Katrina became FEMA's crucible, one that it did not quickly rise to meet. Female staff at several FEMA offices have complained of sexual harassment and even of workplace violence, but remedies to these complaints seem to come slowly, if at all. Fugate, the former head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, is an outgoing and down-to-earth individual who has gotten well-deserved high marks for his knowledge and experience with disasters. For example, FEMA could use government records and census data to pinpoint where vulnerable people live and get them money immediately after a disaster, says Beard, the former Port Arthur City Council member. FEMA Director Mike Brown was replaced by David Paulison, a former fire chief who many hoped would revitalize the agency. The Speights lived with the hole in the bedroom ceiling all winter through countless rainstorms, through February's deep freeze. She has lived with a hole in the bedroom ceiling for the better part of a year. 13. Meanwhile, he says residents of more affluent areas seem to be having more luck getting FEMA assistance. By the time Katrina arrived, New Orleans lay at an average of six feet below sea level, with some neighborhoods even lower than that. Willis says the homogeneity of FEMA's leadership makes it all but impossible for the agency to develop systems to distribute assistance equitably. The anniversary comes as the region is rocked by simultaneous disasters: COVID-19 cases are still high in Gulf states, and Hurricane Laura crashed into the Texas-Louisiana border early Thursday morning. FEMA's internal analyses also point to potential implicit bias built into the agency's decisions about who gets money after disasters and how much. But FEMA has never systematically tracked the race of aid applicants, which means the agency has never had concrete demographic data about who is receiving help. Paulison's deputy was Harvey Johnson, a Coast Guard officer who became famous in 2007 for his phony press conference in which FEMA employees posed as reporters asking Johnson questions in what was purported to be a news conference. (2006). "It affects the school system. Under the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA developed NIMS so that communities could create a "common, interoperable approach to sharing resources, coordinating and managing incidents, and communicating information." 10 This system was first implemented in 2004 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Donnie and Stephen Speight bought the land and the house 11 years ago after Stephen retired from his job as a pipe fitter at a local petrochemical plant. Deleted from the FEMA web site. But in the creation of what I like to refer to as an era, when almost everybody went to look at terrorism attacks, I was kind of looking around going, 'Last time I checked, hurricanes didn't stop.'". By then it was the wrong kind of icon: a symbol of FEMA's grinding, inept bureaucracy. A lot of us had done this before I myself had served on disaster activations for over ten years and we knew how the system worked. The area around their home is flat and marshy. Even with this vast expenditure, experts continue to question whether New Orleans is truly safe from the next big storm. Home inspectors, like anyone, bring all their biases and assumptions to the table when they're on the job. Several major contracting companies would supply the extra staff to make up for the shortage of FEMA employees. Richard Rainey. It generally led off with any hazardous weather warnings, then possibly a headline story about any impending or ongoing disaster and finally a summary of ongoing federal disaster operations in the field, if any. How would we make sure that we did not end up sending the same aid to one place three times while ignoring other places in need? The shriek of Katrina's 140 mph winds and rat-a-tat-tat of its driving, torrential rain left in its tumultuous wake a coast silenced by vast devastation. On Tuesday, within 24 hours of the storm's . 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Well, as any soldier can tell you, the middle of a battle is not when you want to start giving the troops their basic training, but Phil was there and I needed people, so I spent time with him showing him what was needed, going over his work with him and taking whatever time was needed to bring him up to speed. hide caption. These problems were not simply the failure of particular places or leaders to be ready for disas- I wish my former colleagues at FEMA the best. But who would coordinate the activities among all of these various centers so that the disaster response did not turn into a massive federal government traffic jam? During the Hurricane Ivan evacuation 600,000 people failed to evacute the city . And its budget was increased. 5,877 FEMA personnel have been deployed to the field, including: 1,811 National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) medical professionals, 1,777 Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) staff. The storm caused an estimated 159 deaths and tens of billions of dollars in damage in New York, New . The agency now recognizes that residents, business owners, local police, paramedics, firefighters are the best resources in the first minutes and hours of a disaster. As we began operations that Friday night for Hurricane Katrina, I don't think many of us at the NRCC were worried. Those who can prove they owned things that were destroyed, including homes, are able to get money. We need journalists who can hold those in power accountable, shine a light on injustices, and give voice to the voiceless. Our report once again seemed to fall on deaf ears. Many families have passed down homes for generations, and they no longer carry homeowners insurance because they don't have mortgages that require it. The Department of Health and Human Services might activate its disaster center to alert and deploy doctors and nurses to a disaster-stricken area if needed. Leo Bosner , T ruthout. