The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is just one of the many agencies operating under the Department of Homeland Security. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s website, FEMA can trace its beginnings to the Congressional Act of 1803, as this Act is generally considered the first piece of disaster legislation which provided assistance to a New Hampshire town following an extensive fire. On April 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order that created the Federal Emergency Management Agency. On March 1, 2003, FEMA became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Fagin (2014) said that FEMA is responsible for implementing the Federal Response Plan to manage and coordinate the federal consequence management response in support of state and local authorities (p. 349).
Walters (2010) said that not long before hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit, FEMA had been folded into the new and bulging Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and had become a shell of its former self. The agency lost a lot of institutional knowledge and good
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people, who decided that FEMA wasn’t a good place to be (Walters, 2010). Even so, Walters (2010) said that following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA is gradually improving as efforts were made to rekindle the agency’s glory days. For example, has Congress passed legislation requiring that an experienced, professional emergency management official lead the agency and agency staff has also been upgrade (Walters, 2010). Over the past two decades, the general public has come to believe that in the event of a major disaster, the federal government will ride in like the cavalry, but among veteran emergency management experts, it’s understood that local responders will be on their own for the first 48 to 72 hour (Walters, 2010).
Walters (2010) explained in the wake of serious disasters, FEMA will initially deploy a cadre of disaster assistance reservists to help local officials take a first cut at establishing long-range recovery strategies and needs. For example, in the wake of Katrina, FEMA officials helped communities develop and pursue long-range recovery goals, which included helping communities track down the resources outside of FEMA’S direct control, and in Iowa City, FEMA worked with city officials on preparing grant applications, which led to a $25 million grant to aid in two recovery priorities (Walters,
2010). Walters (2010) said that the agency is working diligently to cascade some authority to regional folks, as the new management understands the needs of local and state officials. In fact, in Spring of 2010, when Tennessee experienced widespread flooding adding up to it’s worst natural disaster- within three or four hours, a FEMA liaison arrived to work with Tennessee Emergency Management in their Emergency Operations Center. James Bassham, director of the Tennessee Emergency Management, said if you compare this experience with their experience during Katrina, rescue and recovery efforts with the flooding was significantly better (Walters, 2010). According to the National Response Framework Student Manual, the process for requesting assistance is as follows: • First, local agencies respond with help from the private sector and NGOs. • As incident needs exceed local resources and capabilities, local (intrastate) mutual aid and assistance agreements are activated. • When mutual aid resources are exhausted, the State government provides support. • If the State resources and capabilities are exceeded, interstate mutual aid and assistance agreements are used. • Finally, if it becomes clear that State capabilities will be insufficient or have been exceeded, the Federal Government provides support (National Response, 2008).
Welch, William, and Leslie Phillips. "No Hesitancy This Time; FEMA Jumps into Action: FINAL Edition."USA TODAY (Pre-1997 Fulltext), (1994): 06.A-06.5.
The recovery process starts as the initial response effort slows down. Recovery actions are taken to help the public and city to return to normal everyday life. The recovery process requires a contribution from everyone. In the short term, recovery is an extension of the response phase in which basic services and functions are restored. In the long term, recovery is a restoration of both the personal lives of individuals and the livelihood of the community. (Homeland Security, 2008)
In 2003, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was rolled into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. FEMA’s responsibilities are to prepare, protect, respond, and recover from diminish all hazards. There was a mass coverage about the failure for FEMA to act immediately to Katrina, but once they were able to get things organized such as giving food and water, and setting up the tent and shelters communities can be strong and move on.
Hurricane Hugo was a catastrophe that caused widespread residential damage, extensive lifeline destruction, and enormous timber destruction in South Carolina and was one of the most costly disasters ever experienced in the US in terms of damage to homes, infrastructure and local economies. The media reported accounts of incidents that were serious problems in South Carolina’s response and early recovery efforts which further initiated an exploratory research to gather information about recovery experience in four badly impacted counties and about the state response and recovery actions undertaken. Post hurricane response problems were both organizational and functional. The research reveals significant state deficiencies with state and county emergency capabilities and serious problems in two national disaster response organizations, the Red Cross and FEMA. Another concern was that most emergency management knowledge came from direct experience rather than from existing educational and training programs along with serious mitigation planning problems were found with hurricane. Deepen concerns we...
