Hi Everyone,
I just saw on CNN that over 2,000 people are NOT going to be evacuated from the Superdome until at LEAST TOMMORROW!!! Also, the military is flying thousands to the Louis Armstrong airport and they are now just camping out there and the garbage is beginning to build up! FEMA set the airport up as a medical triage center only. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
I am so saddened and angered by the burecratic confusion of FEMA--who is supposed to be in charge of this operation. There is still very little communication going on down there!
Let this be a lesson to the American people--DONT RELY ON YOUR GOVERNMENT TO SAVE YOU! Take responsibility for yourself and your loved ones and plan your own survival, to the best of your ability. Nuff said.

In the world of "normal" disasters help will arrive in 3 days, but it can take 7-10 days. With a disaster of this magnitude, it aint gonna be 3 days. In both geografical size and population involved, this is about off the scale. Everyone needs to learn from this one, and there's plenty to be learned.

Dave

The US had massive relief on the shores of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, within 48 hours of the tsunami hitting with no warning. It set up a tent city for a MILLION refugees in Kosovo in less than 2 weeks.

There was plenty of warning for Katrina and there weren't oceans to cover to get evacuees out or at least fed. We have seen a screwup of unbelievable proportions. It's beyond incompetence, it seems to be the work of outright malice on FEMA's part. The FEMA director is a complete clueless moron who has no qualifications in emergency management whatsoever. He seems to have gotten the job by being the ex-college-roommate of the former director, who wasn't so hot either.

FEMA was a bureaucratic mess in the late 80's and early 90's that got a bad rep from Hurricane Andrew and other debacles but had been shaped up into a somewhat competent agency in the mid and late 90's. But that's all history now.

Some interesting reading:

Article about FEMA director Mike Brown's background running a horse breeder's association

Article about how FEMA was destroyed

FEMAs only response to flooding in San Antonio for the last 10 years has been to buy flood ravaged properties to keep people from rebuilding in the flood plain.

I've never understood how FEMA thinks. For example, there is a massive FEMA stores depot up near Palo Pinto, Texas. There is nothing in the entire county except cattle and oil & gas. It is 75 miles west of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, and does not have good road access. Go figure. There is a largely dfecommisioned Naval copter station in Mineral Wells, jsut down the road, with lots of air support opportunities. Go figure.

As I understand it, FEMA incorporated the old Civil Defense organization, right? The same people who thought up Urttle the Turtle, of "duck and cover" fame. I always had the impression that by 1955, they knew thier job was a sham, there was no way to get citizens out of target areas in case of a nuclear exchange, so they just stopped trying and went into the feel good business.

Telling articles - sign me up for the firing squad. However, there's more to the story. Sorry; this is one of my usual long posts. I think it's important to understand that no one is really in charge of disaster operations. Communities need to stick together and neighbors need to help neighbors. We're all in the same stew pot.

It's easier to do disaster ops oversees than it is here - we can legally send the active duty military, telling DOD and State who is in charge of what, and pour in the kind of central control and massive resources that only a standing army (and navy and air force) can deliver. (There's another dark side to doing that - rarely does congress pay the bill, so the Army especially and to a similar extent, the Navy, suffers greatly afterwards, because the primary missions don't go away. For complex funding reasons, the Air Force is less financially affected). I don't want to take on the debate about using US forces in the US, but y'all should look into that, because it is a VERY real issue with no simple solution that will please many citizens.

I could - but won't - write volumes about FEMA as an agency from my first hand experiences at Federal and munincipal levels (I skipped state and county somewhere along the line). No administration or congress should feel proud about what they have done to or with that agency. Even Witt was not as wonderful as some would think - not his fault, by the way, and he's working on the front end of this sort of thing now as the titular head of the International Code Council (model Building codes).

FEMA has never been capable of actually managing a disaster and I doubt they ever will be - and I'm not slamming the folks who work for FEMA. The general public has gross misconceptions of what FEMA can do. They can't and don't put much on the ground in the way of people who physically get things done.. The "M" in the acronym should be removed. If it was "FEDA" - "D" = "dollars", that would be closer to truth. Important function! But not the whole solution.

There are much larger structural problems than just FEMA. Frankly, no one is ever really in over-all charge (yeah, cries of outrage from those who may *think* they were in overall control in various past scenarios). As only one example, let me talk about a GREAT bunch of folks - the National Guard, whcih belongs to the Governor of each state. In the BEST of cases, I think we had maybe 25% overall effective cooperation with the guard in a massive multi-state regional flood - in one state they were actually extremely counter-productive and truly hostile to our efforts, in another they were simply out wandering around on their own in small units trying to help locals who didn't want anything more than materials and equipment.

In another state, in one major city, I had wonderful cooperation at all levels at one site (the most important one!) because the guard commander and I personally met on the site green-suiter-to-green-suiter and then our staffs coordinated constantly - DESPITE the state level trying to remote-control every little detail - a great guy; an effective commander, but it all came down to just that - one man on-the-ground disregarding the state political pressure and doing what was right. His boss, the TAG, took the heat with the Governor's staffers, and let his Colonel do what is right Governors are all over the political map on this, and FEW really control it - they let clueless and mostly faceless staffers (political hacks) handle the oh-so-important details.

