Case Study: The Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster

1. This disaster received a Presidential Emergency Declaration under the Stafford Act. Should the Shuttle Columbia disaster have received a Major Disaster Declaration? Why or why not?

2. This disaster occurred more than two years before Hurricane Katrina. Do you feel that the Department of Homeland Security acted effectively in responding to Shuttle Columbia event? Why or why not?

3. List and describe at least three (3) ways the response to the Shuttle Columbia disaster was unique and different from other disasters we have discussed in class. List and discuss three (3) similarities to other disasters.

4. Do you feel that FEMA’s decision to release a fact sheet for the public detailing the methods by which they should approach and report shuttle debris was a wise one? What purpose did it fulfill? Was its release timely? Why or why not?

The Event

On Feb. 12, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia, flying mission STS-107, reentered earth’s atmosphere following its 28th successful space flight that began on January 16th of that year.  It was carrying seven astronauts, including Commander Rick D. Husband, Pilot William C. McCool, Payload Commander Michael P. Anderson, Mission Specialists David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Blair Salton Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.  The flight had been delayed a total of 13 times since its originally scheduled lift-off date of January 11, 2001.

On January 16, 2003, when the shuttle finally lifted off, a piece of insulation on one of the shuttle’s fuel tanks broke off about 82 seconds into the flight.  The event was considered inconsequential by mission specialists.  However, because of the speed the shuttle was traveling at the time (1,650 mph), and the delicate nature of the shuttle’s protective thermal skin, the insulation caused a small breach that did not pose any problems until the burn’ period experienced upon re-entry.

During the re-entry burn period (which began at 8:44am), several stages of shuttle positioning and speed, according to normal procedural systems, caused the shuttle to slow down considerably from its 17,500 mph speed.  The friction caused by the shuttle entering the earth’s atmosphere at over 20 times the speed of sound, which results in an incredible release of energy, caused the leading edge of the wings to rise to as much as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ground control crews began to notice failures in many of the instruments in the left wing.  Progressively, more problems arose, but the control teams were having trouble with determining the root of the problems and with communicating with the crew to gain more insight into what may have been happening.  The last transmission from the crew came at 8:59am, which was cut off after just one word.  At 9:05, a loud explosion was heard over Texas, and evidence that the shuttle had begun to disintegrate were clear to the naked eye.

The destruction of the shuttle showered debris across an area of hundreds of square miles in East Texas and Western Louisiana (a very small amount of material was also found in Arkansas).  In total, over two-thousand individual debris fields were noted by recovery crews.  As had been true with the Space Shuttle Challenger, the event was witnessed by the entire nation via breaking news reports.  NASA immediately issued a warning to the public that all debris should be considered hazardous material, with the potential to cause injuries or death, and that any information on the location of debris should be immediately reported to local authorities.

The Response

The response to the shuttle disaster has been called the largest deployment of civilian government agencies in history.

Due to the large area within which the debris was falling, scores of police and fire departments were immediately called to action by reports from citizens.  As true first responders, these officials began, albeit without any real organization, in collecting and documenting the shuttle debris.  It was unlikely that, beyond the initial seven astronauts and the Space Shuttle, there would be no aIDitional fatalities, injuries, or destruction caused by the disaster.  However, the work hours and resources required for such a large operation were assuredly going to be excessive €“ and likewise a strain on the State and Local agencies involved.

President Bush immediately assessed the situation with FEMA and DHS officials, and issued emergency declarations for the states of Texas and Louisiana.  It is important to note that these declarations were made in the absence of any formal request for assistance from the governors of either of those states.  It was later declared by the administration that this action was considered appropriate because the Space Shuttle Columbia itself was considered federal property, and therefore the authority to make such declarations existed.

The disaster declaration, as per the Stafford Act, authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under Emergency Support Function (ESF) #5 to coordinate federal aid and the management of resources used by all responders in the response and recovery to the disaster.   FEMA announced that Michael Brown, FEMA Deputy Director and Acting Undersecretary of the newly-created Department of Homeland Security, would lead FEMA’s efforts in what was considered a search, find, and secure’ operation.

