A casual sport shirt and khakis are Terry Sheehan's version of dressing for success.

"You have to always be ready—you never know where you might end up," he said.

Sheehan, the Regional Emergency Transportation Representative (RETREP) for the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) New England Region, is prepared to be deployed anywhere at any time. When superstorm Sandy hit New York in October 2012 instead of its expected target in Connecticut, Sheehan was told to rush to the city with his own car, his own food and water, and cash.

"There were no planes, no trains, no power, and no ATMs or credit cards," he pointed out.

Sheehan painted a lively and vivid picture of the complexities and challenges of evacuating large populations and restoring a transportation system and its infrastructure in the wake of huge natural disasters. His team has to coordinate and work well with many agencies.

During Hurricane Katrina recovery, Sheehan's team learned the rewards of involving the state DOTs at the outset of any emergency response activity. Following Hurricane Irene and severe flooding in Vermont, Volpe's relationship with the U.S. Postal Service was critical to developing situational awareness around the rural state.

"We called postmasters and asked them what roads were open, and can we put a 53-foot truck on it?" recalled Sheehan.

When superstorm Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, Sheehan's team reached out immediately to all the DOT modes.

"It was a great one-DOT effort. Every mode distinguished itself," he said.

A new element was the involvement of three Maritime Administration ships to house and feed relief workers. Other key elements were the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and Federal Highway Administration assistance with rush permitting to facilitate trucking in relief materials, the Federal Transit Administration helping to rapidly restore subway and bus service, and the Federal Aviation Administration contributing locations of abandoned airfields where temporary housing could be established.

Watch video highlights of Terry Sheehan's talk at Volpe, "Lessons Learned from Sandy, Irene, and Katrina: Restoring Normalcy to the Transportation System through Effective Emergency Response."

Incorporating Lessons Learned from Disaster Recovery

Sheehan's team incorporates new lessons-learned from every disaster recovery, starting with Hurricane Katrina.

"Stay safe and train often," said Sheehan. "We're continuing to improve leadership and we're doing a lot of mentoring to assist the next generation of emergency managers."

Sheehan feels the next step is to encourage metropolitan planning organizations to assess regional infrastructure vulnerability and prepare information that would be needed in an emergency.

"They know where the choke points are," like overhead height restrictions. When the next disaster strikes a metropolitan area, "I'll need them to share that information with us so we're much more efficient and effective at moving trucks, personnel, and materiel to speed recovery."

The U.S. DOT's Regional Emergency Transportation program is managed under the U.S. Transportation Secretary's Office of Security, Intelligence, and Emergency Response. In U.S. DOT's New England Region—Region 1—the program is headed by the Regional Emergency Transportation Coordinator Mary Beth Mello, who is the Federal Transit Administration's regional administrator.

See video highlights of Sheehan's talk.