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Industry News  Crisis Management Major General Bray admits failure as head of... |
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Major General Bray admits failure as head of Emergency Management Agency
Print - FPinfomart - Newstex Blogs - Thursday July 10th, 2008
One would think that the crack communications squad at the RI Emergency Management Agency would have prepared Major General Bray for the horrible interview that he gave to 10News this Sunday.Appearing with David Smith (Bray's #2 at the EMA), Bray admits that there is not a plan of succession in Rhode Island State Government were the Governor to be unavailable. Furthermore, Bray fails to understand how to respond to questions from the media and how to respond to a statewide emergency.
As the interview unfolds, Jim Taricani and Bill Rappleye unravel General Bray's pattern of stonewalling and that leads to the frightening admission that Bray failed in his job as head of the Emergency Management Agency. With the lack of support from the Governor and the former Adjutant General, his resignation may be soon coming.
Some background here.
Amanda Milkovits of the Providence Journal did a fantastic piece of reporting on Bray last month (h/t to Ian for the link) that didn't get much notice.At issue is the fact that General Bray effectively works for the federal and state government (which is legal, given his job).What is not appropriate however, is for Bray to seek double compensation from the State and Federal government simultaneously.He has to take leave of one employer to serve the other.It is precisely because of this circumstance that only a handful of states in the US remain that appoint the head of their state National Guard to act as the Director of Emergency Management--because there are conflicts inherent in administering to two employers during a crisis.
Since Major General Bray refused to candidly speak with Milkovits on the matter, she requested the records formally through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process and unearthed a story that demanded accountability.One of the tenets of managing a crisis within any government organization is to give the media access and to provide public information because the public has a right to know--particularly during a crisis.As head of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, General Bray sets a poor example on providing that information, though he may be ill-advised by inexperienced staff.One wonders if General Bray would hide behind FOIA or Steve Kass during an emergency?Bray starts down this road in his interview this Sunday, stonewalling Taricani and Bill Rappleye.Here is the exchange and it is quite telling:After Taricani allows the General to explain why he is afraid of Amanda Milkovits, he utters the predictable: And so my purposes for travelling is always in the best interests of Rhode Island.If that is so, why is he so embarassed to admit as much to the Providence Journal?Now Rappleye steps in: B.R.:What are the purposes, and during some of this travel are you also working for the federal government?
General Bray: Well, the unique position the Adjutant General is in is that he's both a state employee and a federal employee, and so in wearing those multiple hats, there are also different statuses that that Adjutant General is in
B.R.: Are there also two salaries General?
General Bray: There are uh, two statuses and and andsalaries that come along with that...
B.R.: So how much do you get paid by the Feds?
General Bray: Well, it it depends it I get paid at the same rate that all General officers get paid.
B.R.:And how much is that?
General Bray:It depends on uh how many duty days.
B.R.: What's your rate General?
General Bray:Umm The rate is dependent on uh time and grade.
B.R.:Don't you know what it is?
General Bray: Uh, I don't have the specifics.
B.R.: You don't know what you get paid by the federal government?
General Bray:No. I know what I get paid and when I get paid
B.R.: Are you going to tell us?
long pause here while Bray realizes he's embarassing himself
General Bray:No.
If General Bray doesn't have the guts to admit his salary (which is publicly available information), would he have the courage to tell us the truth in an emergency? Imagine how awkward and embarassing for David Smith (the ostensible "director" of the RI EMA even though Bray calls the shots as "executive director") to sit next to Bray and watch his boss embarass the employees of the EMA.
Bill Rappleye asked the most basic follow up question to the December debaucle, "If a snowstorm were to hit again, what would you do differently?" and Bray's only difference is: he would have a chatroom. That's his solution and as we shall see, even that will not work properly. B.R.: If a snowstorm were to hit again, what would you do differently?
Bray: We have a system that we use called Webeoc, that's an internet based ummm situational awareness incident management format that allows for all the municipalities and many of the agencies that participate to go online, provide us with situational updates, feed of information, and us to communicate back with them what the state status is and so we have initiated that process and it works very well.
If you're reading this on a blog, you can probably distill General Bray's revelation of an internet based situational awareness incident management format as its proper form:a glorified chatroom.This blog has similar functionality, but like webeoc (short for web emergency operations center), they both require people to put the data in there.
People didn't get stuck in the snow on December 13th because of a chatroom. They got stuck because the state's plans need more than a chatroom for stability.Not the least of which being community partners to actually participate in the WebEOC platform.And Bray alludes to those community partners that he needs in order to make web EOC viable when he talks about future capabilities.But the trouble is that those community emergency managers are largely part time or volunteers, i.e. they are not waiting dutifully by their laptop, hoping for the magical data request from Major General Bray.They are in open rebellion of General Bray, a South Dakotan who is largely unfamiliar with Rhode Island.Because of his near dictatorial edicts for daily reports, local communities have viewed Bray as out of touch with the communities that he busily represents when he's out of state.This has led to the radical formation of a 501c3 non profit organization of community emergency management officials, which can be viewed as none other than a direct challenge to Bray's authority. So while Bray may be clicking away at his WebEOC workstation during the next crisis, don't expect the community to join him because they may be too busy actually responding to the crisis.This is the fundamental disconnect that Bray fails to understand.
But it doesn't end there. It gets worse, because Bray concedes that not only does he not understand the elements of command in a crisis, but he has failed to provide a succession plan for state government in a crisis.Jim Taricani asks a very basic question:Taricani:We're in hurricane season right now, Let's say next week a major hurricane comes up the coast, let's say by chance the governor's out of state
Who's going to be in charge?
Bray: It will be a unified command situation...The face of the incident would always be the senior elected official of the state.In absence of that person, both Director Smith and myself would make sure that the public was constantly informed.And I would tell ya that that may involve also the Director of Emergency Management, Environmental Management, Director of Transportation or State Police, who also could be that face.
It took Bray two sentences to contradict himself: the face would be the senior elected official ALWAYS--until we later learn it could really be anyone in government.These are not minutiae or some rubric of management--the most basic question here is who is in charge?Bray fails to understand that a unified command doesn't obviate the need for a commander.And in this case, there is no succession for that commander precisely because he has failed to develop such a plan.Taricani catches this fact and lasers in on it:Taricani: So are you saying that in the future that if the Governor is out of the state, whoever the Lt. Governor is will be that person that's going to take to the podium and be the so-called front person?
Bray: No.I'm not saying that specifically.I would not say that the Lt. Gov could not be the face of information to the public.Again under that incident command, unified command scenario, standing up a joint information center, any number of people depending on the message that need to be sent, would be that face.
For a 2 star general to fail to comprehend that his mission, his command would not have a commander under Taricani's scenario is inexcusable.There is no law or legislation that exists in RI which delineates the succession of government, i.e. from Governor, to Lt. Governor, to General Treasurer, to Secretary of State....That is what has been needed so badly and Bray's job requires him to develop these types of plans.Seven months later, NOTHING has been done to fix this.It wouldn't cost a dime of taxpayer money, and would be consistent with every other state in the country.
It is vitally important to note that this is not a political issue. Both the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor share equal blame here for failing to learn the lessons of the December 13th snowstorm. And the General Assembly failed to pass continuity of government legislation that would have gone a long way to providing remedy.While this is not a call for Bray's ouster, it is a plea for him to recognize his confused leadership and step aside from the EMA so that it can right itself.
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