A 'High Point' In Government Disaster Response

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_05/023818.php

A 'HIGH POINT' IN GOVERNMENT DISASTER RESPONSE.... As of about a decade ago, there was an assumption among much of the public that the government was pretty good at disaster response. By 2000, the Clinton administration's FEMA was considered a model government agency, able to act quickly and effectively to almost any scenario.

A decade later, the public's confidence has been badly rattled, and for good reason -- among its many problems, the Bush administration's mismanagement on this front became a national embarrassment. It wasn't long before it became a template for those hoping to discredit the efficacy of government itself -- if the government can't even respond ably to a hurricane in New Orleans, how can we expect it to ?

With that in mind, Joshua Green raised an important yesterday that often goes overlooked: the government's disaster response efforts have already vastly improved over the last 16 months.

An eternal fact of Washington is that government gets much more attention when it performs badly than when it performs well. As an illustration of the former, recall the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. To illustrate the latter, consider how the media is covering government right now. By my count at least three major natural disasters have occurred in recent weeks: the Nashville flooding, the deadly Oklahoma tornadoes, and the BP oil spill (admittedly not "natural" but threatening to be a major environmental disaster). Let's throw in an attempted terrorist attack in Times Square, too. On every front, government has performed ably -- and often better than ably. And yet it's understating things considerably to say this success has not been widely recognized.

It should be recognized, though, because when it comes to government disaster response, the Bush years marked a low point and right now we're experiencing a high point.

That may seem like cold comfort to those along the Gulf Coast -- there's only so much the government can do about the BP oil spill disaster, and at this point, the crisis is getting considerably worse -- but Green's observation is nevertheless an accurate one. Obama was intent on quickly improving the federal government's ability to respond to these kinds of disasters, and those efforts have been successful.

Green noted several recent examples from the last month, but let's not overlook the administration won (and deserved) plaudits for its handling of the H1N1 epidemic, and the administration's response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti has not only been exemplary, but it's even exceeded expectations.

Paul Waldman noted recently, "{I}t seems that the better job the Obama administration does with this {BP oil spill} and future disasters, the less it will matter in the public's perception of what government is capable of."

I hope that's right, because the debate in recent years has gone in a ridiculous direction. At issue has never been whether the government can effectively respond to disasters, but rather, the difference between an administration that guts response agencies and promotes incompetent lackeys, and one that takes these issues seriously.

—Steve Benen




Permission to post in its entirety per the author.

[ProSense]

1. "right now we're experiencing a high point"

Yup, just ask the Governor of Tennessee.

[johnaries]

4. TN Governor "very pleased" with response...

"I've never seen this kind of response," said Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen (D), "and we've had our share of tornadoes and so forth." The Volunteer State governor was speaking to reporters on a conference call arranged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from Nashville, which has been hit hard by rains last weekend.

"FEMA and the White House could not have been more helpful in this thing," Bredesen said. Record amounts of rain fell Saturday and Sunday, more than 13 inches recorded in parts of Tennessee. Officials Thursday reported the state's 20th death from the storm and subsequent flooding.

After speaking with the governor Monday, President Obama signed a disaster declaration for the state Tuesday, sending federal aid to Tennessee to help supplement the state and local recovery efforts. While Governor Bredesen wouldn't put a precise dollar amount on a damage assessment, he admitted, "it's a lot of money, it's a lot of money. I'd be astonished if not a billion dollars."

Governor Bredesen recognized his state's emergency was "sandwiched between" the news coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square, and while he wanted to call national attend to the "extraordinary event", he noted the Obama administration has been focused from the beginning. "FEMA was on the ground before the rain drops fell," said Bredesen, who noted he'd not only spoken to Mr. Obama, but Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett. "We're very pleased with the response we've gotten from the administration."

From, of all places....

http://whitehouse.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/05/06/tennessee-governor-very-pleased-with-response-to-flooding-by-obama-administration/

[jenmito]

2. K&R. It seems like many people here at DU missed this thread. Hopefully they'll see it and

post their comments on it. ;)

[Cha]

3. Hopefully we'll never have the bush brownie

cheney like incompetents running Disaster Response AGAIN.