Fema and Its Response to Hurricane Damage

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FEMA needs to have proper plans for disaster recovery relief in order to avoid wasteful spending and help people recover quickly. FEMA needs to coordinate with local governments and scrutinize situations to identify where relief is truly needed. The most important part of post hurricane relief is the housing issue. FEMA needs to have detailed plans for supporting people as they rebuild their houses, businesses, and factories. The process of damage inspection, estimation and billing needs to be done quickly.

FEMA needs to be streamlined in order to eliminate waste and perform efficiency. FEMA needs to change its structure. FEMA has 7,474 employees working all over the country at a head office and ten regional offices. However, according to a GAO report:

FEMA lacks a strategic workforce plan and related human capital strategies—such as a succession planning or a coordinated training effort—which are integral to managing resources. They enable an agency to define staffing levels, identify the critical skills needed to achieve its mission, and eliminate or mitigate gaps between current and future skills and competencies. FEMA also lacks business continuity plans for its day-to-day operations, which puts support for the disaster-relief mission at increased risk. Even FEMA staff’s strong sense of mission is no substitute for a plan and strategies for action. (“GAO”)

FEMA’s head office needs to decentralize, so regional offices will have more autonomy. FEMA needs to be responsible for what it does; it will have to change operation strategy in an efficiency way.

Another solution would be to start a new government agency to do what FEMA does. This new agency needs to be independent. FEMA is under the large department of Homeland Security. This means FEMA does not have agility. FEMA has to wait for a long chain of command from a higher level. FEMA needs clear leadership responsibility and accountability to facilitate its ability to respond to a natural disaster. “Several lawmakers, led by Senator Trent Lott, R-Miss., want to move FEMA out of the Homeland Security Department, re-establishing it as the independent agency that it was before 2003, when its new parent was created. The idea is supported by James Lee Witt, the previous director of FEMA, who is widely credited with making FEMA an effective agency during the Clinton administration” (USA Today).

There are many opinions that FEMA did a great job after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Housing inspectors assessed damages from Ike within 24 hours after the hurricane. According to FEMA’s website, “FEMA provided approximately $1.2 billion across the agency's three program areas to help residents, local governments and nonprofits recover. Approximately $280 million in FEMA's Individuals and Households Program funding has been provided for 83,494 individuals and families in Louisiana, including $220 million in housing assistance for rent, repairs and replacement housing, and $60 million in other needs assistance for such things as furniture, clothing and replacement vehicles” (“FEMA”). “FEMA continued to support Gulf Coast Hurricane victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by extending rental assistance up to 40,000 hurricane affected families and provided residents job training, and financial education, and other social services” (“FEMA”). FEMA sold its mobile homes and travel trailers to residents at fair and equitable prices.

Streamlining FEMA or starting a new government agency will cost a lot of money. The new agency will have to spend money for hiring new people, training new employees, leasing new office space, writing new manuals, designing new procedure and new paperwork. While the government has to spend millions for this process, who makes sure that after streamlining or starting a new government agency that it will work better?

I do not agree with the opinion that FEMA did a great job. FEMA did a bad job during Hurricane Katrina. That is “Nearly four years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, about 3,000 households remain in federally supplied trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi. Some of the trailers were found to have high levels of formaldehyde, a toxic chemical, and are being scrapped after residents complained of feeling sick after living in them” (Associated Press). According to Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, whose GOP presidential candidate's district includes Galveston, “FEMA is not a good friend of most people in Texas because they only come in and tell you what you can and can't do… they hinder the local people” (Grant). Texas leaders accused FEMA of insensitivity and being slow in delivering mobile homes to help residents in hard-hit areas of southeast Texas recovering from Hurricane Ike. And a state official said, “The lack of transitional housing has left residents living in tents and cars on their property. And when they complain, FEMA offers them a voucher for a motel room even though none are available in many areas” (Elliot). According to KHOU, “Almost two years after Hurricane Ike, hundreds of area residents still are living in mobile homes and hurricane-damaged houses awaiting assistance from a federal recovery program that has been delayed by changes, red tape and new rules” (Meyers, Rhiannon and Aulds, T.J.).

The inefficient operating cost of FEMA is more than the cost of streamlining FEMA or starting a new government agency. FEMA now has 7,474 employees working all over the country at a head office and ten regional offices. According to fiscal budget 2011 of the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA’s employees budget is $7,933 million (“DHS”). However, the government will annually save billions of dollars after streamlining FEMA or starting a new agency with about 5,000 quality employees instead of 7,474 poor employees. Besides reducing employee costs, FEMA or a new agency will save millions of taxpayer money by efficiently managing disaster relief.

Disasters are a threat to people as well as the economy. In order to help people recover quickly from disaster, it means that the economy need to recover too. FEMA plays an important role in disaster response and relief. FEMA must perform quickly and effectively.

The government can realize a substantial reduction in resources by streamlining FEMA with personnel more apttly suited to handle the new demands that FEMA will be facing.

Works Cited

Associated Press, “FEMA did not have a coordinated plan for more quickly getting people be back permanent housing.” Associated Press. Updated 7/8/2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2011.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31805213/ns/us_news-life/t/watchdog-fema-still-lacks-housing-plan/