The Coast Guard, for instance, rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how bad things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely
The mission of FEMA is “to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards.”[1] FEMA intends “to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of ‘A Nation Prepared.’”[2]
The 109th Congress questioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) after Hurricane Katrina. Congress called for mandatory reports from the white house, Inspectors Generals, the Government Accountability Office, and others. A common denominator in all of these findings were that some of the losses brought by Katrina were caused, at least in part, by deficiencies within FEMA; such as: questionable leadership decisions, organizational failures, and inadequate legal authorities. As a result of these findings, Congress further utilized their control strategies to reorganize FEMA, and restructure the way responsibilities were handled following emergencies. Congress passed the “Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act of 2006” in order to accomplish these revisions. This newly enacted bill reorganized FEMA, expanded its authority, established new leadership positions and position requirements within FEMA, and imposed new conditions and requirements on the operations of the agency. Congress also utilized the appropriations process to influence this portion of bureaucracy by enacting supplemental appropriations, one-time waivers of requirements and temporary
Schneider, S. K. (2005). Administrative breakdowns in the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina. Public Administration Review, 65(5), 515-516.
Katrina demolished more residential buildings than any other recent hurricane and ‘’Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne which in total, wrecked approximately 85,000 homes.’’ Hurricane Katrina also left ‘’many people homeless as more than 800,000 housing units were destroyed or damaged in the storm.’’ The storm dislocated beyond a million people in the Gulf Coast region. Even though residents have returned home, up to ‘’600,000 households were still displaced a month later.’’ The storm may have happened in 2006, but it still impacted the following year by 85 percent of public schools remaining
The initial response or lack thereof, to the widespread disaster in the Gulf Coast, caused by Hurricane Katrina, demonstrated high levels of incompetence and disorganization by government officials. Images of desperate individuals awaiting rescue on their rooftops, and masses of people packed together in deplorable conditions in the Super Dome, circulated the globe. There was no hiding from the painful reality and the obvious inaction or inability of those responsible to care for these individual in the wake of this catastrophe. (12, 791)
More than 1,400 people lost their lives. It became the global symbol of American dysfunction and government negligence. At every level and in every duty, from engineering to social policy to basic logistics, there was revelations of malfunction and failure before, during, and after Katrina. With 80 percent of the city underwater it has been a slow road to recovery. Out of the 140,000 applicants, only 22,000 families have received funds for renovating their homes and only expending 1.3 billion out of the total allocated. Many people are still displaced, many are still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt, neighborhoods are still in shambles, and business are still trying to rebuild but for some the situation still remains
August 29, 2005 was one of the darkest days for the residents of the State of Louisiana. Katrina, a category 3 hurricane, ripped through New Orleans and the surrounding areas causing catastrophic loss of life and property. The federal government’s disaster response team, which was formed in 1978, titled the Federal Emergency Management Agency, (commonly referred to as FEMA) responded to the needs of the survivors. Unfortunately the Bush administration through FEMA showed gross ineptitude in its response to the disaster. Pre-Katrina the lack of response resulted in a largely unsuccessful evacuation. After the storm, aid to the citizens of New Orleans was slow and inadequate. When we look back at the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, it appears that Bush’s FEMA botched much of the handling of the crisis and that overall, our “administration” could have responded to the situation much better.
On early morning of August 29th, 2005 on the Gulf Shore near New Orleans, a devastating hurricane struck. It wrecked havoc, demolishing anything in its path. Leaving nothing but mounds of trash. The surviving people were forced to leave due to massive flooding and the destruction of their homes. New Orleans was not the only place hit by Katrina but it was one of the areas that was hit the hardest. Millions of people were affected by this tragedy and the cost range was up in the billions. Crime rates went up, no one had a place to stay and water was polluted. The damage done by Katrina affected New Orleans and the other areas hit years after it struck. Restoration for the areas hit was going to need support from all of America and support groups across the country. No one was ready for this tragedy or could ever predict the horrible outcome.
FEMA The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an organization of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially formed by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and applied for two Executive Orders on April 1, 1979. The initial first response to a disaster is the job of local emergency services with the help of the surrounding sources. A major disaster can be a result of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. The event must be more than the state or local governments can handle alone.
In early 2001, The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released a report of the three most likely disasters to hit the United States. Among these likely disasters to hit the United States, one of them was a hurricane striking New Orleans, the other two; a terrorist attack on New York City and a major earthquake hitting San Francisco.(course pack) However, very little was done to prepare for the deadly storm that would four years later leave New Orleans in a devastated mess.