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- FEMA -- was widely blamed for a lack of preparedness and an inadequate response. For example, in some minority communities, it is common for families to own homes together, as opposed to having one name on the deed. The outer ends of the hurricane also produced tornados . It was worse than they imagined. In particularly hard-hit areas, like the Lower Ninth Ward, the water reached depths of up to 15 feet, trapping many people in houses on roofs or in attics for days before they were rescued. Ryan Kellman/NPR We had just left the gallery and were discussing possible restaurants for a Friday night dinner when my FEMA pager buzzed. Brown would resign days after accepting his boss' praise. LockA locked padlock A few . It was not such a great deal for FEMA. Although New Orleans did not receive a direct hit from the storm, the levees protecting the city fell under . "So we're fortunate that President Obama has made it very clear that he'd rather err on getting there and not being needed than not being there at all. With the influx of Coast Guard officers, along with uniformed officers from various branches of the military, experienced disaster managers at FEMA found themselves pushed into the background, and many of them simply left the agency in disgust. Timothy Dominique, 62, lives in a donated RV parked next door to the family home where he was staying when Hurricane Laura hit Lake Charles last year. Jeb Bush, instead pumped federal funding into Florida's emergency management programs. hide caption. But as the Katrina tragedy played out in the coming days and weeks, I would come to realize just how badly my agency, FEMA, had been hollowed out in the preceding four years and how much we had lost in that short span of time. In documents released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, FEMA appears to have mismanaged offers of supplies and personnel from other agencies. We worked through the night, and at 5:30 AM Saturday, August 27, we sent out our morning NSR to all the agency heads, including the heads of FEMA and DHS. A FEMA update e-mail sent 3 days after the storm says, "All assets have ceased operations until National Guard can assist (task forces) with security. "I call it exporting the poor," Fugate says. For example, as I came on duty one night I was approached by a young man I'll call Phil. Phil introduced himself, said he worked for the XXX company that was supporting FEMA in the disaster response and that he would be assigned to work for me. After striding among piles of broken drywall, soggy carpets, and mud-stained sideboards on a sun-drenched street in Zachary early this week, PresidentBarack Obama did to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate whatGeorge W. Bush did 11 years ago to his own disaster chief, Michael Brown, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. An additional 12,730 Active Duty military personnel have also been deployed. Many survivors of climate-driven disasters, including hurricanes, floods and wildfires, struggle for months or even years to repair their homes or find new stable housing. Fugate seems sincere and knowledgeable and if he does not have the close-to-the-president kind of power that Witt had, I nonetheless believe he is clearly capable of leading the agency. "We know there are structural inequities within the system of how FEMA does business their programs, their policies, their funding. "You know, I've heard the term climate refugees," says Craig Fugate, who led FEMA between 2009 and 2017. FEMA might as well have awarded nothing for the roof repair, Donnie Speight says, for all the good it did. Yeah, there are some crazy people out there doing stupid stuff, but we shouldn't use that to then frame the whole thing as 'We shouldn't have engaged the public because there's risk.' She says he'd been sick for a long time. If it didn't, the Watch Officer's phone would soon start to ring with callers from Homeland Security, the Defense Department, and other agencies asking: Where is the NSR? FEMA now acknowledges it may not be serving everyone equally after disasters, although it has not said how it plans to address the disparities beyond studying them more. "And so, when you look at 9/11, nobody questioned FEMA's response, from deployment of the Urban Search and Rescue Teams to the recovery. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Ryan Kellman/NPR "For years, FEMA defended its programs. Get daily news, in-depth reporting and critical analysis from the journalists, activists and thinkers who are working to improve our world.. We're almost out of time to raise the $5,000 we need for groundbreaking reporting the kind that challenges the forces that prop up capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, nationalism, and all oppressive structures. ", On page 21, a specific example--law enforcement--illustrates the lack of coordination: "Although DOI has 4,400 law enforcement officersDOI was not called upon to assist under the NRP (National Response Plan) until late September. 