In Defense

The media, and the blog, has been full of finger pointing, handwringing and trenchant commentary concerning the “failure” of FEMA to save the people of New York and New Jersey when Sandy came to visit. The commentators all complain that the feds didn’t plan for this response, failed to respond in a timely fashion, took too long to get on scene, couldn’t keep the water out and didn’t get the electricity turned back on in a timely fashion.

Although I realize FEMA has many shortcomings I have to stand in defense of an agency that I work for on a part time basis. Yes, I said part time since about 85% of the people on the FEMA rolls are Reservists who commit to being available on little or no notice when disaster strikes. They have myriad skills and bring lots talent to the table, but it takes time to gather several thousand people from around the country, provide them with physical space to work from at a multitude of locations scattered around the disaster area. And FEMA has to do this while working around the failures and mistakes  caused by local politicians who ignored their constituents and their emergency planners who pointed out the dangers of failure to plan for disaster.

Just as the New Orleans flooding was initiated by the failure of a local levee whose repair had been urged for decades and whose repair was ignored by the local politicians who had “more important places to spend their money”. The tidal surge flooding caused by Sandy was made worse by the failure of politicians to heed warnings by professional staff, both local and federal, that extreme weather conditions would cause flooding. Sea walls were not raised, people were not urged to get flood insurance and infrastructure was not protected. FEMA doesn’t operate the electrical grid or run the subway and while it can tell the operators of those things the public depends on of steps necessary to protect the system it does not have the power to force people and institutions to provide for their own protection.

FEMA is there to help you plan for disaster, but only if you want their help, they are also charged with providing assistance to those who have been injured by the disaster. The can not make you whole, they can only help you get back to the position you were in the day before the disaster.  But they can’t respond until requested by the authorities at local and state level and that takes time before FEMA can legally enter the scene, those reservists don’t appear out of nowhere, they have to be found by skill set and directed to travel to the disaster site. FEMA can "lean forward" but util the signal is given they can't be there in full force.

So whose fault is it that “FEMA was slow to respond”, it’s all our fault. It’s the fault of residents for depending on someone else to think and plan and to protect them from their own failure to consider their environment and plan for survival. It’s the failure of local utilities for keep their assets resilient and protected. It’s the failure of politicians at all levels of government to ignore potential disaster and to short change and defund the very people they blame when things go wrong. And it’s your and my fault for letting it happen.