FEMA Chief Promises New, Improved Disaster Response

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Homeland security

September 2007

By Stew Magnuson

Two years ago this month, Hurricane Katrina made landfall, destroying both the Gulf Coast and the reputation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency when it failed to carry out its mission of coordinating disaster relief.

The Department of Homeland Security agency since then has been the butt of jokes on late night talk shows, a punching bag on Capitol Hill and the “most ridiculed agency in government,” according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Revamping FEMA has been the responsibility of its administrator, R. David Paulison, who took over the agency in the weeks following Katrina.

“FEMA is a new organization,” Paulison told National Defense. “I hate to say this, but it’s almost like you’re going to have to have a major event to show that we have changed.”

Key to restoring its reputation will be the timely delivery of emergency supplies to victims of natural or man-made disasters.

When Katrina struck, “there was no tracking system in place. Once the truck left the warehouses, they were just lost as far as we were concerned,” he said. Trucks carrying meals ready to eat, medical supplies, water and ice showed up at the wrong places and the wrong time.

Congress and the Bush administration, both of whom critics said failed to adequately fund the agency after 9/11 and then buried it in layers of bureaucracy within the Department of Homeland Security, have now boosted FEMA’s budget and passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 to set the agency straight.

It has used these funds to purchase 20,000 global positioning system units to track trailers carrying commodities on a giant screen at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, Paulison said. FEMA is attempting to take supply-chain management principles — common in the private sector — and apply them to the agency, which was still using paper maps to track supplies in September 2005, he added.

The Defense Logistics Agency has lent its time and personnel to help FEMA improve the new commodity tracking system. It also hired away one of the DLA’s top officers to lead its efforts.

Next will be adding “third-party logistics” into the mix, Paulison said. “Instead of doing everything ourselves, let’s use systems that are out there” such as UPS, FedEx and large trucking companies, he said. “That’s where we’re heading.”

“We should have enough for an initial surge, but then have the private sector move it with the second, third, fourth day deliveries,” he said.

DHS Deputy Inspector General Matt Jadacki told Waxman’s committee in a hearing that FEMA is making improvements in its commodity tracking system, but whether it will achieve the goal of delivering 100 percent of requirements within 72 hours is “untested.” His office is reviewing the improvements.

“It is essential that FEMA possess the capability to track assets real-time, across federal, state and local organizations,” Jadacki said.

Along with getting commodities in the right place at the right time, Paulison said the next catastrophe will see more FEMA personnel on the ground.

For the first time, 95 percent of its positions are filled. At the time of Katrina, 500 of its allotted 2,400 slots were unfilled and only three of the 10 regional directors were in place. Another 500 quit after the 2005 hurricane season.

Paulison said he cut down on the amount of bureaucracy that slowed down the hiring process. Regional directors can hire directly without having to go through headquarters. The agency is reaching out to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, recruiting at job fairs and ensuring candidates receive job offers as soon as they are put on the qualified list. Before, applications languished on desks for weeks or months.

“One of the things that let us down in Katrina and [Hurricane] Rita was not having the right people with the right type of experience managing the organization,” Paulison said. While some of the regional directors are political appointees, all have 25 to 30 years of disaster response experience, he said.

Paulison’s predecessor, Mike Brown, resigned in the aftermath of Katrina, was accused of botching the federal response to Katrina and of being unqualified for the job.

Paulison would like to see the agency’s ranks increase.

“Everybody understands that FEMA is not big enough to do what the public expects us to do and we have to increase the size of the organization,” he added.

Communications interoperability between FEMA, local first responders, the National Guard and non-governmental organizations such as the Red Cross has also improved, although there is still work to be done, Paulison said.

FEMA used some of its new communications equipment after a tornado struck Greensburg, Kansas, in May. Although not a large-scale catastrophe, FEMA had personnel on hand within hours, and it set up a temporary cellular phone system, repeaters and land mobile radios for first responders, he said. The agency has purchased satellite radios and small trucks with communication gear that can be transported by air.

House members at the committee and DHS’ inspector general office do not share Paulison’s optimism on the new, improved FEMA.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, asked Jadacki point blank if the nation is prepared for the next catastrophe.

“We’re better prepared than we were two years ago,” Jadacki said, “but we’re not there yet.”

“We’re not there yet, in hundreds of areas — acquisitions, pre-positioning supplies, logistics, the national response plan, staffing, state communication and coordination — I think there are issues to be resolved in all those areas and more,” he said.

Paulison said that more work is needed in the area of computer modeling of disasters. Knowing in advance how a catastrophic event will affect an area will help FEMA better plan for the response.

He is also seeking new ways to house victims. Mobile homes and travel trailers are imperfect solutions, he said. The agency came under fire in July for housing Katrina survivors in trailers containing formaldehyde fumes.

“There’s got to be another answer out there and I don’t know what it is,” Paulison said. “Those things are not designed to be lived in very long and now we’ve had people from Katrina and Rita in these things almost two years. It’s too long.”

The agency has distributed $400 million in state grants to fund pilot programs looking at alternative housing.

There are hotels and apartments in big cities, but those are rarely alternatives in small towns such as Greensburg. The alternative is to set up trailer parks. “And that’s not something we want to do,” Paulison said.

Meanwhile, FEMA will just have to wait for an opportunity to restore its reputation.

“Once you’re down, it’s hard to get back up at least in the public’s eye. We’re just going to have to perform,” he said.

Please email your comments to SMagnuson@ndia.org