Word: fema
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President George Bush indicated that he had already learned at least half the lesson. His decision to send Secretary of Transportation Andrew Card to Florida to mastermind relief efforts suggested that even he didn't think FEMA was up to the job. Florida's senior Senator urges a rethinking of military involvement. "In the post-cold war era, this could be an important new function for the military," says Democrat Bob Graham, "not something done after hours, but as an ongoing significant part of the military task...
...agreement should make military mobilization automatic when a hurricane kicks into a category 4 or 5 with winds over 130 mph. Governor Lawton Chiles incorrectly thought the disaster declaration, signed by Bush on the day of the storm, was the same as a request for military help. Nobody at FEMA advised him otherwise or nudged the White House when the reality of the damage finally sank in. "I don't think it's wise to declare martial law," says Fascell, "but when we know we have a catastrophe headed our way, we should have a highly visible disaster czar with...
Certainly not FEMA. Established by Jimmy Carter to coordinate the relief efforts of 27 federal agencies and the Red Cross, it was never meant to be a disaster-response team. One scathing congressional report notes that the agency is widely viewed as a political dumping ground, "a turkey farm if you will." Bush left the agency politically orphaned when he failed to appoint a new director for almost a year after his 1988 election. During that time survivors of Hurricane Hugo and the San Francisco earthquake blasted the agency for arriving late and gumming up assistance efforts with red tape...
...FEMA has handled 160 disaster missions in the past five years. When it functions like an insurance agency, doling out grants up to $11,500 for hard- up families, it works marvels. But at the moment of crisis, the agency sometimes lacks even common sense. A relocation-assistance center for migrant workers, for instance, was first based at Miami airport, miles from the poor workers down in Homestead. FEMA's temporary relief centers along the roadways of south Dade are labeled simply DAC: nothing else, no clue to the befuddled homeowner that these are disaster assistance centers...
...come. "They document you to death. You have to document every nail on every roof," says Councilwoman Lombard sourly. "We had 600 miles of ditch to be cleaned. To document it, we had to walk it. Dade's got 200 miles of canals. Rest assured that FEMA will make them swim it to document it." Though Bush promised total reimbursement for storm cleanup efforts, the island city of Key Biscayne is already % squabbling with FEMA about reimbursement for early debris removal...