Don't count on FEMA when catastrophe strikes

The federal government has taken on an increasing role in disaster response. In "Homeland Security 4.0," the Heritage Foundation reports that America has over-federalized disaster response in a way that threatens the resiliency of the nation's communities. In his two and a half years in office, President Obama has issued 360 declarations without the occurrence of one hurricane or large-scale earthquake. That continues a 16-year trend during which declarations tripled from 43 under President George H. W. Bush to 89 under President Bill Clinton to 130 under President George W. Bush. As a result, Heritage notes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is becoming distracted by responding to routine natural disasters instead of preparing for catastrophic natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, which could have a national impact:

The federalization of routine disasters requires FEMA to become involved with a new disaster somewhere in the United States every 2.5 days. This high operational tempo is affecting FEMA’s overall preparedness because it keeps FEMA perpetually in a response mode, leaving little time and few resources for catastrophic preparedness. With staffing levels and budgets only nominally above pre-1993 levels, it should be no surprise that FEMA is not prepared to handle a catastrophic disaster.


Heritage homeland security expert Matt Mayer notes that, because FEMA " has been responding to almost any natural disaster around the country, be it a contained three-county flood, or a catastrophe of near-epic proportions like Hurricane Katrina... many states and localities have trimmed their own emergency-response budgets, often leaving them ill prepared to handle even rain- or snowstorms without federal assistance. This leaves FEMA stretched far too thin and ill prepared to respond to grand-scale catastrophes."

Source: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/08/24/mor ... ing%2BBell

:can't hear

Don't tell LJ and chickee

Every organization from a girl scout troop to a federal cabinet organization wants to increase in size, budget, and power. No wonder they want to micro-manage local disasters.

There is one advantage of having federal control, if a region gets hit, you can bring in assets from around the country. Disadvantage? Locals often know better how and where to respond.

Failures in Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) is living up to its name. All emergencies must be dealt with locally first, not top down federally.

State and local governments in Louisiana were totally unprepared to deal with Katrina, and couldn't even tell the Federal government what assistance they needed, as required by law at the time. They were holding ICS (Incident Command System) classes after Katrina hit! Because of that, there was a huge outcry that the Federal government had to become more proactive.

Rather than helping (or prodding) the state and local governments to become knowledgeable and prepared to do their jobs, the Federal government has chosen to become a nanny. The inevitable result is that many state and local governments choose to be even less knowledgeable and prepared than they were before.

Of course, this is not true of all. But, those that choose to take the easy way out put much more load on the Federal government for relatively small stuff that they should be able to handle, and as a result the Federal government is less able to take care of major disasters, which is what they should be involved in.

And, the Federal government has a history of completely taking over and ignoring the knowledge and abilities of the locals when they take over an incident. I have seen some evidence indicating that is changing, but it still needs to be worked on, in order to provide better results for all.

The bottom line, as I wrote in 2006, is:

The government will take care of us if any thing really bad happens, right?

WRONG! In the event of a disaster, it will take 3 days to a week, or more, for State and Federal agencies to respond. And during that time, the local Emergency Responders will be fully occupied taking care of the most critical needs. They will simply not have the resources to take care of everyone.

Maybe Obama should stay at Martha's Vineyard and see the Hurricane and FEMA in action first hand! I heard it was heading that way.

SS109 wrote: Every organization from a girl scout troop to a federal cabinet organization wants to increase in size, budget, and power. No wonder they want to micro-manage local disasters.

There is one advantage of having federal control, if a region gets hit, you can bring in assets from around the country. Disadvantage? Locals often know better how and where to respond.

I can't think of one advantage of having federal control. Nothing beats a well-organized local response to a local problem, no matter how big it is. If we had the funds to spare (and we don't) the feds would have been wiser to fund the institution of preparedness programs state by state, based on what might hit each state (earthquakes along known fault lines, wildfires in the western states, hurricanes and flooding along the eastern seaboard).

In the end, every American should learn to fend for themselves in worst-case scenarios. Just because we're in the 21st century doesn't mean we no longer need to be pioneers in the face of adversity.

jf1acai, since CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) is a voluntary organization that costs little or nothing to learn from, I would recommend others get involved as my wife and I did. We "assist" the real emergency responders and may be the initial first responder as there are a limited number of emergency people available for a whole lot of area.

Heartless, having been CERT trained myself, I totally agree with you!

Anyone find it strange that DC gets an earthquake (or at least part of it), and a massive hurricane headed Obama's way while on vacation? Some energy force / God/ whatever sending a little message? Must be global warming.