In Louisiana, where natural disasters are a way of life, plans made by the Stephenson Disaster Management Institute stand as the state’s first line of defense.
SDMI is LSU’s disaster management organization. Not only does it help with natural disasters, but also in cases of civil safety, such as evacuation plans and school disaster response. The name originates from alumni Toni and Emmet Stephenson, when they donated $25 million to LSU in 2007, with approximately half of the money dedicated to starting the institute.
The director of SDMI is Brant Mitchell. Before joining LSU, Mitchell served as the deputy director for interoperability at the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
“[The Stephensons] being very business oriented,” Mitchell said, “they saw the things unfolding during Katrina as kind of some leadership issues. So they came up with the idea that there are principles in the business world that can be applied to disaster management.”
SDMI supports both state and local emergency management organizations, collaborating with local emergency managers to ensure preparedness. SDMI also helps with writing hazard mitigation and emergency operation plans for communities in Louisiana.
“A lot of what we do is we try to leverage technology and build decision support tools that allow disaster managers to make more informed decisions based on data that’s being gathered through an event,” Mitchell said.
SDMI collaborates with state governmental agencies, such as the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Louisiana National Guard and the Louisiana Department of Health. The institute has also worked with the Army Corps of Engineers to analyze the evacuation behavior in South Louisiana.
“The idea was we did a massive survey which we asked people in their previous storms, did you evacuate? If you did, where did you go? What routes did you use? Who did you take?” Mitchell said. “It kind of gives the state an idea on future evacuations.”
SDMI has also worked with the federal government, namely the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy, in their cybersecurity sector to prevent ransomware attacks. Ransomware is another word for a computer virus that encrypts the user’s own files, locking them out of access.
Mitchell recalled a time when SDMI’s cybersecurity team, with the help of the DHS, removed ransomware from a major petroleum pipeline.
A few years ago, the Colonial, a major oil pipeline that goes to the northeastern U.S., had a series of ransomware attacks, shutting the pipeline down and causing an economic disaster. Teams with SDMI assisted the federal government in restoring the pipeline.
“It made the Department of Energy realize it needed a more robust cybersecurity capability, so they worked with us to help develop that,” Mitchell said.
SDMI also works with the Federal Emergency Management Agency by developing hazard mitigation plans for 60 of Louisiana’s 64 parishes. FEMA must approve these plans for the local government to be eligible for funding on future disaster mitigation projects.
Lauren Stevens is the institute’s assistant director. She joined SDMI in 2012. Prior to joining SDMI, she served as preparedness section chief for the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
SDMI board member Mark Cooper, a former director of Louisiana’s Office of Homeland Security, asked Stevens for assistance in a council to review FEMA as a whole. Cooper was one of 10 appointed to a FEMA council by President Donald Trump in January to assess spending in the department..
“The council is going around and meeting with different states and local [governments] that have been impacted by disasters, to listen to that community on their concerns about changes with FEMA, their recommendations on how to improve state and federal responses,” Stevens said.
SDMI’s slogan is “Where LSU research meets practice,” which can be seen with storm surge models formulated at LSU. The models are then used by governmental organizations to make public safety decisions, like in New Orleans and their gated hurricane risk reduction system. These models also help search and rescue teams pre-stage emergency relief operations.
While most of the staff at SDMI have a disaster management background, Robert Iles is an oceanographer and is one of the few doctorates on staff. He is working with AI to develop a model to plan on the immediate post-disaster needs of a community. These points of distribution, or PODs, consist of food, water and temporary shelter.
The institute does more than just management after natural disasters. It also creates school safety plans for emergencies, such as annotating fire extinguishers or automated external defibrillator devices. SDMI also conducts meetings with first responders, school administration and emergency managers to assist in developing an evacuation plan in case of a mass casualty event.
“You hear about managing disasters,” Stevens said. “But there is literally an entire network outside of your traditional police, fire and EMS, you have true emergency managers — an entire network nationwide.”
