Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

FEMA faulted for awarding undeliverable contracts, delaying aid during hurricane season

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The Trump administration last year awarded contracts to companies that were ill-prepared to help victims of three major hurricanes, according to a report from Senate Democrats, leading to canceled deals and delayed delivery of essential goods.

Minority party members of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, led by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., reviewed Federal Emergency Management Agency contracts for emergency tarps and plastic sheeting, both of which FEMA deploys to storm victims with roof damage as temporary relief to help them remain in their homes. The subsequent report faulted FEMA for failing to properly vet vendors, leading the agency on multiple occasions to select companies that could ultimately not deliver the supplies.

FEMA awarded contracts to two companies that had “no relevant past experience” and were either created or registered as a federal contractor within months of receiving the award. In one case, the agency last October gave two contracts worth about $40 million to a Florida company, Bronze Star, to provide 600,000 emergency tarps and 60,000 rolls of plastic sheeting. In the other, FEMA awarded a $34 million contract to Global Computers and Networks that same month to provide an additional 500,000 tarps. The agency canceled the contracts in November for failure to deliver.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2018/04/fema-faulted-awarding-undeliverable-contracts-delaying-aid-during-hurricane-season/147333

FEMA wants counties to take charge of pre-disaster logistics

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s administrator urged county officials to arrange pre-event contracts for commodities ahead of disasters, instead of waiting for assistance that might not come.

Brock Long, speaking at the National Association of Counties legislative conference in the nation’s capital last Tuesday, said FEMA’s contracting processes during 2017’s devastating hurricane and wildfire seasons were a “huge success.” The agency secured 1,973 contracts on top of 59 that were pre-event for water, meals ready to eat, debris removal, disaster cost recovery and other services.

But in the event communities are cut off by a serious earthquake that cripples infrastructure, Long said, they may need to provide life-saving resources for 48 to 72 hours before the feds can backfill.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.routefifty.com/public-safety/2018/03/fema-brock-long-counties-disaster/146447/

Note to Our Readers: GTPAC hosted a conference in January on the subject of disaster-related contracting.  You can read a report of that conference, and download the resources that resulted from that conference, at: http://gtpac.org/2018/01/10/gtpacs-before-the-storm-event-helps-vendors-with-governments-emergency-contracting-protocols

Disaster preparedness help available to manufacturers on Georgia’s coast

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The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) is seeking eligible manufacturers to participate in a disaster assistance program designed to help companies that are located in the state’s coastal areas assess their preparedness and develop operational solutions to minimize the impact of future hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The $173,859 grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funds the GaMEP’s Manufacturing Disaster Assistance Program (MDAP), which was developed to address the needs of Georgia manufacturers.

The funds for the two-year effort are specifically designated toward assisting manufacturers with operations in Coastal Georgia in Camden, Chatham, Charlton, Glynn, Liberty, and McIntosh counties. It also includes Coffee County, which is not on the coast, but was also severely impacted by flooding during 2017’s Hurricane Irma.

The counties are home to 408 manufacturing facilities that employ 23,000.

The MDAP creation follows a devastating 2017 hurricane season in which Hurricane Irma led to a mandatory evacuation of the coast’s nearly 540,000 residents and business owners, and resulted in estimated damages of more than $670 million. That’s on top of a 2016 evacuation of the Georgia coast following Hurricane Matthew, which caused more than $500 million in damages.

The goal with this tailored approach to help manufacturers on the Georgia Coast is two-pronged, said Ben Cheeks, GaMEP’s coastal region manager.

“First, we want to assist as many manufacturers as possible and get them operating at pre-Hurricane Irma levels — that includes employment and fully contributing to the regional and state economies,” Cheeks said. “The second part of this effort is to help them develop plans that they will already have in place to address future hurricanes and other natural disasters so they will positioned for as little disruption as possible in resuming operations.”

As part of the offering, GaMEP will leverage its expertise and resources at Georgia Tech, as well as its local, state, and federal economic development partners, including the Technical College System of Georgia and the MEP network, among other organizations, Cheeks said. Pooling resources at all levels ensures maximum impact for the affected companies and communities, he added.

