Published in the October 2005 Mountain Monthly

Good Government Doesn't Make Headlines

 

Criticisms of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have been

headline news since its uncoordinated and lethal response to Hurricane

Katrina. Seems like the agency is living proof that the federal

government is the source of all our problems and is so incompetent it

can't organize a two-car parade.

 

I say the problem isn't government in general, but Republican control

of government. FEMA was founded in 1979 and suffered under 12

political appointees, 8 of them Reagan/Bush appointees, between April

1979 and April 1993. In Washington, the common joke became that every

storm brought two disasters: one when the hurricane arrived and the

second when FEMA arrived.

 

When Bill Clinton was campaigning in 1992 he visited the Florida to

observe the damage caused by Hurricane Andrew. In his book, "My Life,"

he writes, "I was surprised to hear complaints from both local

officials and residents about how [FEMA] was handling the aftermath of

the hurricane. Traditionally, the job of FEMA director was given to a

political supporter of the President who wanted some plum position but

who had had no experience with emergencies. I made a mental note to

avoid that mistake if I won."

 

He did win, and he appointed the first competent director of FEMA,

James Lee Witt. Witt grew up in Arkansas, completed high school and

then built up a successful construction company, and at age 33 was

elected County Judge of Yell County for six terms. Governor Clinton

put him in charge of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services in

1988.

 

President Clinton appointed Witt as FEMA director in 1993. Witt turned

the agency around. During his eight-year term he handled government

response to something like 350 declared disasters, including a dozen

serious hurricanes, the 1993 Mississippi flood and the 1994 Los Angeles

earthquake. Witt's biggest change was to get FEMA to focus on reducing

risks ahead of disasters and to fund local prevention programs. In one

Illinois town 400 people applied for aid after that 1993 flood, but

with proper prevention planning supervised by Witt, only 11 needed to

apply when the river flooded again in 1995. This kind of success story

doesn't make headlines.

 

In 1996 FEMA received the Innovations in American Government award from

the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (not

newsworthy, no headlines here). Witt reduced the time it took to get

checks to disaster victims from 30 days to 7 (no headlines, but this

made a lot of difference to the grateful recipients). Because of the

reinforcement of buildings under Project Impact (initiated in 1997,

cost $20 million), the 2001 Nisqually earthquake was a non-event in the

Puget Sound area and in western Washington. That very day newly elected

President Bush announced that Project Impact would be discontinued.

 

It seems weird that Bush praised Witt in his first presidential debate

with Al Gore:

 

"I have to pay the administration a compliment. James Lee Witt of FEMA

has done a really good job of working with governors during times of

crisis."

 

But when he was elected he turned around and replaced Witt with

Allbaugh and then Brown, both "eddicated" political hacks with law

degrees and no disaster management experience.

 

In April 2001 the Bush administration announced that it planned to

privatize much of FEMA's work (that's what he wants to do with Social

Security too, remember).  The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001

became the excuse for downgrading the agency from a cabinet-level

position and folding it into the Department of Homeland Security. By

2003 FEMA's preparation and planning functions had been reassigned to

something called the Office of Preparedness and Response. 

 

In the summer of 2004 FEMA, by now just about returned to its pre-Witt

condition, denied Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding

requests.  Tom Rodrigue, Jefferson Parish flood zone manager, said "You

would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the

grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it." It also

slashed The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in

New Orleans. In 2005 the Corps budget was again slashed by a record

$71.2 Million. But after Hurricane Katrina Congress appropriated $51

Billion for disaster cleanup. Administration officials say no one

could have predicted Katrina, but those denied budget requests were

based on disaster predictions.

 

And President Bush has ignored other disaster predictions. In early

2001, FEMA listed a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the

three most serious threats to the nation. The other two were, get this,

a TERRORIST ATTACK IN NEW YORK CITY and a large earthquake hitting San

Francisco.

 

Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke tried to get President Bush to

focus on the terrorist attack threat. CIA Director George Tenet did

too. So it seems to me that the Bush administration has struck out not

once, but twice. The result has been lots of headlines (and don't

forget that 9/11 led to the invasion of Iraq and many more headlines).

 

Peace and prosperity may be boring, but I prefer a government that is

boring to one that stumbles from crisis to crisis, creating headlines

and photo ops for politicians and much preventable suffering for those

governed.