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Originally Posted by Poppinjay
I've only lived here two months. I developed an appreciation for FEMA from living for years in Hurricane Alley on the southeast coast.
And I don't work for the federal government.
As far as offering just my opinion, look at the OP. The data is that people are being abused by a system that is supposed to help. This is an agency that has done great things in the past. All I can offer for data on that is the dead bodies that DIDN'T exist after Hugo, Floyd, David, Isabelle...
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I look at the net results. When you add up the good things FEMA has done and subtract the bad things the net result is bad.
Overtime what happens is that people become more and more reliant on the agency as opposed to taking initiative and advance preparation. The first disaster FEMA responded to was like a godsend, because no one had expectations and they were happy with the added assistance. The second time people saw what FEMA did and thought o.k. we have that part taken care of, then FEMA steps in and does a good job. Then the third time, people say o.k. FEMA is really good we will rely on them even more. So everyone starts "building a house of cards" with higher and higher expectations of FEMA while taking less and less initiative and advance planning. The house of cards finally fell, at the cost of thousands of lives who may have been saved if people were not sitting around thinking FEMA was going to save the day.
I believe the original intent of FEMA was to dole out money, and not handle initial response. With Katrina, everyone got to the point of thinking that FEMA was going to come in and solve every issue. They did not have the capacity to do that. And shame on us for thinking they should or could.
When you have a remote government agency responsible for those things that should be planned for and handled locally you end up with what happened after Katrina, a disaster after the disaster. It is time for people to stop waiting for the federal government to come in a save the day.
Do you think it is possible for a federal agency to be able to provide initial response for every possible natural disaster in this country? What role do you think local planners should play? How big would FEMA have to be to coordinate with the disaster recovery plans of every city in the country for initial response? What role should state governments play? You already know how I would answer these questions, but I am not clear on where you would want to go with FEMA.