire house on West Hausmann and then moved the command
center to the policy academy for 4 days and then to Pier 92. They had looked at the Bronx for a
backup but it was too expensive. They also had looked at a place underground for a backup but
it was too isolated and hard to get Commissioners there in an emergency. They also looked at
the Tweed Building behind City Hall.

Jerry said that his initial title was Director, but he had the status of a Conunissioner. He said that
his title was changed to Commissioner when the City Charter was revamped after the election.
(

He mentioned that in 1996-98 he was talking about terrorism and even testified before Congress
on the need to increase our preparedness, but few people would engage in these issues. Hauer
approached FEMA during this time and was unsuccessful in securing funding for preparedness
against terrorist attacks. He will provide us with the letter he received from FEMA. He said that
Attorney General Janet Reno understood the issue. He went with FBI Special Agent in Charge
John O'Neill and others to brief Attorney General Reno on the terrorism threat, The Nunn-
Lugar-Domenici Domestic Preparedness Program turned to the Department of Justice and its
Office of Domestic Preparedness (ODP), because FEMA and the Department of Health and

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issues. Hauer approached FEMA during this time and was unsuccessful in securing
funding for preparedness against terrorist attacks. He will provide us with the letter he
received from FEMA. He said that Attorney General Janet Reno understood the issue.
He went with FBI Special Agent in Charge John O'Neill and others to brief Attorney
General Reno on the terrorism threat. The Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Domestic
Preparedness Program turned to the Department of Justice and its Office of Domestic
Preparedness (ODP), because FEMA and the Department of Health and Human Services
essentially abdicated their role in preparing the nation for possible terrorist attacks.
FEMA simply walked away from the issue of terrorism.

On June 22-23, 2001 he participated in a Center of Strategic and International Studies

(CSIS)-sponsored bioterrorism exercise, Dark Winter. The war game involved many
senior-level officials. Among the findings:

• An attack on the United States with biological weapons could cause massive
civilian casualties, breakdowns in essential institutions, disruption of democratic
processes, civil disorder, loss of confidence in government, and reduced U.S.
strategic flexibility.
• Government currently lacks adequate strategies, plans, and information
system to manage a crisis of this type or magnitude.
• Public health is now a major national security issue.
• Constructive media relationships become critical for all levels of government.
• Containing the spread of a contagious disease delivered as a bioweapon will
present significant ethical, political, cultural, operational, and legal challenges.

He said that in the summer of 200 1, people started to seriously think about the terrorist
threat in Washington, DC.

Back in NYC, OEM was very organized and had a first-of-its-kind matrix called the
"Direction and Control of Emergencies in New York," which Hauer has framed on his
office wall that tells who is accountable for what jobs in an emergency. Hauer said that
this had never been done prior to the creation of OEM.

He discussed the issue of intelligence. He said that there was no system (nor is there
today) for sharing of intelligence from Washington, DC to the local law enforcement or
OEM in NYC. He said that the only way he got information was through personal
relationships. He said that he was very close to John O'Neill, head of the JTTF in NYC
at that time, and through that relationship he was given solid information .. He also said
that he came to Washington, DC quite often to get briefed. He was required to do so in
order to get any information. This included the Y2K issue. He said that it is hard to
institutionalize the sharing of information. It was the culture in government agencies
NOT to share. This has changed somewhat since the 1990s but it remains a critical issue
today. A question in Hauer's mind is "How do you move from relying on ad hoc
working relationships to an institutionalized way or system that allows for the free flow
of information sharing?"

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He said that OEM had three areas of activities: 1) field operations; 2) planning; 3)
command center. He said that the command center functioned effectively during the
West Nile outbreak, the blackout of '99, the heat wave of '99 and Y2K.

We discussed the failure of the OEM command center to be set up quickly and operate on
9-11. He said that this was such a catastrophic event that you lost the command staff at
the fire department. All senior chiefs were working at the scene and many were lost. It
was difficult, according to Hauer, to regroup mid-stream due to those losses. He said that
the losses of the day removed the ability to coordinate. There was no effective command
post or structure; no one to report to. They lost the "heart and soul" of the people who
knew how to work with those kinds of events. He also cited the psychological issues of
losing a command center - the one place where the city and commissioners could work.

He mentioned that the radios were a big on-going problem. He said that he was asked by
Commissioner Von Essen to be part of a task force in the spring of 200 1 to look at the
communications interoperability issue. He said that a blue ribbon panel was formed to
try to fix the problem that had been plaguing the city for years. He said that there was an
all new system procured for the fire department, but they had to take them out of service.
He said that the fire department was on VHF and the police department was on UHF. He
was never able to resolve this issue when he was there. He said that the fire did not like
the police talking on their radios. He said that on 9-11 the police helicopter conducting
reconnaissance and a size-up of the incident could not speak to the fire department.