The MDAP initiative will include assessments of the manufacturers’ needs, helping prioritize opportunities for sustainability and growth. It also will incorporate the development of pre and post-natural disaster protocols that address challenges manufacturers will face following hurricanes and other natural disasters, such as supply chain and infrastructure disruption, labor displacement, and financial constraints.

“We’re taking a 360-degree approach with this effort,” Cheeks said. “It’s designed to help position our coastal manufacturers proactively and ahead of the likely after-effects we will see in future storms that will affect the Georgia Coast.”

Eligible manufacturers are encouraged to email Ben Cheeks, GaMEP’s coastal region manager at ben.cheeks@innovate.gatech.edu.

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2018/01/30/manufacturing-disaster-assistance-program-help-georgia-companies-prepare-natural 

GTPAC’s ‘Before the Storm’ event helps vendors with government’s emergency contracting protocols

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Nearly 200 vendors braved uncertain weather conditions in Atlanta on Jan. 8, 2018 to participate in an event designed to assist vendors navigate the government’s policies and procedures for engaging in disaster recovery contracting activity.

The event — dubbed “Before the Storm” — was sponsored by the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC) and held at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center.

Attendees at the Jan. 8, 2018 “Before the Storm” event learned about the importance of the National Response Framework.

Attendees heard from officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Public Health Service, and GTPAC’s counseling team.

FEMA officials Annette Wright, Sammy Brunson, and Kyra Lee explained FEMA’s contracting protocols, including the important relationships with other federal, state and local agencies.

Presentation Materials Made Available

Copies of all presentation materials used during the day’s event, plus internet links to important supplementary information, are now posted on GTPAC’s training page at: http://gtpac.org/training-video.

U.S. Public Health Service’s Capt. Tom Bowman shared details of recent recovery efforts in the Virgin Islands.

Break-out workshops were conducted in the afternoon on the topics of Subcontracting, Cybersecurity, GSA and Army Corps of Engineers, and Vendor Registrations.

Attendees took advantage of free wi-fi during the event to visit on-line resources and take notes.

Need for Advance Preparation Stressed

Presenters told vendors to arrange, in advance of contracting, adequate lines of funding because of the likelihood of increased requirements and changed conditions.  Disaster recovery contracts can be demanding — requiring 24/7 service — and require flexibility in the face of changing requirements.  Too often, contractors fail because they have not adequately prepared themselves for these challenges.

Speakers stressed that vendors must be prepared to be flexible in executing disaster recovery contracts.

In addition to recommending that vendors familiarize themselves with the National Response Framework, speakers at the event told vendors to review the Stafford Act and FAR Part 18 which govern Emergency Acquisitions.

Registration for Jan. 8th ‘Before the Storm’ event now open

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If your company is interested in pursuing contract work with FEMA and other government agencies that respond to natural disaster and other national emergencies, register now to attend Georgia Tech’s “Before the Storm” event to be held Jan. 8, 2018 in Atlanta.  Registration closes at Noon on Thursday, Jan. 4th.

Organized by the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC), “Before the Storm” focuses on the advance preparation vendors need to put in place in order to qualify for government emergency support contracts and subcontracts.  By attending, vendors will learn how to become “procurement ready” well before agencies like FEMA need to purchase disaster recovery supplies and services.

This event will be relevant to any vendor of supplies and services in any of the federal government’s 15 Emergency Support Function (ESF) categories.  See ESF details at: https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/25512.

The day-long event will be held at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center in Atlanta, GA.  There will be a registration fee of $30 to attend, and both breakfast and lunch are included.  Advance registration for the event is required, and no on-site registration will be allowed.  No refunds.

The link to registration for the Jan. 8th event is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/before-the-storm-tickets-40913664873.

If you are traveling from outside metro Atlanta and need hotel accommodations, a block of rooms have been reserved until Dec. 22 at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center.  Hotel details are provided at the link shown above.

