So much for the "Katrina Declaration"

 

I note with disgust that a large number of employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have complained that "the Trump administration’s sweeping overhaul is gutting the disaster relief agency’s authority and capabilities, undoing two decades of progress since the failures of Hurricane Katrina".

Titled “Katrina Declaration,” the letter accuses President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, of eroding the agency’s response capabilities and appointing unqualified leadership. The group calls for FEMA to be shielded from political interference and for its workforce to be protected from politically motivated firings.

The warning comes as the nation marks 20 years since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, killing nearly 1,400 people, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.) The botched FEMA effort exposed fatal flaws in the federal emergency response system – failures that led Congress to pass sweeping reforms, including the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which strengthened FEMA’s independence and set higher standards for its leaders.

Now, the letter argues, those reforms are being unraveled, as the Trump administration moves to either abolish or drastically shrink FEMA’s role.

There's more at the link.

I remember FEMA and Katrina very well indeed, because I was part of the independent efforts to bring relief to New Orleans after that hurricane, and saw the official cock-ups at first hand.  I wrote about them at length at the time and afterwards.  Go read about them for yourself, if you haven't already read that earlier article.  It's eye-opening.  Let's just say that my respect for FEMA, the American Red Cross and a number of other big-name emergency management and disaster relief organizations was severely undermined.

As for "reforms" implemented after Katrina, why don't we ask the citizens of North Carolina how they feel about the agency after Hurricane Helene went through there last year?  The initial relief efforts were a shambles, and didn't improve until the Trump administration took office in January this year.  There were - and still are - persistent allegations that the Biden administration deliberately slow-walked aid to the area because it was largely conservative in its politics, and had not supported the Democratic Party and the Biden administration in the past.  FEMA was pilloried by many of the locals for its initial failure to act, and - when it did act - for ignoring the expertise of local agencies and taking over in a heavy-handed, inefficient, bureaucratic manner.  There were repeated reports of supplies sent in by independent agencies being confiscated by FEMA without so much as a "by your leave", and a number of rescuers reported that they were ordered out of the area on pain of arrest if they returned.

I think FEMA as presently constituted is nothing more than a collection of bureaucrats throwing their weight around in an attempt to justify their existence.  I think we'd be far better served if each State set up its own FEMA equivalent, using people who know the local area and population and are thus better positioned to help without delay in time of need.  The federal FEMA could then be used as a conduit to get supplies and equipment to the state(s) when and where it's needed, and hand it over to the local FEMA to put it to work.  The military could also establish permanent, working relationships with the State-level FEMA's to prearrange things like helicopter support, evacuations, etc.

Meanwhile, based on my own extensive (albeit two-decade-old) experience with FEMA, I consider this "Katrina Declaration" to be not worth the paper it's printed on.

Peter