The FEMA Phoenix : reform of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
By Daniel Franklin (Washington Monthly, July/August 1995)
Rarely had the failure of the federal government been so apparent and so acute. On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew leveled a 50-mile swath across southern Florida, leaving nearly 200,000 residents homeless and 1.3 million without electricity. Food, clean water, shelter, and medical assistance were scarce. Yet, for the first three days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for coordinating federal disaster relief, was nowhere to be found. And when FEMA did finally arrive, its incompetence further delayed relief efforts. Food and water distribution centers couldn't meet the overwhelming need; lines literally stretched for miles. Mobile hospitals arrived late. In everything it did, FEMA appeared to live up to the description once given to it by South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings: "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I've ever known."
Fast forward one year to the summer of 1993: Weeks of unrelenting rainfall had driven the level of the Mississippi River and its tributaries far beyond the previous records. Every county in the state of Iowa was declared a federal disaster area, as were portions of eight other states in the river basin. But this time, FEMA's response earned nothing but praise. The agency met the needs of the flood victims quickly and with few of its trademark bureaucratic tangles. Said Congressman Norman Mineta, then chair of the committee that oversees the agency, "FEMA has delivered finally on its promise to stand with the American people when floods or hurricanes or earthquakes devastate their communities."
How FEMA transformed itself from what many considered to be the worst federal agency (no small distinction) to among the best is the most dramatic success story of the federal government in recent years. Not only does it provide further evidence that the government can work, it offers a blueprint for what it takes: strong leadership, energetic oversight, and, most importantly, a total reevaluation of its mission.
With a budget of less than $1 billion and only 2,800 employees, the relatively small agency has an enormous and vital role. Few areas provide such a clear case for federal involvement as does disaster relief. State and local governments simply do not have the resources to cope with natural catastrophes like the flood of 1993 or Hurricane Andrew.
But after a string of natural catastrophes to which FEMA's response was, well, catastrophic, people began to wonder whether the feds really did have a role in disaster response. When FEMA bungled its relief efforts after the 1990 Loma Prieta, California earthquake, Congressman Mineta concluded that FEMA "could screw up a two-car parade." In the wake of Hurricane Andrew, the criticisms were even more pointed. The Wall Street Journal ran a front page article that quoted a range of disaster specialists who thought that the agency was more trouble than it was worth; it would be better, they maintained, to dissolve the agency entirely than to try to reform it.
One of the most maddening problems with FEMA, the critics said, was the constant bureaucratic delay. FEMA workers would routinely hold up vital aid requests because the proper forms were not filled out or certain signatures had not been included. "If we had asked for a certain resource this way we could have gotten it," said Kate Hale, director of the Dade County Emergency Services of her experience after Hurricane Andrew, "but FEMA would say that we hadn't framed the question properly.... FEMA's employees appeared to be terrified at making a mistake, so they'd rather do nothing than make a mistake because a mistake could cost them their career." (…)
The true judge of FEMA's success lies not in the praise of Congress, though, but in the minds of the victims of natural disasters. Last year, FEMA sent 5,000 surveys to victims to ask them about the agency's performance. More than 80 percent of the respondents approved of the way the agency was doing its job--a percentage that would have been unthinkable in the dark days following Hurricane Andrew just one year before.
To be sure, Witt deserves ample praise, but do not miss the lesson of FEMA's rebirth. The change he brought to FEMA is to varying degrees within the capabilities of any government agency or department with strong leadership. "It is absolutely critical that you look ... at your role and mission," he says, "and redefine that role and mission to what you feel is important for that agency to be responsible for." In other words, you can't expect to do a good job unless you know what job you're trying to do.
(Washington Monthly is a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of United States politics and government that is based in Washington, D.C – Wikipedia)