Disastrous Response (Why The Government Won't Be Your Savior)

One of the tragedies of Hurricane Sandy, in addition to the enormous human and material cost it has exacted from our city, is the misery which the chronic inefficiency and incompetence of our government has wrought.

From the economically incoherent and historically ignorant institution of price controls to the resuscitation of policies as intellectually vapid as the men who impose them, the specter of the state making the lives of those already suffering even more unbearable is everywhere.

Even the federal bureaucracies established to ostensibly aid people who have been the victims of natural disasters are woefully incapable of executing even the most elementary aspects of their missions. No one grasps this concept more acutely than the residents of Staten Island, who have seen firsthand why relying upon the generosity of government bureaucrats is such a risky proposition.

“Its your choice you can prep or you can stand around on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring you a bottle of water, a MRE, a warm blanket and a kiss for your boo-boo.”

I think that people having a total misconception about what FEMA does is a big part of the problem.

FEMA is not brought into a disaster to hand out bottles of water or blankets to people. FEMA is not there to get you a generator for your house or a case of MRE’s.

FEMA is brought in to manage some disaster but primarily recovery efforts. FEMA is not a first responder organization, it is not designed to operate during the initial stages of a disaster.

FEMA is very good at certain things. Need a huge generator to power up a hospital ?? FEMA will get you that ASAP. Need a self contained mobile command center with satellite communications ?? FEMA has about 7 or 8 of them nationwide. Need massive numbers of emergency housing units ? FEMA has them or can get them, stage them, deploy them, recover them, repair them and deploy them again quickly. Need assistance with weeding through the system to find people and businesses loans etc to recover from a disaster ?? FEMA has hundreds of specialists that will deploy to a disaster area to directly work with victims so they can access help. Need top level coordination and planning between different state and Federal agencies ? FEMA brings that ability to make things happen. Need disaster preparedness help ?? FEMA is expert at putting together primary and contingency plans. They do all those things well.

What they are not good at is doing things that are better left to volunteer organizations, first responders and lower level government. There was a time when FEMA didn’t have to do those things but Katrina really changed the way the agency was viewed and politically they were forced to become all things to all people and to go where they really were not needed. They started getting sucked into disaster details for which they were not suited and becoming a piggy bank for various governors who tried to get Federal disaster declarations for every bad thing that happened in their respective states.

FEMA is a relatively small agency that relies on Disaster Assistance Employees. DAE’s are specialized part time Federal reservists who only serve when thay are called up by the President for a particular disaster operation. They do not get paid sick leave, vacation, holidays, health insurance, retirement benefits or anything else that a regular Federal employee might get. The agency is really being stretched thin by all of the operations they have been deployed to in the last 10 years and it is showing in the lackluster response that sometimes takes place.

It was a good, useful agency that is going to hell because of misuse.

Just my 2 cents.

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