He mentioned that the fire department did not use the hoses that were located in the WTC
because they did not trust any equipment but their own.

He said that the city of New York knew about Al Qaeda, but did not have the intelligence
to see the big picture. They were planning for terrorism, but generally. They had no
intelligence details.

He commented when asked on the locking of the elevators at the WTC, that the reason
they locked was because of the experience in a fire on s" Avenue in 1970 when the doors
opened and the fire ball rolled in and people were killed.

He felt that OEM achieved an important goal in getting agencies to talk together. He said
that the process was institutionalized in the city and it was effective. Where they failed
was getting the police and fire to communicate.

He mentioned that OEM never examined the use of the helicopter to spray water. He
thought they were creative, but they didn't consider this option and it may have been
helpful on 9-11.

When asked whether or not public safety was adversely affected on 9-11 since the OEM
command center was not up and running and therefore there was a lack of situational
awareness, he said that there were people who remained at the police and fire stations and

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they were communicating by radio so they should have provided the police and fire with
situational awareness.

Regarding public safety, he felt that the command and control was disrupted on 9-11 with
everyone on scene.

In terms of the future, Hauer said that the issues of cultural differences between the police
and fire were huge and not resolvable. He said that there was lack of desire to coordinate
between the two. He felt that the leadership on these issues is necessary from the mayor
himself. Until he gets involved and requires change, Hauer felt it would be difficult to
exact change.

Joseph Bruno, a former state judge, is the new commissioner of OEM. He succeeds John
Odermatt who vacated the position late last year. Bruno comes to the agency as Mayor
Bloomberg seeks to push OEM away day-to-day response and coordination and more
toward "long-range" contingency planning - a controversial position among some
professionals in the field, including Jerry Hauer.

Attachment:
New York Times Op-Ed "Emergency Unpreparedness," by Jerome M. Hauer, March 15,
2004

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 to
, ... ." aues
.Q',~

Emergency Unpreparedness: [Op-Ed]

Jerome M. Hauer. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Mar 15,2004. pg. A.21
Subjects: Emergency preparedness, Firefighters, Police
Locations: New York City New York
People: Bloomberg, Michael, Bruno, Joseph F
Companies: Office of Emergency Management-New York City NY
Author(s): Jerome M. Hauer
Article types: Commentary
Dateline: Washington

Section: A
Publication title: New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Mar 15,2004. pg. A.21
Source Type: Newspaper
ISSNIISBN: 03624331
ProQuest document 10: 578515101
Text Word Count 1152
Article UR L: http://gateway. proquest.com/openurl?urL ver=Z39.88-2004&res_
dat=xri:pqd&rfC vaL fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&genre=a
rticle&rft_dat=xri:pqd:did=000000578515101&svc_dat=xri:pqil: fmt=text&req_dat=xri:pqil:pq_clntid=1452
AL._ .ract (Article Summary)
In 1996, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani created the emergency management office because he realized that an agency independent of
the Police and Fire Departments was needed not only to plan and coordinate emergency response in New York City, but also to
help carry it out. The Police and Fire Departments had historically not worked well together during major incidents, and emergency
plans drafted by the Police Department were done in isolation.

In addition, he continues to make the mistake of allowing Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly to dictate policy on these issues.
The mission of the Police Department is to fight crime and prevent terrorism, yet Mayor [Michael R. Bloomberg] insists on giving it
more and more responsibility for emergency planning. No doubt, the department is the best police agency in the world. Its crime-
fighting tactics continue to be heralded. But its history of interagency coordination and planning has been fraught with conflict and
disorganization. According to a recent mayoral management report, for example, only two large, multiagency drills to test existing
emergency plans have been done during his tenure. (Yesterday the Office of Emergency Management participated in a large-scale
terrorism drill at Shea Stadium.)

Since its inception, the Office of Emergency Management has responded to thousands of emergencies, from West Nile virus to
threatened transit strikes. The agency has coordinated its activities with city, state and federal departments. To deliberately remove
the on-scene coordination role it has played is indeed a step backward. As someone who has spent the better part of my career
dealing with emergency management and counterterrorism programs, I can say that Mayor Bloomberg's actions will cause damage
that will take years to undo -- a mess that the next mayor will have to clean up.

Full Text (1152 words)

Copyright New York Times Company Mar 15, 2004

[,. .or Affiliation]

Jerome M. Hauer is the director of the Response to Emergencies and Disasters Institute at George Washington University.

When Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently announced the appointment of a new commissioner to head the city's Office of
Emergency Management, he was sending a clear message on the direction he intends to take the agency in this post-9/11 era.
Unfortunately, it's the wrong one.
In the words of the agency's new leader, Joseph F. Bruno, a state judge and former fire commissioner, the office will now function
like a "think tank," a sort of planning agency, instead of response agency. This comes at a time when the mayor is also
concentrating more power within the Police Department to prepare for emergencies. Not only do these steps ignore the lessons of
recent history, they promise to set back public safety in New York City for years.

