The F' in FEMA
Tribune Media ServicesThe following editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday, Sept. 16:
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Natural disasters like Hurricane Ike, which slammed into the Houston area Friday, cause all sorts of unexpected challenges. The need to bring ice, food and potable water to survivors isn't among them.
Yet on Sunday _ 36 hours after Ike blew through and three years after Hurricane Katrina supposedly prompted a major reorganization of the Federal Emergency Management Agency _ residents of the nation's fourth-largest city were waiting in vain for promised federal relief. Does the "F" in FEMA stand for "feeble"?
U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, complained Sunday that police and fire crews were out of food and water.
While more than a million people were without power and utility spokesmen were saying it would be weeks or months before storm damage was completely repaired, Culberson said AT&T repair crews sat idle because they were out of fuel.
When state and local officials publicly complained, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff held a news conference to blame those delays on bad weather and those same state and local officials. "The federal government is leaning forward as far as it can" to provide assistance, he said.
Chertoff said FEMA had been hobbled when state officials handed his agency the "unexpected challenge" of preparing distribution points for the food, water and ice.
State officials said Sunday that they'd been surprised to learn that distribution was supposed to be their responsibility. "If I could have known something 18 hours ago, we could have made plans to pick up something a lot quicker," said Houston Mayor Bill White.
By Monday morning, distribution centers were open and supplies were being handed out. But the inexcusable delay is clear evidence of yet another planning failure by FEMA.
Adequate preparation means resolving questions about where the supplies will come from and how they'll be distributed before the storm hits. Waiting until later means prolonging the suffering of survivors.
Overseeing emergency preparations a for natural disaster _ even those as serious as hurricanes Katrina and Ike _ probably is far less demanding than responding to a bioterror attack or pandemic illness, in which there are no forecasters to give advance warning and no playbook of past disasters to follow. FEMA's continued failures leave no doubt that the agency is unprepared to step up when called upon in a national emergency.
Congress should hold hearings on the agency's readiness as quickly as possible. When disaster strikes, citizens have a right to expect assistance, not excuses.
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(c) 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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