1. I've tweeted a lot about this story so here's some more cohesive thoughts. Without emotion (god it's getting harder), and beyond the obvious notion that the government has a duty to have accurate numbers, this new numbers also matters because there will be more hurricanes.
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2. In disaster management, there are five stages to a crisis: prevention, protection, response, recovery and resiliency. The "boom" (event) occurs between protection and response. It is why people like me talk in terms of left and right of boom. nytimes.com/2017/06/05/opi…
3. Each of these stages has its own focus, policies, etc. But I want to focus on resiliency, the last. Resiliency is more than a mood; it's actually a series of investments that make a system better than before. Because, there will be more hurricanes (& terror attacks, etc.)
4. I've worked in this field and studied it for a long time, and one key component of a resilient system is one that takes "lessons learned" seriously. A system "assumes the boom" and learns so that it can adapt for next time.
5. Assume the boom. There will be more hurricanes.
6. So a system that can learn from what went wrong is more resilient can teach other jurisdictions how to be so. So, back to the death toll. That people die in a disaster is a given; it's the nature disasters. HOW THEY DIE is our obligation so we can protect life the next time.
7. An example I mentioned today. Nearly 100 people died in the 1976 blizzard. They did not die from snow. They died because the storm came in so fast that people were not told to get off roads. They died as they got stuck, needed heat and carbon monoxide overwhelmed their cars
8. There are countless other examples: who lives and dies is not a matter of luck. And if we could pass those lessons on then more lives could be saved next time (wherever the boom happens).
9. It's hard to be resilient when the official death toll is so low. It makes it seem that there was no tragedy. But we will also never be able to learn HOW did these Americans die: dehydration, illness, food, what?
10. And it matters because what we learn will change the way we deliver services or think about the next disaster. But it can not be that the US response only be judge binary: it was good or bad (my vote). There are still specifics that begin with the body count.
11. At the margins, there may be some debates about "causation" for some of these deaths but not in the 1000s. I've read the study. It holds up. The US has decided not only that those lost souls do not count as victims of the hurricane.
12. It's also decided that it will make the same response mistakes again. And again. And again.
THREAD: there was a plan. So let me explain why failure to admit and disclose it compounded cruelty. For record, policy is abhorrent and as we know now ineffective (did not serve as deterrent). But let's assume it's a legitimate one for Trump to take. At least for this thread 1/
Secretary Nielsen lied. To you. And me. Period. And that lie meant that three major operational necessities were not put in place. 2/
First, as children were ripped from their parents, receiving facilities under HHS or social services were not made aware of the change in policy. They were equipped to deal with unaccompanied minors, those late teen boys arriving in 2015 mostly, and their needs. But 3/
There will be a lot of commentary about what happened at @SeaTacAirport last night with the stolen Horizon Airplane. Let's start with some good news. After the plane was taken, a lot went right. Scrambling of fighter jets was swift. 1/
Reports of Russian hackers reaching into US utilities to assess platforms and security is a story that is very much a part of our overall concerns with the 2018 election. Follow along. 1/ #homelandsecurity
What's common in these situations, and true here, is the extent that the infiltration was done through very trusted vendors (3rd parties). The hack is continuing and @DHSgov has issued alerts. 3/ wsj.com/articles/russi…
Across partisan divide, comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) always had three basic tenets, "3 legs of the stool":1)deal with borders; 2)address undocumented immigrants in country and a pathway for citizenship; 3)define and welcome future flows (for our changing economy). 1/
Over the last few weeks, it has been close to unbearable how each of these tenets has been completely eviscerated. . We have "dealt" with borders by separating families. We have booted soldiers seeking status and denied them the least controversial means to citizenship. 2/
We have come up with some notion of a "denaturalization" force to make those citizens here lawfully feel unwelcome. We have instituted tariffs that make us less a part of a global economy and therefore less appealing to global competition for talent. There are more examples. 3/
The significance of the Senate report on Russia cannot be seen only as a mere validation of the IC assessment of Russia's activities during 2016 election. 1/
On its own, it's a comprehensive review of the manner and extent that Putin favored Trump and directed his intel agencies, at a relatively low cost, to sway the electorate. 2/
If the Senate report had come out differently, or mirrored the House report, it would have not only been a blow to those, Rs and Ds, who value our democracy, but would have set a terrible tone to homeland and national security efforts to protect us in 2018. 3/
Nielsen was set to headline one of the premier security events in Aspen this month. For the first time, I am not attending (so don't know if she is still speaking). I understand their invitation, but we all show our outrage in different ways. This is mine. 1/
When John Kelly was Secretary, he rescinded my appointment to the bipartisan Homeland Security Advisory Committee, a whose who of HS experts. I was told by his staff that I was too publicly critical. It was clear that there was no interest in debate or historical expertise. 2/
I stuck to the idea that there was a benefit to believing that the homeland security apparatus may differ on the edges of partisanship, but ultimately we had common space. I've worked with Republicans most my life. 3/