From the onset, the agencies’ priorities were three-fold: ensure public safety, retrieve evidence-pieces of the shuttle that could ultimately determine the cause of the tragedy, and reimburse expenses of state and local governments and private citizens who may have sustained property damage as a result of the accident and search.  NASA quickly identified potential hazardous materials, such as tanks containing toxic substances or unexploded pyrotechnic devices, and once found, the EPA secured the material.  The EPA also worked with state and local authorities to clear school campuses and public access areas, and tested air and water samples taken along the flight path for shuttle contaminants. Using the resources of the Emergency Response and Removal Service (ERRS) contractors and the U. S. Coast Guard (USCG), Gulf Strike Team, EPA found no evidence of hazardous material in the atmosphere or drinking water supplies.  Early in the recovery effort, teams from NASA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Guard, Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) organizations, the Department of Public Safety and others, conducted a successful search in East Texas to recover and bring home the bodies of Columbia’s crew.

On February 2nd, FEMA announced that its principal mission was to assist the State and Local response agencies in mapping the debris fields and collecting any debris reported or found.  The agency reported that they had coordinated the following activities:

€¢    Established an Interagency Initial Operating Facility (IOF) at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Representatives from NASA, FEMA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Defense were to be assembled there to coordinate response activities.
€¢    Assigned liaisons from FBI, EPA, the Department of Transportation, the General Services Administration and the Department of Defense to FEMA’s Regional Operations Center in Denton, TX. FEMA assigned state liaisons to the Texas State Emergency Operations Center and the State Command Post in Lufkin, TX.
€¢    Began the process of establishing two Disaster Field Offices (DFOs) in Lufkin, Texas, and at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The Lufkin DFO would serve as the primary operational DFO for all operations, including staging assets and deploying field teams for search, find and secure operations. Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana would serve as the investigative center and storage location.  A third (satellite) DFO was set up the next day at the Fort Worth Naval Air Station.
€¢    Deployed special Mobile Emergency Response Systems (MERS) communications equipment to Lufkin, Texas.
€¢    Announced that EPA had deployed HAZMAT teams to collect debris, mobilized Airborne Spectral Photo-Imaging of Environmental Contaminants Technology (ASPECT) aircraft to help locate debris using infrared sensors to detect hazardous chemicals and deployed the Trace Atmospheric Gas Analyzer Unit to provide mobile analytical support.
€¢    Announced that the U.S. Coast Guard (now part of DHS) had deployed members of its Gulf Strike Team, based in Mobile, Alabama, to Lufkin to assist with debris recovery operations there. One of three located throughout the country, Gulf Strike Team personnel are specially trained and equipped to respond to incidents involving oil or hazardous chemical spills.
These teams mentioned above had been deployed within hours to the disaster area to assist local fire, law enforcement and emergency management authorities already onsite.  More than 60 agencies, including public and private groups, responded with personnel, supplies and equipment. The Lufkin DFO was the regional center of all search-related operations.  This was the first major response performed by the newly-created Department of Homeland Security.

By the next day, February third, FEMA had established a Joint Information Center (JIC) at the Lufkin Civic Center in Lifkin, TX, to serve as the distribution point for information disseminated to the public, and to which the public could go to retrieve information.   The JIC was comprised of representatives from FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NASA, The American Red Cross (ARC), the U.S. Forest Service, The U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and several other agencies involved in the response at the Federal and State levels.  FEMA also announced that aIDitional U.S. Coast Guard strike teams and the Texas and Louisiana National Guard were participating in the search, that water quality was being tested in both states, and that hazardous spills were being aIDressed.

On February 5th, four days after the shuttle disaster, FEMA released a fact sheet describing the procedures by which materials were to be collected by State and local response agencies.  The following are the guidelines from that fact sheet:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ncrfc/News/news-index.html