Word: fema
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Suffering and losses may be eased this time because the Federal Emergency Management Agency is moving with uncharacteristic speed and vigor. From its creation 14 years ago right through Hurricane Andrew in Florida last summer, FEMA built a reputation for bumble-footed sluggishness. Democratic Senator Ernest Hollings once called its officials "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses." Under a new administrator, James Lee Witt, however, FEMA has moved quickly to set up offices in at least eight flooded states. Regional staffs actually went into some areas before flooding became serious to help state officials apply for disaster assistance. Witt...
Secretary Card is one of those who argue that it is FEMA, not the military, that needs to be doing a better job. "The military is not necessarily the best first response," he said. "But FEMA is much too bureaucratic. We need a more streamlined response that addresses people's concerns more than governmental concerns. People don't understand a DAC or an ERP, EST, DFOS. People at FEMA should be trained in the needs of victims so that if not empathy, they feel sympathy before they get here...
Faced by multiple simultaneous crises last week, the tiny federal agency and its 2,500 employees bristled at all the criticism over the Florida effort. "I can't tell you how much this annoys me," FEMA director Wallace Stickney wrote to employees in a memo last week praising them for a "great job." FEMA official Grant Peterson, sweat dripping from his brow after a visit to Capitol Hill, groused about the bad press. "We've got five disasters on our plate right now," he said. "If there is any morale problem here, it's because people are taking unfair shots...
...FEMA official, observing the magnitude of Hurricane Andrew's destructive force and the governmental disorder it caused, had an even gloomier thought. He wondered how Washington ever imagined FEMA could handle its ultimate disaster assignment: preserving the civilian government in a nuclear war. For FEMA, and indeed for the entire government, Andrew has provided an unwelcome lesson, one in humility...
...Building 11, the dingy former headquarters of Eastern Airlines at Miami International Airport, an alphabet soup of federal and state agencies went to work coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. EOC on Floor 2, FEMA on 3, JTF on 4. CAP, COE, DNR, DER, SBA, GSA, even the ubiquitous IRS. In the hallways, Army Rangers in combat camouflage crossed paths with Army engineers in red shirts, sleepy-eyed state emergency officials in rumpled clothes and even Marilyn Quayle in Bermuda shorts and a ponytail...