A Big Storm Requires Big Government

[unhappycamper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/opinion/a-big-storm-requires-big-government.html

A Big Storm Requires Big Government
Published: October 29, 2012

Most Americans have never heard of the National Response Coordination Center, but they’re lucky it exists on days of lethal winds and flood tides. The center is the war room of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where officials gather to decide where rescuers should go, where drinking water should be shipped, and how to assist hospitals that have to evacuate.

Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of “big government,” which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it. At a Republican primary debate last year, Mr. Romney was asked whether emergency management was a function that should be returned to the states. He not only agreed, he went further.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.

~snip~

Does Mr. Romney really believe that financially strapped states would do a better job than a properly functioning federal agency? Who would make decisions about where to send federal aid? Or perhaps there would be no federal aid, and every state would bear the burden of billions of dollars in damages. After Mr. Romney’s 2011 remarks recirculated on Monday, his nervous campaign announced that he does not want to abolish FEMA, though he still believes states should be in charge of emergency management. Those in Hurricane Sandy’s path are fortunate that, for now, that ideology has not replaced sound policy.

[clydefrand]

1. States could probably do as much

as Romney did for MA. after a 2006 hurricane! (which was exactly NOTHING).

[texasmomof3]

2. states can do better

Living in Texas we have had our fair share of hurricanes here. During Ike we were without power for 14 days, 6 hours and 32 minutes! Can you tell I was ready to have it back on! We had a tree in part of our garage and 3 more down in the yard and across our driveway. At the end of that experience as yucky as it was, it was nothing compared to the devastation that New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast saw with Katrina or what Galveston experienced during Ike. I think that the individual states DO a much better job than the federal government. Our state government has much for knowledge of the area, the roads, the assets, the shelters, the resources locally than does the federal government. The key is a strong state leader and emergency plans in place on a state level.

I believe that federal aid is a must and I think we should all share the burden of natural disasters in our country. At some point, each state will go through some sort of disaster. I just think that it needs to be handed to the people with boots on the ground which is state or even local personnel. Case in point, when Houston took all of the people from New Orleans, one of the things that FEMA handed out where $2000 visa cards. Many of those people left with literally the clothes on their backs so they did need clothes and diapers and food or a bed for the apartment that was given to them here. What FEMA did not do was to restrict those cards to needs like those mentioned or school supplies, medicine, etc. The strip clubs had a boom thanks to FEMA cards that is well documented. A trip to the strip club is not a need people! Sometimes larger groups can make larger things happen but the flip side of that, the effectiveness is diminished because of the lack of ability to monitor the details.