I. 36, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani created the emergency management office because he realized that an agency independent of
the Police and Fire Departments was needed not only to plan and coordinate emergency response in New York City, but also to
help carry it out. The Police and Fire Departments had historically not worked well together during major incidents, and emergency
plans drafted by the Police Department were done in isolation.

When I became the agency's first director, my priority was to remedy this. I showed other agencies like the Fire Department and the
Department of Environmental Protection the emergency plans that had been put into place by the Police Department. Not only were
the agencies unaware of the plans, but the procedures were flawed and had never been tested. My office was able to bring all
requisite agencies into the process and conducted dry runs of the plans every two months.

As a result, the response to emergencies under the Giuliani administration was superb. In 1998, for example, a 48-inch water-main
break closed several blocks of Fifth Avenue. With coordinated interagency response, we were able to reopen the thoroughfare in
just 10 days. During the Dinkins administration, this same water main broke just blocks away, yet it took months to reopen the
avenue.

Another success came with our restructuring of the city's hurricane preparedness plans. When my staff reviewed procedures put
together while emergency planning resided in the Police Department -- again drafted without any outside agency input -- it found
startling shortcomings. Many of the structures identified as shelters either could not withstand hurricane-force winds or would be
under water because they were in a flood zone. No one had consulted a flood map. No one looked to see if the shelters were
accessible to the elderly and disabled. In one instance, a site suggested as a shelter was actually a vacant lot.

The Office of Emergency Management, on the other hand, sent an engineer from the Buildings Department out with the Red Cross
and a member of my staff to evaluate the proposed shelters to insure they were suitable. The last thing we needed was loss of life
because a shelter· blew apart.

By 2001, the people of New York City agreed that the office served an important role in coordinating emergency response and
v('~-rf to make it a charter agency. Of course, things did not always go smoothly. There were occasional clashes between the Police
a ire Departments, and between the Office of Emergency Management and the Police Department.

Clearly, the agency's biggest test came on Sept. 11. By most accounts, the work we had done in planning for and responding to
events since 1996 (I left the agency in February 2000) helped in the coordination of the response on that horrific day -- even though
the office's command center in the World Trade Center was destroyed in the attack.

There were, however, problems that plagued the response. One stands out. Radio communication between the Police and Fire
Departments was nonexistent, a problem we were aware of during my tenure but were unable to solve. A police helicopter flying
around the building was therefore unable to let Fire Department commanders know that the buildings looked unstable. Nor was
there a fire chief in the police helicopter to evaluate the buildings from the air -- a common practice in fighting brush fires.

But such shortcomings only underscored the need to strengthen the role of the office after 9/11, not diminish it. And weakening the
role of such a coordinating agency also goes against prevailing wisdom and national trends. Cities across the United States,
including Boston and Washington, have used New York's approach to emergency management as a model for developing their own
systems.

Yet Mayor Bloomberg, who himself recently suggested that the city is not as well prepared for emergencies as it should be,
continues to undermine the city's ability to deal with them. In large part, the mayor simply doesn't understand public safety and the
roles that the Police and Fire Departments and emergency management agency need to undertake to ensure it.

In addition, he continues to make the mistake of allowing Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly to dictate policy on these issues.
The mission of the Police Department is to fight crime and prevent terrorism, yet Mayor Bloomberg insists on giving it more and
more responsibility for emergency planning. No doubt, the department is the best police agency in the world. Its crime-fighting
tactics continue to be heralded. But its history of interagency coordination and planning has been fraught with conflict and
disorganization. According to a recent mayoral management report, for example, only two large, multiagency drills to test existing
emergency plans have been done during his tenure. (Yesterday the Office of Emergency Management participated in a large-scale
ter ........
ism drill at Shea Stadium.) .

Since its inception, the Office of Emergency Management has responded to thousands of emergencies, from West Nile virus to
threatened transit strikes. The agency has coordinated its activities with city, state and federal departments. To deliberately remove
the on-scene coordination role it has played is indeed a step backward. As someone who has spent the better part of my career
dealing with emergency management and counterterrorism programs, I can say that Mayor Bloomberg's actions will cause damage
that will take years to undo -- a mess that the next mayor will have to clean up.
Instead of recognizing the critical need for the agency, the mayor would apparently prefer to fall back on a system that has shown to
be ineffective. Worse, he is telling the people of New York that their well-being is secondary to the wishes of a police commissioner
who wants to control public safety. He is also going against the mandates of a binding charter. While every mayor certainly has the
right to make changes in agency structure and responsibility, most use history to ensure they don't repeat the mistakes of the past.
Mayor Bloomberg seems determined to do the opposite.

[h.,-.~tration]
Photo (Photo by Stephen Doyle)

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