By the way, we WERE the lead Federal agency, but no one can make states cooperate with feds and no one can make towns cooperate with anyone. I cannot stress enough how freaking frustrating it is that no one really has overall control of the resources in a response. It's like the who's in charge fiasco when Reagan was shot, every time. No, it's worse than that. Arrgh! It amazes me that anything actuall gets done, in retrospect.

Oh - It's not just government; I've had "fun" with contractors "helping" who were politically connected with various politicians, so we used this or that contractor instead of ones we would have rather used. And some show up, demand to help, try to take control of various aspects, and then [censored] and leave because we're all stupid governmetn people and they know so much better than us... in the middle of a major disaster, I would occasionally have to call 'way back up the food chain to explain why I wasn't letting this person or that company come in and force his (really BAD) idea on us - not very effective use of my time. Second-guessing the guy on the ground is incredibly stupid.

Of the NGOs that show up, I have always been extremely impressed with the Red Cross. They have certain areas that they concentrate on and they are very good at it. They also "play well" with everyone and are not a burden to the efforts. A great agency. Very limited experience with the Salvation Army, but I would expect them to do a good job these days, or I would have heard lots about it. There are a few others in my encounters that work internationally that get things done as well.

On another, related subject: our county ESDA here is a waste of oxygen. I am envious of those of you who have competent local ESDAs.

Fixing FEMA is really just one gear in a complicated engine - it needs to be fixed, but not much meshes anyway. After all the post-disaster beatings and hangings are finished, there will still be the states vs the feds vs politics at all levels. We'll spend a ton of money to make what will turn out to be marginal improvements. I hate to sound like a cynic, but that's about as opptomistic as I can be.

Tom

Tom, you missed FEMA interaction at the state and county levels because there is none. And it is not for nothing that Witt is now with International Codee Counsel: it is they that promulagates the uniform flood plain development ordiance that every municipality has to adopt in order to qualify its residents for flood insurance.

FEMA is, of course, a creature of federal statute, and its internal operation are supposed to be regulated by Rules promulgated in the Code of Federal Regulations, which are in turn puplished through the Federal Register. However, if you look at the CFR, you will find virtually nothing. Therefor, FEMA operates in a virtually ad hoc manner, as I am sure you have seen. The reasons for that is that the agency has never adequately codified its own internal operating procedures. It is really the ultimate bureaucracy.

This is the role of FEMA as set forth at 6 USC 317:

§ 317. Role of Federal Emergency Management Agency
Release date: 2005-05-18

(a) In general
The functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency include the following:
(1) All functions and authorities prescribed by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.).
(2) Carrying out its mission to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the Nation from all hazards by leading and supporting the Nation in a comprehensive, risk-based emergency management program—
(A) of mitigation, by taking sustained actions to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from hazards and their effects;
(B) of planning for building the emergency management profession to prepare effectively for, mitigate against, respond to, and recover from any hazard;
(C) of response, by conducting emergency operations to save lives and property through positioning emergency equipment and supplies, through evacuating potential victims, through providing food, water, shelter, and medical care to those in need, and through restoring critical public services;
(D) of recovery, by rebuilding communities so individuals, businesses, and governments can function on their own, return to normal life, and protect against future hazards; and
(E) of increased efficiencies, by coordinating efforts relating to mitigation, planning, response, and recovery.
(b) Federal Response Plan
(1) Role of FEMA
Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the Federal Emergency Management Agency shall remain the lead agency for the Federal Response Plan established under Executive Order No. 12148 (44 Fed. Reg. 43239) and Executive Order No. 12656 (53 Fed. Reg. 47491).
(2) Revision of Response Plan
Not later than 60 days after November 25, 2002, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency shall revise the Federal Response Plan to reflect the establishment of and incorporate the Department.


And next, Section 313:

§ 313. Functions transferred
Release date: 2005-05-18

In accordance with subchapter XII of this chapter, there shall be transferred to the Secretary the functions, personnel, assets, and liabilities of the following entities:
(1) The Federal Emergency Management Agency, including the functions of the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency relating thereto.
(2) The Integrated Hazard Information System of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which shall be renamed “FIRESAT”.
(3) The National Domestic Preparedness Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including the functions of the Attorney General relating thereto.
(4) The Domestic Emergency Support Teams of the Department of Justice, including the functions of the Attorney General relating thereto.
(5) The Office of Emergency Preparedness, the National Disaster Medical System, and the Metropolitan Medical Response System of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the functions of the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness relating thereto.
(6) The Strategic National Stockpile of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the functions of the Secretary of Health and Human Services relating thereto.

The "Secretary" which this section speaks is the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Clear as mud yet?

way TOO MUCH government and TOO MANY government agencies -- it is an impossible to control monster that cannot communicate and will not take responsibility for anything. multiple agencies make it easy to pass the buck and shift the blame, and it was designed that way and will always be that way. all homeland security did was create God knows how many more agencies under the auspices of better communication and one man managing and communicating with them all. what a joke! Tom Ridge, couldn't get a handle on it and Chertoff won't do any better. Meanwhile we get thousands more bureaucrats who will shuffle more paper with a cushy government job and accomplish nothing but spending billions and billions of taxpayer dollars and then when a reporter's microphone gets placed in their face, will say, the decision wasn't mine, it was his/her [pick your favorite local state federal] government agency. At least , there will be plenty of bureaucrats on hand to make reports of dead, dying, cost to rebuild, etc, generate paper, that's what they're good at