Innovative Emergency Management (IEM) is a

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

-headquartered

disaster management Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actuall ...

company founded in 1985. It is headed by

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Madhu Beriwal. IEM has eleven offices strategically located around the United States. Their areas of specialty include homeland security and emergency management, information technology, defense support, and program integration support. On June 3, 2004 IEM was contracted by the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

to support development of a catastrophic

hurricane response Hurricane response is the disaster response after a Tropical cyclone, hurricane. This response encompasses assessment and repairs to buildings and infrastructure, removal of debris, and providing public health services. Hurricane responders may ...

plan for Southeast Louisiana, including the City of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. The goal of the Hurricane Pam exercise focused on how all levels of government would manage the effects of the simulated hurricane after landfall and evacuation had occurred. The contract award for this plan was approximately $500,000. To develop the plan, IEM created a model of a simulated

category Category, plural categories, may refer to: Philosophy and general uses * Categorization, categories in cognitive science, information science and generally *Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) *Category (Kant) *Categories (Peirce) * ...

3 hurricane called Hurricane Pam and its associated consequences. Drafts of 15 action plans were produced during the course of the first exercise, along with associated action plans, checklists, and trigger points. Three additional "Hurricane Pam" workshops were conducted before Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005. The last exercise using Hurricane Pam was conducted on August 24, 2005, five days before

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

made landfall. Hurricane Pam was a series of exercises to develop a comprehensive emergency response plan and is intended to be a living document, continually improved through workshops and exercises. According to

Greg Palast Gregory Allyn Palast (born June 26, 1952) is an author and a freelance journalist who often worked for the BBC and ''The Guardian''. His work frequently focuses on corporate malfeasance but he has also worked with labour unions and consumer advoc ...

, in his film '' Big Easy to Big Empty'', IEM could not produce a copy of its hurricane evacuation plan for

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

a year after

hit. However, a review of IEM's contract for Hurricane Pam indicates that an evacuation plan for

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

was never supposed to be developed as part of the contract. On December 14, 2009, Madhu Beriwal announced that IEM was moving its corporate headquarters to the

area near

Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...

. The move will occur by the end of September in 2010. In 2014, IEM was selected by the State of New York to take over their post-Hurricane Sandy disaster housing recovery program, New York Rising. This program was funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program (CDBG-DR) and was designed to repair, rebuild, and elevate New York residents’ homes that had been damaged by Hurricane Sandy and Tropical Storms Irene and Lee. IEM distributed nearly $1 billion to more than 11,000 New York homeowners to help them recover from Hurricane Sandy. IEM also provided Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation Grant Program support to the State of New York after Hurricane Sandy.

References

{{Reflist Risk management companies Disaster management tools Emergency management in the United States Companies based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana American companies established in 1985 Consulting firms established in 1985 1985 establishments in Louisiana Preparations for Hurricane Katrina