 

Jan. 8th ‘Before the Storm’ event to focus on government emergency support contracts and subcontracts

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If your company is interested in pursuing contract work with FEMA and other government agencies that respond to natural disaster and other national emergencies, mark your calendar now — Jan. 8, 2018 — and plan to attend “Before the Storm.”

Organized by the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC), the “Before the Storm” event will focus on the advance preparation vendors need to put in place in order to qualify for government emergency support contracts and subcontracts.

Any vendor of supplies and services falling into any of the federal government’s 15 Emergency Support Function (ESF) categories should plan to attend.  See ESF details at: https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/25512.

The day-long event will be held at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center.  There will be a registration fee of $30 to attend, and both breakfast and lunch are included.

The registration process will open in the next few days, so watch for an announcement.

Registration is now open!  There is a $30 registration fee, and both breakfast and lunch are included.  Advance registration for the event is required, and no on-site registration will be allowed.  No refunds.  The link to registration for the Jan. 8th event is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/before-the-storm-tickets-40913664873.

FEMA is spending billions, and some questionable companies are getting work

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This year’s record hurricane season has led to the biggest spike in government disaster contracts in more than a decade, testing the government’s ability to manage the unpredictable and growing costs of climate change.

Since Hurricane Harvey struck Texas on Aug. 25, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded $2.2 billion in contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

That’s about twice what the agency typically awards over an entire year.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-19/fema-is-spending-billions-and-some-questionable-companies-are-getting-work

How FEMA can reduce fraud in the wake of Harvey and Irma

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As the old adage goes, when you want to find fraud, follow the money. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing for another huge post-disaster recovery operation. As many as half a million Texans and untold millions of Floridians will likely be eligible for federal financial support. FEMA’s central challenge will be to balance the risk of fraud with the urgent need to provide relief.

Post-disaster environments are notoriously prone to fraud. Most believe it is better to risk losing a few dollars to a fraudster than to make a true victim spend another night in a shelter. As the Government Accountability Office has reported, federal agency officials often decide to forego home inspections used to verify damage after a natural disaster because they may be prohibitively time-consuming or difficult to conduct in inaccessible areas.

The last two major hurricanes to hit the United States—Katrina and Sandy—offered FEMA a wealth of lessons in how to manage the myriad fraud risks. According to GAO, during the first six months following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, FEMA provided between $600 million and $1.4 billion in improper and potentially fraudulent financial assistance.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2017/09/how-fema-can-reduce-fraud-wake-harvey-and-irma/140931hurr

SBA publishes contact information for disaster response contracts

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The Small Business Administration (SBA) has identified officials responsible for the agency’s contracting in support of emergency recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.  The information available here lists SBA points of contact (POCs) for disaster contracts nationwide, 8(a) program waivers nationwide, protests and eligibility matters, and regional contacts.

The SBA is reiterating the importance of the government’s Disaster Response Registry for firms wishing to be identified by government contracting officials as potential contractors in activity categories such as debris removal, distribution of supplies, reconstruction, and other disaster or emergency relief supplies and/or services.  Government agencies search the Disaster Response Registry of the System for Award Management (SAM) to find contractors that can help respond to disasters. The Registry within SAM lists contractors that offer services that support disaster recovery contracting efforts.  Local firms affected by a Presidential major disaster or emergency declaration may be given contracting preferences under the terms of the Stafford Act.

Businesses must register in SAM to be eligible for disaster relief contracting opportunities. On average, it takes 2-3 days to complete the registration process. Once your registration is active, your firm will be added to the Disaster Response Registry.  During registration, you must indicate you want to participate in the Disaster Response Registry and provide the required information on the Disaster Response Information page within the Assertions module.

Contact the Federal Service Desk (FSD) to get help registering. If you’re located in the U.S. and its outlying areas, you can get free support from your local Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), an official resource for government contracting assistance.   In Georgia, the PTAC is operated by Georgia Tech.  The Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC) advises businesses to seek its no-cost assistance before paying for any registration services.  GTPAC also warns vendors to be cautious in selecting outside help, noting a recent fraud conviction involving a company misrepresenting itself as a vendor registration list for FEMA.

