<p>driver, it was the Republican congress, under a Republican President that decided to go with the Homeland Security Act, which should have been called, no Republican activist left unemployed act. If it had been in place during 9/11 even Rudy Guliani might have been overcome by the quagmire created by inept staff which was appointed by …</p>
<p>Mr. B,
That’s a nice, long piece of bureaucratese…but where’s the part that replaces local leadership and emergency services with federal counterparts? Federal fire departments? Federal Police? Federal ambulances? The New Orleans Emergency Plan clearly counters your misinterpretation of the H.R. you cited.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26[/url]”>http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26</a></p>
<p>Here is FEMA’s own vision of its mission as of October 2004:</p>
<p>About FEMA - Helping People Before, During and After Disasters</p>
<p>The Federal Emergency Management Agency - a former independent agency that became part of the new Department of Homeland Security in March 2003 - is tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and mitigating against disasters. FEMA can trace its beginnings to the Congressional Act of 1803. This act, generally considered the first piece of disaster legislation, provided assistance to a New Hampshire town following an extensive fire. In the century that followed, ad hoc legislation was passed more than 100 times in response to hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters.</p>
<p>By the 1930s, when the federal approach to problems became popular, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was given authority to make disaster loans for repair and reconstruction of certain public facilities following an earthquake, and later, other types of disasters. In 1934, the Bureau of Public Roads was given authority to provide funding for highways and bridges damaged by natural disasters. The Flood Control Act, which gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers greater authority to implement flood control projects, was also passed. This piecemeal approach to disaster assistance was problematic and it prompted legislation that required greater cooperation between federal agencies and authorized the President to coordinate these activities.</p>
<p>The 1960s and early 1970s brought massive disasters requiring major federal response and recovery operations by the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration, established within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Hurricane Carla struck in 1962, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The Alaskan Earthquake hit in 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake rocked Southern California in 1971. These events served to focus attention on the issue of natural disasters and brought about increased legislation. In 1968, the National Flood Insurance Act offered new flood protection to homeowners, and in 1974 the Disaster Relief Act firmly established the process of Presidential disaster declarations.</p>
<p>However, emergency and disaster activities were still fragmented. When hazards associated with nuclear power plants and the transportation of hazardous substances were added to natural disasters, more than 100 federal agencies were involved in some aspect of disasters, hazards and emergencies. Many parallel programs and policies existed at the state and local level, compounding the complexity of federal disaster relief efforts. The National Governor’s Association sought to decrease the many agencies with whom state and local governments were forced work. They asked President Jimmy Carter to centralize federal emergency functions.</p>
<p>President Carter’s 1979 executive order merged many of the separate disaster-related responsibilities into a new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Among other agencies, FEMA absorbed: the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, the Federal Preparedness Agency of the General Services Administration and the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration activities from HUD. Civil defense responsibilities were also transferred to the new agency from the Defense Department’s Defense Civil Preparedness Agency.</p>
<p>John Macy was named as FEMA’s first director. Macy emphasized the similarities between natural hazards preparedness and the civil defense activities. FEMA began development of an Integrated Emergency Management System with an all-hazards approach that included “direction, control and warning systems which are common to the full range of emergencies from small isolated events to the ultimate emergency - war.”</p>
<p>The new agency was faced with many unusual challenges in its first few years that emphasized how complex emergency management can be. Early disasters and emergencies included the contamination of Love Canal, the Cuban refugee crisis and the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Later, the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992 focused major national attention on FEMA. In 1993, President Clinton nominated James L. Witt as the new FEMA director. Witt became the first agency director with experience as a state emergency manager. He initiated sweeping reforms that streamlined disaster relief and recovery operations, insisted on a new emphasis regarding preparedness and mitigation, and focused agency employees on customer service. The end of the Cold War also allowed Witt to redirect more of FEMA’s limited resources from civil defense into disaster relief, recovery and mitigation programs.</p>
<p>In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Joe M. Allbaugh as the director of FEMA. Within months, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11th focused the agency on issues of national preparedness and homeland security, and tested the agency in unprecedented ways. The agency coordinated its activities with the newly formed Office of Homeland Security, and FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness was given responsibility for helping to ensure that the nation’s first responders were trained and equipped to deal with weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>Billions of dollars of new funding were directed to FEMA to help communities face the threat of terrorism. Just a few years past its 20th anniversary, FEMA was actively directing its “all-hazards” approach to disasters toward homeland security issues. In March 2003, FEMA joined 22 other federal agencies, programs and offices in becoming the Department of Homeland Security. The new department, headed by Secretary Tom Ridge, brought a coordinated approach to national security from emergencies and disasters - both natural and man-made. Today, FEMA is one of four major branches of DHS. About 2,500 full-time employees in the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate are supplemented by more than 5,000 stand-by disaster reservists.</p>
