The Y2K virus scare, Hurricane Katrina’s destruction, raging California forest fires and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks have inspired many Americans to prepare for the unexpected. For most, it means keeping track of local events and good planning, but for William Webster – recently appointed as the first  Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Federal Preparedness Coordinator – preparing for the next big catastrophe to hit New England is a full time job. 

“People need to be comfortable, but ready for a couple of things that could happen in their area,” Webster said. “It’s a lot of work to prepare for the different things that could happen.”

Webster is no stranger to prudent planning practices, he has been dealing with worst-case scenarios for nearly 30 years. 

After graduating in 1977 from the United States Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut and serving as a deckhand on the 378-foot vessel Rush for two years, Webster took an active role in preparing various security measures including anti-submarine warfare protocols for the Coast Guard.

“I was very much into the military readiness program,” he said. “I was involved at a fairly low level, just making sure it all worked.”

After being stationed in New York for seven years, Webster was transferred to another 378-footer, Jarvis, stationed in Honolulu, as an operations officer and navigator. Webster patrolled fishing grounds near Alaska, California and the west coast of Mexico aboard the Jarvis while his wife – whom he met in Lincoln when he was 17 – earned her graduate degree from the University of Hawaii during his days at sea.

“It was always nice to come home to a base in the states,” he said. “Especially from the Alaskan patrol.”

Webster earned his masters degree as a science systems technician from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. in 1987 and returned to Hawaii as a District Telecommunication Officer. His duties included getting personnel “up to speed” with modern technology, including visits to several United States Coast Guard long-range aid-to-navigation (LORAN) stations in Japan, he said. 

“When I first got there they were speaking on high-frequency radios,” Webster said. “By the time I left they were sharing with emails. It was the beginning of a technical breakthrough.”

With a growing family in tow, Webster landed in Cape Elizabeth in 1992 as the Deputy Coast Guard Group Commander for the station in South Portland. During the three years he served there, Webster said he developed key relationships with the American Red Cross – the Portland chapter appointed him to its board director of emergency services – and the Cape Water Extrication Team (WET) as he worked with Portland’s current mayor – who was then the city’s executive director – Ed Suslovic. 

Not all of his work in South Portland was focused on building relationships; Webster said he was able to see the WET team in training, and actually practice their emergency response procedures when an AirMed helicopter crashed in Casco Bay in 1993.

“I recall fondly how terrible the weather was, and we had a helicopter missing,” Webster said. “One of the biggest things I remember was the sheer number of volunteers of recreational and commercial boaters we had who wanted to help. I got to see how the seacoast community really came together.” 

Together, the WET team and the Coast Guard located the missing helicopter and managed to save the pilot, Webster said.

“It was a great experience for us,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten those times and kept in touch with Mayor Suslovic and the Red Cross.”

Webster’s career took him next to Newport, Va., where he oversaw long-range search and rescue communications and then to his “dream job” as a Regional Rescue Commander for the Coast Guard headquartered in Woods Hole, Mass. 

“They made me live in a lighthouse,” he said. “It was an honor and a privilege to live there, but there were also a lot of airplanes that fell out of the sky.”

Two of the most difficult tasks Webster said he ever faced as an Incident Commander were the responses to John F. Kennedy Jr.’s airplane crash off Martha’s Vineyard and the Egypt Air 990 crash that killed 217 people 60 miles south of Nantucket, both in 1999 while he was stationed at Woods Hole.

“I don’t think anybody had a plan for a circumstance like these,” he wrote in an email. “I’d never been associated with something so important to so many people.”

The playing field continued to grow for Webster, who was involved in the 9/11 rescue effort. Regardless of the scale of the scenario, Webster said the Coast Guard has performed “above and beyond.”

“I saw the Coast Guard be a standout after Katrina – it didn’t surprise me,” he wrote. “These were the same people I knew who were flying toward the World Trade center on [Sept. 11, 2001] in hopes of helping out and they were the same people who ignored many peace time rules when they pulled 30,000 people off rooftops after the levees broke in 2006.”

When it comes to picking up the pieces after an accident, Webster said it has always been particularly challenging to communicate with affected families, but it’s all part of the job description. 

“There are some terrifically tragic moments in history,” he said. “I just happen to be a person involved during some of those moments.”

Now, after retiring from the Coast Guard in 2003 and spending four years with the Transportation Security Administration as a Deputy Federal Security Director for all eight federal airports in Massachusetts, Webster said he’s getting used to preparing proactive – rather than response – plans as FEMA’s first Federal Preparedness Coordinator.

“Now I’m dealing with things before they happen,” he laughed.

The new position runs the gamut; Webster is helping promote a Student Tools for Emergency Planning program for fourth graders and working with higher education elements in the greater Portland area to institute FEMA educational programs at local colleges while assisting federal entities to help prepare response strategies for 15 different national disaster scenarios at the same time. Webster said optimism and persistence are key in dealing with so many different entities and scenarios. 

“The more relations I help build in preparedness activities the more options for success that can happen,” he wrote.

By Nate Jones