| Subject: FEMA: Accusations start to fly |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 17:56:44 09/05/05 Mon
A common refrain from senior officials is that it is too early to start pointing fingers for the slow response to hurricane Katrina. Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Bill Clinton, former president, have both said this would detract from the rescue effort.
But the accusations have already started to fly. The department has said that state and local authorities were not fully prepared, while some state and local politicians have responded with angry denunciations of the sluggish response of the Federal government.
In the case of Katrina, Louisiana had the foresight to ask the president for a disaster declaration even before the hurricane hit ground. This was signed on August 27, at which time federal resources should have been deployed en masse.
"Federal resources were pre-deployed but not nearly enough," says Jane Bullock, former chief of staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) in the 1990s. She believes the poor response was primarily due to reorganisation of the disaster response infrastructure under the administration of President George W. Bush.
Fema was established in 1979 by then-president Jimmy Carter and spent most of the 1980s focused on preparation for a nuclear attack. In the 1990s the agency was upgraded, its chief was given a seat in the cabinet and the agency was primarily responsible for the handling of natural disasters. The organisation coped well with a series of large-scale disasters, including hurricanes Hugo in 1989 and Andrew in 1992.
Under Mr Bush, Fema has been downgraded, making way for a greater focus on the prevention of terrorism.
Kathleen Tierney, director of the University of Colorado's Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, says she has long objected to the post 9/11 mind-set of the administration. "The laws of nature were not repealed on September 11. Since then everything has been about terrorism."
Having had a voice in the cabinet, Fema was downgraded to a directorate within the DHS – reporting to the president through a deputy secretary and then a cabinet secretary. Mr Chertoff has proposed to downgrade the organisation further, turning it from a directorate to an office.
Ms Tierney, author of Facing the Unexpected: Disaster Preparedness and Response in the United States, says the hurricane has hit while America was in the middle of a massive reorganisation. "The responsibility for preparing for disasters has been removed from Fema and placed with law and order experts at the DHS," she says. "Not only were these changes unwise but the new systems are extremely immature?.?.?. They have been destroying Fema."
Experts have also be scathing about the failure of government to learn the lessons of a drill only last year, intended to prepare for a flooding of New Orleans following a fictional hurricane Pam. "We have known what would happen under these conditions for a very long time," says Ms Bullock.
The drill had suggested positioning barges with pumps up the Mississippi so they would be ready to start pumping, she says. It was also envisaged the Superdome would be used as a refuge, but no medical supplies or food were preplaced there.
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