Tag: fema

Posted on

Consultant Warns of Stupidity

From MSNBC, by way of J.P. Brekke:

“DENVER – Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his agency’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina, is starting a disaster preparedness consulting firm to help clients avoid the sort of errors that cost him his job.

” ‘If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses — because that goes straight to the bottom line — then I hope I can help the country in some way,’ Brown told the Rocky Mountain News. …

“Brown said officials need to ‘take inventory’ of what’s going on in a disaster to be able to answer questions to avoid appearing unaware of how serious a situation is.’

The guy’s his own straight man.

Technorati Tags:

Posted on

Happy Holidays, from FEMA

Wonderful news from FEMA to the tens of thousands of people displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and still living in subsidized motel rooms: The agency will stop paying for most of the 53,000 rooms (all except 12,000 in Louisiana and Mississippi) on December 1. Evacuees, get ready to pay your own motel bill or go find another place to stay.

FEMA delivered the news in a press release on Tuesday that opens with five paragraphs recounting everything the agency has done and all it intends to do for the 150,000 unfortunates still in motels. Not only has it paid out hundreds of millions already just to get roofs over the evacuees’ heads, it wants to do more. R. David Paulison, FEMA’s acting director, is quoted as saying that the agency wants to get people out of hotels and motels and “into longer-term homes before the holidays.”

But FEMA disclosed it has a deeper interest, too: It wants to help people get back in touch with core American values like fending for themselves. “Those affected by these storms should have the opportunity to become self-reliant again and reclaim some normalcy in their lives.”

Only after all that, does the release get to the news: “On December 1, 2005 — the previously announced conclusion for FEMA’s direct payment hotel/motel program — direct federal emergency assistance reimbursements for hotel and motel rooms occupied by evacuees will end. FEMA has an aggressive plan to help place these families in longer-term housing prior to December 1.”

Note that FEMA goes out of its way to say the cutoff shouldn’t be news, because it was “previously announced.” And yes, check the FEMA website and there it is: An October 24 releaseheadlined “FEMA Continues Short-Term Lodging Program for Evacuees.” There, in the third paragraph, is the statement that the motel program would run through December 1. Someone ought to tell these folks what it means to bury the lead.

So, now that it has managed to make its intentions clear, how will the policy work in the real world?

Here’s one sign: In its statement three weeks ago, FEMA said it was paying for about 65,000 motel and hotel rooms. The number is down to 53,000 today, presumably thanks to state and local and volunteer efforts to find longer-term housing for people. That works out to 4,000 rooms cleared a week. Now, the agency wants to clear out 41,000 rooms (the 53,000 total less the 12,000 exempt rooms in Louisiana and Mississippi) in two weeks. Impossible? Perhaps not, despite FEMA’s involvement. Is it likely?

Here’s another sign. FEMA acknowledged a couple days ago that it would be a challenge to even get the word out. The agency had people going around slipping notices under evacuees’ motel-room doors, and it has produced radio public-service announcements to let people know what’s about to happen. If people weren’t even aware of what’s happening in the motel program two days, what’s the chance that FEMA is going to get everyone into the “readily available” longer-term housing (Paulison’s phrase) in the next two weeks?

Here’s one last sign: Look at what’s happening in Texas, where 19,000 motel rooms are occupied by hurricane refugees in Houston alone. The mayor there, Bill White, said given the city’s experience with the issue, FEMA should be seeking its advice: “We have moved more evacuees out of hotels than any other city has ever had in hotels. So we encourage those new to it to ask us, not tell us, how to do it.” Rick Perry, the Republican governor of Texas, said, “My great concern is that there is still no long-term housing plan for the hundreds of thousands of Katrina victims who lost everything.”

What’s going to happen? If FEMA follows through, the problem will be dumped on the states and cities across the country where evacuees wound up. Tens of thousands of people will wind up in shelters again or be put out on the street. More likely, FEMA will take such a horrendous PR pummeling over every aspect of its decision that it will be forced to back off until someone — likely someone outside FEMA — actually figures out a workable plan for getting people into real housing.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Posted on

‘Anything I Need to Tweak?’

