FEMA'S RESPONSE TO NEW ORLEANS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA'S DEVASTATION

FEMA's response to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina's devastation

FEMA's response to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina's devastation

Following a devastating hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is in crisis. Should it be abolished? Should crisis administration responsibilities be granted to the military? Returned to the states? Consider the descriptions from a post-disaster report:

Prior to the hurricane, “relations between the unaligned towns . . . and the shire government were poor, as were those between the shire and the state. . . . After the catastrophe these relatives did not advance, which impeded answer and recovery efforts.” When the hurricane first made landfall, the homeland primarily answered with a “sense of relief” because the “most populated localities had been freed the full brunt of the storm.” After a couple of days, although, it became clear-cut that inundate waters would swamp both built-up and country localities, departing thousands without power, nourishment, water, or the likelihood of evacuation.

Compounding catastrophes breeze, floods, communications and power flops  led to catastrophe. While a large state might have had the assets to reply rapidly, little states were overwhelmed. “They [small states] generally will not contain up their end of the [federal-state] joint project required for productive answer and recovery.”

The severity of the catastrophe called into inquiry the whole enterprise of government engagement in natural hazard protection. “Emergency administration bears from . . . a need of clear discernable objectives, ample assets, public anxiety or authorized commitments. . . . Currently, FEMA is like a persevering in triage. The leader and Congress should conclude if to heal it or to let it die.” The overhead condemnations pertain not, as one might anticipate, to FEMA's latest anguish in New Orleans next Hurricane Katrina but to the agency's dilatory answer to Hurricane Andrew, which shocked South Florida in 1992. After Andrew, Congress provided the bureau an ultimatum: Make foremost improvements or be abolished. With the recommendations of the crisis administration occupation and an innovative controller, James Lee Witt, the bureau underwent one of the most amazing turnarounds in administrative history. In 1997, Bill Clinton called it one of the “most well liked bureaus in government.” FEMA was well considered by professionals, catastrophe victims and its own employees. By 2005, although, the bureau had one time afresh dropped into ignominy.

Before handing out more sound for fundamental change at FEMA, reformers should gaze to the courses of the agency's reorganization in the 1990s, which concentrated on natural catastrophes other than nationwide security. Its turbulent annals displays that while the bureau can marshal assets for natural catastrophes and construct connections with states and localities, it needs adequate assets to take on too numerous tasks. Today, FEMA faces a protean terrorist risk and an expanding array of technological hazards. To address up to designated day risks, the bureau should hone its natural catastrophe know-how and delegate administration for catastrophe answer to states and localities. True, delegation sprints the risk of coming back to the days of publicity hoc ...