Chertoff to Unveil Sweeping FEMA Reforms

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will announce wide-ranging changes to the nation's embattled disaster-response agency on the heels of a House report blaming government-wide ineptitude for mishandling Hurricane Katrina relief.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency reforms that Chertoff will unveil Monday range from a full-time response force of 1,500 new employees to establishing a more reliable system to report on disasters as they unfold. They are the first steps to overhauling FEMA, which was overwhelmed by the Aug. 29 Gulf Coast storm.

"We know there's considerable work to do," a senior Homeland Security official said Sunday on condition of anonymity because the changes had not been announced. Most of the changes are to be completed by the start of the 2006 hurricane season on June 1, the official said.

Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee issued their own recommendations Sunday for changing FEMA, including having the agency's director report directly to the president during major disasters. They also said the director should be an experienced emergency manager.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060213/ap_on_go_co/katrina_congress

How many months short and billions of dollars late? Imagine, they figured out the manager should have experience...go figure?

[Archae]

1. Barn door. Horse has escaped.

n/t

[Solly Mack]

2. Didn't the last reforms to FEMA hurt the agency's ability to respond?

and aren't they now just undoing the damage they caused to begin with?

[Quakerfriend]

4. Exactly!

I've heard x FEMA employees interviewed (? 60 minutes) who say that it used to function quite well until Homeland Security took over.

[Solly Mack]

6. Everything I've read suggest that as well

that FEMA was gutted when Ridge/Bush made it a part of "homeland security"

And didn't even Brownie write a paper to that effect as well? in 2002?

[tanyev]

14. The "sweeping changes" after 9/11 didn't work out so well.

More sweeping under the rug than a real housecleaning.

[Solly Mack]

17. Yeah, that's may take too

lucky us! :(

[Cassandra]

3. Sweeping reforms means...

he's going to use a broom to chase out the last competent people at the agency.

[Double T]

5. First Reform.......FIRE Michael Chertoff, another bush incompetent

time to stop the BULLSHIT spin

[Vinca]

7. Reform #1 - Respond.

Reform #2 - Evacuate the people.
Reform #3 - Bring food and water.
Reform #4 - Bring in the trailers.
Reform #5 - Do something NOW to get the evacuees back home. I can't believe they're talking about the next storm when piles of rubble are still in the streets of New Orleans 5 MONTHS AFTER THE STORM and people are living in the streets.

[gademocrat7]

8. I agree

[rodeodance]

9. He needs to step down --that is the first step.

[maddezmom]

11. he needs to be fired

shit canned, given the boot, etc. But * will keep his sorry ass and let him announce these reforms as if it's ground breaking stuff.

[Botany]

18. egg Zac Lee!

He needs gone now.
He flew to Atlanta for meeting on Bird Flu as New Orleans drowned.

And I also am not real comfortable about his status as an Israeli citizen too. I smell
AIPAC all over him. Cheney, Wolf, Rice, Brown, bush, Hughes, and so on they all
seem so in over their heads it is not funny.

[rodeodance]

10. The new Report lets Bush off the hook!--looky here.

The FEMA changes follow the results of an House inquiry that found unheeded warnings, poor planning and apathy in recognizing the scope of Katrina's destruction led to the slow emergency response from the White House down to local parishes.

The 600-page report by a special Republican-dominated House inquiry into one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history concluded that late state and local evacuation orders exacerbated an untrained and inexperienced force of federal emergency responders.

It also said
President Bush received poor and incomplete counsel about the crisis unfolding in the Gulf Coast.

Overall, the House report said, the federal government's response to Katrina was marked by "fecklessness, flailing and organizational paralysis."

[Solly Mack]

12. so once again, all those "smart people Bush surrounds himself with"

are to blame. Not Bush.

Knew there had to be a catch.

[maddezmom]

13. * should have turned on the weather channel, cable news

or listened over the internet like I did. Everyone knew what was happening and what was coming except those in charge. Guess eating cake with McCain and playing the guitar was all the hard work the prez could do during the lead up to the disaster. :mad:

[babylonsister]

15. Too little too late. CYA time, Chertoff? He must have been busy

this weekend after finding out about the scathing report coming out!

[zanne]

16. Yeah, yeah. nt

[Atman]

19. No more money for heavy equipment...so now they're SWEEPING New Orleans

That's the big reform. New palmyra push brooms for the clean up workers.

[hatrack]

20. Let's see . . . sweeping post-9/11 changes didn't do shit . . .

So these sweeping changes will:

1. Not do shit
2. Resemble decisive action
3. Cover various ChimpCo asses
4. Allow Skeletor to look like he's doing his job
5. All of the above

[saltpoint]

21. This is likely to be a public relations gesture rather than any

meaningful reform on the part of DHS. Chertoff strikes me as unexceptional at one level and disinterested at another. Not a very good combination for a public servant.

Yet another of Dubya's spectacularly poor nominations to high positions.

[Javaman]

22. #2 - refer to #1 n/t

[xxqqqzme]

23. neo-cons never wanted DHS 2 begin with.

More plans...big talk....no money to implement any of it.....some incompetent 2 manage it. THAT sounds like the plan; same plan as for every other gov agency the neo-cons want rid of.