1. Stephen's nickname at work was "Termite" because he was agile enough to crawl into pipes when he was younger. In Puerto Rico, the Category 4 Hurricane Maria knocked out communications and left more than 3.5 million residents without power for months while FEMA scrambled to provide food and water and . Climate court cases are about to get a lot more interesting. Yet later investigations revealed that some of the citys levees failed even at water levels far below what they had been built to withstand. WATCH: Cities of the Underworld: Hurricane Katrina on HISTORY Vault. (Photo by Susan Walsh, The Associated . But Bush's words in early September 2005, spoken from an airplane hangar in Mobile, Ala. -- "And Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" -- became a sarcastic catchphrase for FEMA's botched response to the costliest hurricane ever to hit the Gulf Coast. The poorest homeowners received about half as much to rebuild their homes compared with higher-income homeowners disparities that researchers say cannot be explained by relative repair costs. FEMA analysts found that the agency was twice as likely to deny assistance to lower-income disaster survivors because of insufficient storm damage to their home. And Its budget was increased. Tennessee 100 Aug 27, 2016 Updated Jul 7, 2021. Ryan Kellman/NPR As the disaster unfolded, it was unclear who was in charge of which things at the federal level the FCO or the PFO. Almost everything coming out of FEMA seemed to be aimed at standing by, getting ready, and the like. Their effects on economic activity and employment in damaged areas varied widely. In the twenty-six years before Katrina, it has been charged with providing temporary housing to . As Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma successively lashed the gulf coast starting in late August 2005, nature's fury exposed serious weaknesses in the United States' emergency response capabilities. The letter, written by Interior Assistant Secretary P. Lynn Scarlett, recounted how different agencies in the department prepared and responded to Hurricane Katrina. hide caption. After the emergency of Hurricane Katrina, secondary responders did a lot of work to help the affected populations. (Lyons Press, 2017), which chronicles some of history's most famous disappearances. (Task forces) are running low on food and waterwe don't have information on when (provisions) will be available. I was not going to wake up exhausted rescuers in the middle of the night just to get some numbers for a speechwriter. Please give what you can to support Truthout today! To reflect on what we have and haven't learned since Katrina, Southerly spoke to retired Lieutenant General Russel Honor, the . FEMA does not take savings or income into account when it decides how much housing assistance to award a disaster survivor. Ryan Kellman/NPR FEMA did not respond to questions about the racial demographics of inspectors or about the disproportionate number of white supervisors at the agency. Hurricane Katrina not only devastated the city of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast of the U.S., it initiated a bitter debate about the leadership or lack . The agency did not respond to follow-up questions about its analyses, including whether it has completed additional income-based analyses since 2019. He says many Black homeowners have struggled to get the federal help they need to repair homes after hurricanes and floods. Many of the FEMA staff like myself had worked at FEMA during our glory days of the 1990s, when FEMA was renowned as a fast, effective agency responding to disasters. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, by D. Brinkley, HarperCollins Books, 2006. Poor emergency planning led to the massive destruction . When someone applies for money, FEMA sends inspectors to verify that the damage was caused by the disaster. But as we were soon to learn, that type of person was now in very short supply. Victims are encouraged to register on-line due to the possibility of high call volume. Photographed on September 11, 2005, more than two weeks after the storm hit. FEMA has existed since 1979. More than 1,800 people died. for only $11.00 $9.35/page. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune). One way to achieve a new version of fairness one that's based more on equal outcomes would be for FEMA to ensure proactively that vulnerable people have stable housing after disasters, rather than relying on survivors to prove eligibility. They were only supposed to be in place for up to 18 months. The director of FEMA at the time, Joe Allbaugh, ordered an examination of the possibility of a hurricane hitting the city that year (USC Annenberg 2005). In 2016, that budget was $13.9 billion. "I got arthritis like crazy. Fears about flooding go all the way back to the founding of New Orleans on land in 1717, by the French-Canadian explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville. Ten months after Hurricane Laura, Donnie Speight is trying to hold together the pieces of her life. When FEMA was still an independent agency, it responded to disasters under the Federal Response Plan, the FRP. The FRP had clear lines of authority and specified exactly what was to be done in a disaster. It is unclear whether this disparity is also present among the agency's home inspectors. They didn't have the money to fix the damage. Indeed, FEMA's own analyses show that low-income homeowners receive less repair assistance. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Now that he had been trained, his company had shifted Phil to another work site. FEMA was about twice as likely to deny housing assistance to lower-income disaster survivors because the agency judged the damage to their home to be "insufficient.". "It's inequitable by definition and design," Beard says. hide caption. 