Why FEMA Was Missing in Action--LA Times ...Excellent rundown

[Gloria]

September 5, 2005

Why FEMA Was Missing in Action
By Peter G. Gosselin and Alan C. Miller, Times Staff Writers

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fema5sep05,1,6530955.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true


.....

But in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, FEMA lost its Cabinet-level status as it was folded into the giant new Department of Homeland Security. And in recent years it has suffered budget cuts, the elimination or reduction of key programs and an exodus of experienced staffers.

The agency's core budget, which includes disaster preparedness and mitigation, has been cut each year since it was absorbed by the Homeland Security Department in 2003. Depending on what the final numbers end up being for next fiscal year, the cuts will have been between about 2% and 18%.

The agency's staff has been reduced by 500 positions to 4,735. Among the results, FEMA has had to cut one of its three emergency management teams, which are charged with overseeing relief efforts in a disaster. Where it once had "red," "white" and "blue" teams, it now has only red and white.

Three out of every four dollars the agency provides in local preparedness and first-responder grants go to terrorism-related activities, even though a recent Government Accountability Office report quotes local officials as saying what they really need is money to prepare for natural disasters and accidents.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. Budget cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers before the disaster

and undercutting of FEMA's power and its authority to be effective after the disaster. The Republican Party owns the greatest disaster in American history.

[LibertyorDeath]

2. Thanks for the info

Rec

[NYC]

3. Very important article.

Thanks for posting it.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. The very last paragraphs gives a nice concise history of FEMA

FEMA was created in 1979 in response to criticism about Washington's fragmented reaction to a series of disasters, including Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Mississippi coast 10 years earlier. The agency was rocked by scandal in the 1980s and turned in such a poor performance after Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in
1992 that President George H.W. Bush is thought to have lost votes as a result.

But according to a variety of former officials and outside experts, the agency experienced a renaissance under President Clinton's director, James Lee Witt, speedily responding to the 1993 Mississippi flood, the 1994 Northridge earthquake and other disasters.

Witt's biggest change was to get FEMA to focus on reducing risks ahead of disasters and funding local prevention programs.After the 1993 flood, for instance, Witt's agency bought homes and businesses nearest the water and moved their occupants to safer locations. The result in one Illinois town was that although more than 400 people applied for disaster aid after the flood, only 11 needed to apply two years later when the river again jumped its banks.

"He got communities to take practical steps like encouraging homeowners to bolt buildings to foundations in earthquake-prone areas and elevate living space in flood-prone ones," said Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Wharton Risk Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

But with the change of administration in 2001, many of Witt's prevention programs were reduced or cut entirely. After Sept. 11, former FEMA officials and outside authorities said, Washington's attention turned to terrorism to the exclusion of almost anything else.


Use http://www.bugmenot.com If you don't like to register to read an article.

[oasis]

5. kick

[artemisia1]

6. Kick. This says it all, but the Bushbots are still drinkin Kool-Aid. nt

[Moderator]

7. Gloria

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[Ezlivin]

8. Only "red and white" teams?

Hmmm. They axed the "blue" team.

Hmmm.

So Red-state White Republicans got their teams, right?

We see what the Blue-staters got....

[MADem]

9. They get their asses handed to them, like always nt

[slor]

10. Thanks for posting n/t

[underpants]

11. Ex-FEMA type worker told me about this last week (not just the budget)

FEMA got overhauled during the Clinton administration after harsh criticism (Sen. Holligns on SC floods). FEMA had always been headed by ex-military (logistics officers not combat arms) at least at the site leadership level.

When Homeland Security was established the POLITICAL APPOINTEES both threw the baby out with the bath water and tried to reinvent the wheel. They were just sure they could run it better than any government ever had and basically disbanded all the working relationships between govt. agencies, volunteer organizations, and contractors (and any combination there of).

[realFedUp]

12. new LA Times Editor Dean Baquet's brother is editor of Times-Pickyune

The LA Times has had excellent pieces on NO and I
think due in part to the number of their reporters
and columnist(s) on the ground and the fact that
Baquet's brother and family are from New Orleans
and Dean's brother is the editor of the Times-Pick.
which is doing an outstanding job considering
their circumstances.

[cthrumatrix]

13. does our TV media ever read these powerful stories...they seem sooo

uninformed on TV

[BootinUp]

15. I was thinking the same thing this morning.

Miles O'Brien on CNN for instance. He is very smart, but seems to either ignore or not be aware of the changes to FEMA that are directly relevant to the failures. All he can come up with is "Governor, how come you don't want that help?" (re:federalizing the Guard.)

[Quixote1818]

14. This is why Bush won't be able to wiggle out of this

Their is too much proof that the Bush administration dismantled FEMA and turned it into an orginization unprepared to handle natural disasters.

[The Stranger]

16. The PNAC/Neocons care not about emergencies -- they want Iraq, Iran,

and Syria.

[Roland99]

17. Thanks for that excellent article.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

18. An interesting snip- the south did indeed vote against themselves

FEMA was created in 1979 in response to criticism about Washington's fragmented reaction to a series of disasters, including Hurricane Camille, which devastated the Mississippi coast 10 years earlier. The agency was rocked by scandal in the 1980s and turned in such a poor performance after Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992 that President George H.W. Bush is thought to have lost votes as a result.

But according to a variety of former officials and outside experts, the agency experienced a renaissance under President Clinton's director, James Lee Witt, speedily responding to the 1993 Mississippi flood, the 1994 Northridge earthquake and other disasters.

Witt's biggest change was to get FEMA to focus on reducing risks ahead of disasters and funding local prevention programs.

After the 1993 flood, for instance, Witt's agency bought homes and businesses nearest the water and moved their occupants to safer locations. The result in one Illinois town was that although more than 400 people applied for disaster aid after the flood, only 11 needed to apply two years later when the river again jumped its banks.

"He got communities to take practical steps like encouraging homeowners to bolt buildings to foundations in earthquake-prone areas and elevate living space in flood-prone ones," said Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Wharton Risk Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

[Helga Scow Stern]

19. We don't know how the South or any other place really voted, do we?