My brother John points out the latest chapter in the saga of former FEMA chief Michael “Superdome” Brown. A Louisiana congressman has released some of Brown’s emails (obtained from the Department of Homeland Security) written during the Hurricane Katrina crisis. Brown’s Bartlett’s-worthy response to a dispatch from a deputy in New Orleans who reported the situation was “past critical”:

“Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”

That could be the motto for the entire Bush administration, from 9/11 to Iraq to this thing. I remember talking to Dad before all this Katrina stuff happened about the pure incompetence of these people. They are simply bad at what they do. They are bumblers. Their behavior isn’t grounded in actions-consequences reality (think back to Ron Susskind’s New York Times Magazine piece from last fall and the unnamed administration guy who dismissed “the reality-based community”). They mistake the competence to accomplish discrete tasks — “the CIA can generate intelligence reports” or “the Marines can kick Saddam’s ass” — for a magic wand that will allow them to accomplish whatever they’ve dreamed up. All they need to do is think up a project — “Let’s build a new house!” — invoke some high-sounding principles — “I want it to look like the Taj Mahal!” — then sketch the thing on a napkin and tell the guys with the shovels, cement mixers and hammers to make it happen. What a big surprise that they wind up with a swampy hole in the ground and a half-built foundation with rebar sticking out at crazy angles.

But these folks are optimists: Everyone’s invited to the house warming. And they’re hard working. Just like the emails say: “Even the president has his sleeves rolled up, to just below the elbow.”

Technorati Tags: ,

Posted on

Gut Instinction: The Michael D. Brown Story

August 29:

President George Walker Bush: “For those of you who are concerned about whether or not we’re prepared to help, don’t be. We are. We’re in place. We’ve got equipment in place, supplies in place. And once the — once we’re able to assess the damage, we’ll be able to move in and help those good folks in the affected areas.”

September 1 (from ABC’s “Nightline”):

Ted Koppel: “Mr. Brown, some of these people are dead. They’re beyond your help. Some of these people that have died because they needed insulin and they couldn’t get it. Some of the people died because they were in hospitals and they couldn’t get the assistance that they needed. You say you were surprised by the fact that so many people didn’t make it out. It’s no surprise to anyone that you had at least 100,000 people in the City of New Orleans where are dirt poor. Who don’t have cars, who don’t have access to public transportation, who don’t have any way of getting out of the city simply because somebody says, ‘you know, there’s a force five storm coming, you ought to get out.’ If you didn’t have buses there to get them out, why should it be a surprise to you that they stayed?

Michael Brown: Well, Ted, you know, we’re, I’m not going to sit here and second guess –why or when evacuation orders were given or why or why not the city didn’t have buses available. You know, that’s just not the thing that we need to do right now. Frankly, if they, if they had, if they had put buses there. …

Koppel: I’ve heard you say during course of this evening on a number of interviews you just found out about it today. Don’t you guys watch television? Don’t you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting about it for more than just today.

Brown: We learned about it factually today that that what existed. We’ve been so focused on doing rescue and life-saving missions and evacuating people from the Superdome that when we first learned about it, of course, my first gut instinction, instinct was, get somebody in there, get me truth on the ground, let me know, because if it’s true we’ve got to help those people.

September 3:

Bush: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

September 9:

Although Brown was not allowed to answer [questions about why he was being relieved of disaster-response duties in Louisiana, he later told an Associated Press reporter in an interview that it was not his idea to go back to Washington. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, he said: “By the press, yes. By the president, no.”

September 12:

Brown: “I think it’s in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the president to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me.”

New York Times:

45 Bodies Found in a New Orleans Hospital

By Kirk Johnson

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 12 – The bodies of 45 people have been found in a flooded uptown hospital here, officials said Monday, sharply increasing the death toll from Hurricane Katrina and raising new questions about the breakdown of the evacuation system as the disaster unfolded.

Officials at the hospital, the Memorial Medical Center, said at least some of the victims died while waiting to be removed in the four days after the hurricane struck, with the electricity out and temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.

Technorati Tags: ,