1 of 17. It was given more autonomy within DHS to manage a response to a disaster. However, during Paulison's tenure as head of FEMA, the agency continued its downhill slide: The message from these incidents was clear to all of us: FEMA's mission was first and foremost PR; emergency management was a distant second, if that. We have just hours left to raise $5,000 we need all our friends to help us reach this goal. ", One outward sign of FEMA's new approach are the temporary homes it plans to deploy in the 20 parishes drenched in the August floods. Even worse, FEMA was now operating under DHS, so instead of getting our orders from the seasoned disaster veterans like Witt or Lacy Suiter, who had run FEMA in the 1990s, our orders now came from managers at DHS who had no experience in disasters. Low-income disaster survivors are less likely to receive some type of crucial housing assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. St. Bernard Parish and swaths of the North Shore were swamped and flattened. At 5 a.m., an hour before the . During the Katrina disaster, President George W. Bush told . That requirement might seem basic to members of white FEMA staff, Willis says, but a more racially diverse group would be more likely to understand that the policy could lead to lopsided outcomes. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune), A worker cleans out the flood damaged home of Frank and Florence Rendine in Albany on Saturday, August 20, 2016. We let everyone know that Katrina had strengthened, that it was expected to get stronger still and that it was headed north through the Gulf of Mexico headed straight for the Gulf Coast. A small air conditioner (right) provides some relief from the Louisiana heat after the home's main AC unit was destroyed. hide caption. It affects just everyday activities throughout the city." By most accounts, Fugate has steered a seamless federal response to the Louisiana flood of 2016, earning Obama's plaudits but also praise from local officials and residents who say the agency has responded quickly to immediate needs. It was my day off from duty as a Watch Officer at FEMA's National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) and my wife and I had gone to see a show of Japanese prints at an art gallery near Dupont Circle. Published: August 27, 2020. But was it really FEMA's failure? FEMA says it is actively looking for feedback from local officials about how to make its disaster response more fair and reviewing its overall approach to disaster aid, including the application process. The only thing was, he had never done this type of work before, so could I please show him the ropes and explain what was needed? Every day without stable shelter makes it more likely that the blow dealt by the storm will unleash a cascade of problems. "We got through Katrina. After the state supreme court struck down an abortion ban, legislators chose a man to replace its only female justice. "We have staff that come from communities all across the nation with varying cultural and demographic backgrounds. We did our best for the victims of Katrina, but it was not nearly good enough and it was not what they, or America, deserved from their government. New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin is facing criticism over the evacuation of citizens before Hurricane Katrina struck. In 2006, when DHS decreed that hurricanes can be accurately predicted a full week in advance (they can't), Paulison went along with DHS plans to spend our time training on all the things we should do during the week before the hurricane hits a little like planning all the things you should do the week before you are hit by a car while crossing the street. FEMA's failures are particularly worrisome because the agency leads the federal government's response to climate change impacts, they say. Normal NRCC staffing was just three people: a Watch Officer like myself, usually a long-time FEMA employee who knew the agency and understood what would be needed in a disaster; and two Watch Analysts, computer-savvy specialists who monitored news and weather outlets worldwide as well as reports from FEMA staff in the Regional Offices across the country to prepare situation reports for the higher-ups at FEMA and other federal agencies. Mississippi 16,000 The concept was this: In a major disaster, federal agencies across the Washington area would begin activating their disaster centers to manage their own particular roles in the response. Though thousands of New Orleanians evacuated in the days leading up to Katrina, around 100,000 people remained in the city. But more subtly it is a refashioned attitude at FEMA -- what Obama called a "change of culture" -- that has improved its ability to respond, Fugate said. The exercise also did not account for the inadequate response of the federal government and the slow response of FEMA. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune), Florence Rendine , right, looks over her insurance papers with her husband, Frank, left, in their flood damaged home in Albany on Saturday, August 20, 2016. Its 150-mph winds caused serious damage to the Speights' mobile home. While some experienced disaster managers have indeed been brought into the agency, Fugate's management team still appears to be weighed down by less-than-stellar executives left over from the Bush administration, and Fugate himself has at times seemed reluctant to address FEMA's internal problems head-on. For starters, FEMA under DHS had been forced to throw away its clear, workable disaster response plans in favor of a confusing set of plans that no one understood. With faint understanding of the city's topography, Brown and FEMA's top brass weren't aware of the magnitude of the flood. At 7 AM Saturday, we handed things off to the day shift and went home to get some sleep, all of us thinking that the wheels would begin to roll now that we had issued our warning. I've watched it happen after hurricanes. But responders failed to convert this information into a level of preparation appropriate with the scope of the impending disaster.
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