<p>As it has for more than 20 years, FEMA’s mission remains: to lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of “A Nation Prepared.” At no time in its history has this vision been more important to the country than in the aftermath of Sept. 11th.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm[/url]”>http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm</a></p>
<p>As of today things are right about where they would have been even if everyone did leave before the storm. The REAL test is what comes over the next 6 months. How exactly do they place a city of refugees and what do they fix and when. It’s a tall order. Any bright ideas out there?</p>
<p>I’d love to have seen the reaction if the Feds had moved in and mandated evacuation at gunpoint and the storm moved another 25 miles east.</p>
<p>Um, maybe in NO, but what about everywhere else, do you listen to the people calling in to radio stations, to interviews on tv, and the questions will be asked and answers better be given and corrected otherwise, we have failed as a country.</p>
<p>And they are Americans, by the way.</p>
<p>Driver, what state do you live in if you missed my question</p>
<p>“FEMA, which has been mentioned so often here, is not, and was never intended to be, an agency in charge of prescribing or directing all emergency relief in the country- Instead, its purpose is to provide federal support to local leaders who will use their contingency plans to deal with the emergency as it unfolds”.- driver</p>
<p>CGM, I didn’t miss your question. I have a couple of things going on outside of message boards. Pennsylvania. And I did make, and stand by the exact statement you quote above. What is your point?</p>
<p>Marite, I don’t see what in the piece you posted changes things with regard to governors and mayors taking primary responibility for using their local resources in dealing with natural disasters.</p>
<p>Mr. B, Bush was quite opposed to the creation of Homeland Security, but frustrated his base by going with it when the combination of Democrat demagoguery and media pressure caused him to change tack. Stuart Rothenberg described the transition this way:
I wasn’t happy with the choice either, but I put it in the column, along with signing McCaine/Feingold, of a politically necessary choice. Kind of like Clinton signing welfare reform against his will…and then trying to take credit for it. But there’s still nothing in it that takes away from the mayor of NO and the governor of LA the responsibility of dealing with there crisis in the first instance.</p>
<p>Mission: The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s mission is to reduce loss of life and property and protect our nation’s critical infrastructure from all types of hazards through a comprehensive, risk-based, emergency management program of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. </p>
<p>*FEMA’s Mission
To provide leadership and support to reduce the loss of life and property and protect our nation’s institutions from all types of hazards through a comprehensive, risk-based, all-hazards emergency management program of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. </p>
<p>FEMA’s mission is, and has always been, to reduce the loss of life and damage to property and to protect our residents from all hazards, natural and man made.* We accomplish this mission by providing the Nation with comprehensive, risk-based emergency management programs, including mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. This mission has not changed with our integration into the new Department of Homeland Security.- House Armed Service Committee</p>
<p>So if they are not there for the states, who are they there for , Australia?</p>
<p>Driver:</p>
<p>I wanted to give FEMA’s own version of what it is supposed to do. I refrained from editorializing about its self-perceived relationship to local and state governments. I am not a constituent of the NO mayor or LA governor. Residents of NO and Louisiana will have a chance to evaluate their performance at the next elections. But as a citizen of the US, I have an interest in the competence of federal agencies. My evaluation of FEMA is based not just on what I think its mission should be but what FEMA says it is. </p>
<p>Note that in the concluding sentence it mentions that its mission is to LEAD not to follow, not to wait on local or state governments. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>City–it’s over, everyone is pretty much safe. Now what is your bright idea for the next 6 months besides *****ing?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1125784200178990.xml&coll=1[/url]”>http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1125784200178990.xml&coll=1</a></p>
<p>anyone else think this is something to be proud of? my goodness, </p>
<p>this is the hotels website- it is owned by a corporation</p>
<p>I for one will never ever use them for anything</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sonesta.com/neworleans_royal/[/url]”>http://www.sonesta.com/neworleans_royal/</a></p>
<p>driver, the information is from Rep Dick Armeys office explaining his bill. If you think the Democrats made him introduce it and the President sign it…you must think Ted Kennedy is God.</p>
<p>This is what a Hack looks like on his own bio:<br>
Prior to joining FEMA, Mr. Brown practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma, where he served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court. He had been appointed as a special prosecutor in police disciplinary matters. While attending law school he was appointed by the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee of the Oklahoma Legislature as the Finance Committee Staff Director, where he oversaw state fiscal issues. His background in state and local government also includes serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight and as a city councilman.</p>
<p>this is what Hacks say:
During Isabel, we also conducted action planning/reporting with each state in an attempt to better synchronize our increased readiness efforts.