Remember, it is FREE to register and maintain your registration in SAM. If you get an email from any address that does not end in .gov or .mil, be cautious. If you get an email, text message, or phone call asking for money or payment of any amount, be very cautious. These parties do not represent the U.S. government. You engage third party vendors at your own risk.

In Georgia, you can contact a PTAC counselor at the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center at: http://gtpac.org/team-directory.  If your business is located outside Georgia, you can identify the PTAC serving your state at: http://www.aptac-us.org/find-a-ptac.

See GTPAC’s other articles on disaster recovery contracting by clicking on these links:

New research may improve communications during natural disasters

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Storms like Hurricane Irma and other natural disasters bring with them lots of uncertainty – where will they go, how much damage will they cause. But, what is certain is that no matter where they strike, natural disasters knock out power.

And, no power means no internet for thousands of people in affected areas.

However, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are proposing a new way of gathering and sharing information during natural disasters that does not rely on the internet.

Using computing power built into mobile phones, routers, and other hardware to create a network, emergency managers and first responders will be able to share and act on information gathered from people impacted by hurricanes, tornados, floods, and other disasters.

“Increasingly, data gathered from passive and active sensors that people carry with them, such as their mobile phones, is being used to inform situational awareness in a variety of settings,” said Kishore Ramachandran, computer science professor at Georgia Tech.

“In this way, humans are providing beneficial social sensing services. However, current social sensing services depend on internet connectivity since the services are deployed on central cloud platforms.”

In a paper presented earlier this year at the 2nd International Workshop on Social Sensing, the Georgia Tech research team detailed how it may be possible to access these centralized services using a decentralized network that leverages the growing amount of computing power at the “edge” of the internet.

This ability will give a huge advantage to first responders.

In a flooded area, for example, search and rescue personnel using a geo-distributed network would be able to continuously ping enabled phones, sensors, and other devices in an area to determine their exact locations. The data is used to create density maps of people in that search region. These maps are then used to prioritize and guide emergency response teams.

The Georgia Tech proposal takes advantages of edge computing. Also known as fog computing, edge computing places more processing capabilities in sensing devices – like surveillance cameras, embedded pavement sensors, and others, as well as in consumer devices like cell phones, readers, and tablets – in order to improve network latency between sensors, apps, and users.

Rather than just being able to communicate through the internet with central cloud platforms, the Georgia Tech team has demonstrated that by harnessing edge computing resources, sensing devices can be enabled to identify and communicate with other sensors in an area.

“We believe fog computing can become a potent enabler of decentralized, local social sensing services that can operate when internet connectivity is constrained,” said Ramachandran.

“This capability will provide first responders and others with the level of situational awareness they need to make effective decisions in emergency situations.”

The team has proposed a generic software architecture for social sensing applications that is capable of exploiting the fog-enabled devices. The design has three components – a central management function that resides in the cloud, a data processing element placed in the fog infrastructure, and a sensing component on the user’s device.

The researchers say that it is not enough to simply run a centralized social sensing service on a number of parallel fog nodes.

“Rather, the social sensing service has to become a distributed service capable of discovering available fog nodes and building a network that aggregates and shares information between social sensors that are connected to different fog nodes,” said computer science Ph.D. student Harshit Gupta.

Beyond emergency response during natural disasters, the team believes its proposed fog architecture can also benefit communities with limited or no internet access. These include applications for public transportation management, job recruitment, and housing.

Another possible application of the new approach is monitoring sensing devices in remote areas.

To monitor far-flung devices in areas with no internet access, a bus could be outfitted with fog-enabled sensing capabilities. As it travels in remote areas it would collect data from sensing devices. Once in range of internet connectivity, the “data mule” bus would upload the information to the centralized cloud-based platforms.

“In places that did not benefit from the first wave of cloud-based social sensing services, our hope is that these communities can leapfrog having to rely solely on the internet and directly use fog-based services,” said Ramachandran.

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/09/08/new-research-may-improve-communications-during-natural-disasters

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