We opened multiple Staging Areas and Mobilization Centers in anticipation of needs, including pre-positioning of NDMS teams, USAR teams, MERS assets, EPA hazmat teams, and USACE teams.
We deployed ERTs to every state EOC which was expected to be significantly impacted by the storm.
We had DHS ICE and US Coast Guard aircraft identified and pre-positioned to provide aviation support.
Our DHS’ colleagues at IAIP co-located with us to provide better access to critical infrastructure operators.
We crafted an expedited declaration policy for this storm which was communicated to the states in advance of landfall to ensure they understood how to obtain access to federal resources and to assist with cost recovery for their readiness actions.
We pre-positioned newly developed “shelter packs”, containing equipment/supplies needed to support shelter operations -which weren’t requested - previously our equipment/supplies for this mission were not packaged for mission-specific tasks.</p>
<p>…Because of President Bush’s vision and leadership, we’re stronger and better prepared today than we were a year ago from all-hazards.
Thank you.</p>
<p>Statement of Under Secretary Michael D. Brown
2004 National Hurricane Conference, Orlando Florida, April 7, 2004</p>
<p>So where was all of this when it wasn’t happening in the President’s Brother’s state.</p>
<p>barrons, I found your post above very interesting. You said
“Everyone is pretty much safe. Now what is your bright idea for the next 6 months besides *****ing?” </p>
<p>I’m hearing hundreds of people are dead, and maybe even a thousand. A THOUSAND people dead. I think many of thoses people climbed up to their roofbeams, then slowly drowned as the water inched up. Now, on your scale of measurement, does that qualify as “pretty much safe” ? And for those who watched a disabled mother or father die in the street from dehydration - does that qualify as “pretty much safe”, or maybe it slides down the scale of your measurement as not pretty much safe, but only, welll, fairly safe? or is it that these are not the “everyone”'s you may be concerned about?</p>
<p>For those who drowned there was nothing to be done. They should have been able to leave but the city and state did nothing to help them do that. Does that state even have a governor. 100’s died in Miss too and there was nothing to be done for them either. In a disater of that size there will be deaths. Some will be sad and maybe if they made better choices prevented but there will always be deaths. There are many more living to worry about.</p>
<p>It is not over, there is dysentary in Mississipi, kids who need schools, mosiquitos, people sleeping by the side of the road, heards of dead and dying cows rotting, desease, you have churches all over the country wanting to take in families, you have people to be buried, you have families to re-unite, you have jobs to be created, you have pregnat women, old people in wheelchairs, </p>
<p>barrons, where you going to school now…if you are…</p>
<p>barrons, watch the news, listen to the people calling into radio stations, and you have three </p>
<p>oh yeah, I forgot, you called it a cesspool of humanity before, so you really don’t care anyway, you have no compassion at all</p>
<p>As long as we are assigning blame, I’d like to lay a fair share on the doorstep of Tom Ridge. The current FEMA situation is further indication that he was an inept head of the new Homeland Security department. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a high level appointee who inspired less confidence.</p>
<p>And, on the subject of Monday Morning Quarterbacking: With the looting in New Orleans, I think it’s only fair that the pundits go back and cut the military a little slack for the breakdown of law and order in Baghdad following the fall of Saddam’s regime. Stopping the looting there was probably not as easy as the NYTimes said it should be.</p>
<p>It also seem to me that the ONLY organization that has managed to accomplish anything in New Orleans this week has been the US military. Once again, kudos the men and women who serve. Kudos also to the thousands of heroic private citizens and their rescue efforts, efforts that paid dividends in spite of FEMA and the state government.</p>
<p>The people in the trenches never get enough credit for the work they do- the volunteers, the police, the fire men, the service people</p>
<p>We need to look at the leadership</p>
<p>The blame starts at home with the Mayor and Gov. They had 100’s of not 1ooo-s of busses available to take out people Saturday–they sat. THEY had an easy way to avoid the entire situation–not that many would not have stayed anyway.</p>
<p><a href=“Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More”>Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More;
<p>"Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00</p>
<p>‘The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating’"</p>
<p>Republicans are planning an economic stimulus package that contains tax relief for victims…hmmm…no home, no job, no income but if I had income I wouldn’t have to pay as much in taxes…</p>
<p>Relief should come in the form of grants to help people rebuild housing, using as many displaced workers as possible.</p>
<p>Barrons I think that plan was superseded by the Republican sponsored Homeland security act…which centralized responibility with the Feds.</p>