Federal Emergency Management Agency Directors performances in major U.S. Crisis
- James Lee Witt remarkable performance during the Northridge earthquake
James Lee Witt is a former FEMA director that served between the years 1993 to 2001. He has in the current day been named as the leader of the Rebuild North Bay which is a non-profit organisation that helps to deal with the recovery of wild fires within that region because of his remarkable work back in FEMA. Witt is the most renowned director of FEMA that was able to successfully respond to more 350 disasters within 50 states during his term in FEMA (Gordon & Emerson, 2010). He has over the years been appreciated because of transforming FEMA from a lacklustre bureaucracy to an agency that effectively manages disasters. Witt built closer ties with the employees, the state, the local officials, voluntary organizations and private companies among others which helped change FEMA’s legacy.
In the three decades that Witt worked with FEMA, he was able to manage major disasters including; The Indian Ocean earthquake and the Northridge earthquake among many others. The most remarkable disaster response for Witt is the magnitude 6.7 Northridge Earthquake that rattled the valley of Los Angeles. The event led to the death of 60 people while 9,000 others were injured, there were damages of about $40 billion which is the most costly disaster that has ever been experienced in U.S (Gordon & Emerson, 2010).
Witt effectively responded to the disaster in an immediate and extensive way. The first thing that Witt did was open up more disaster registration centre which added up to 11 centres and 1800 more workers were recruited to help with the registration of the victims. The workers that were recruited included members of the congress and their staff who were involved in the outreach programs (Kamel & Loukaitou-Sideris, 2004). This was very effective because it helped to understand the extent of the damages that was reported by the outreach teams and potentially volatile catastrophe was diffused something that saw Witt get highly rated for his work. A recovery channel was also opened up through a satellite that was linked up to over 100 cable television stations where people would follow up on the things that were going on in the rescue mission (Corrêa d’Almeida & Klingner, 2008).
The other important element that was applied by Witt in this catastrophe was that he ensured that he made daily briefings on the progress of the rescue in the created channel which was very helpful in keeping the residents informed and it also helped to show the support and the involvement of the agency during the disaster. The briefings worked effectively in helping to get more help from the members of public in other regions in terms of work force and also donations; that were needed by the victims and this helped to reduce the time taken to complete the rescue mission.
When it comes to language barrier, Witt ensured that in every rescue station, there were agents that could speak several languages on the hotlines which greatly helped in answering of the queries that were brought forward by the members of the public in regard to the disaster (Kamel & Loukaitou-Sideris, 2004). Witt ensured that the selected outreach team was effectively trained on matters of effective communication skills which enabled them to effectively communicate with victims as well as the other selected local officials.
Three months after the disaster Witt requested that the FEMA workers work seven days every week in order for them to process the aid requests for over 500,000 victims. To help get the aids to victims, the agency used zip codes map which helped to analyse the victims that really needed the grants and to ensure that there was no fraud in the process (Corrêa d’Almeida & Klingner, 2008). This worked effectively and shortly after the agency gave grants to the displaced families where each family received about $3000 to help them start of a new life. In the long run the agency was involved in the rebuilding of the critical infrastructure that was damaged during the incident within the region.
Witt is a true definition of what a FEMA director should be, this is an individual that came into FEMA and helped change it for the better all to the benefit of the American society. The way that he handled the Northridge Earthquake set the pace on how disasters should be dealt with in the immediate actions and also in the long run plans of reconstruction. His idea to set up a channel was very intriguing and effective, something that should be adopted in any disaster management.
- Michael D. Brown unremarkable performance during the Hurricane Katrina
Michael D Brown is a former FEMA director that served between the years 2003 and the year 2005. Brown is one of the most controversial former FEMA directors because of his association with the Katrina Hurricane (Slater, 2011). Brown who was appointed by President Bush to be a FEMA director ended up resigning in the year 2005 after he was accused of mishandling the Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane is rated to have been the 6th strongest hurricanes that have ever been recorded and also the 3rd strongest that made landfall within the United States (Nicholls & Picou, 2013). It caused the death of over 1800 people and it has been ranked to be the most expensive disaster within the history of the U.S.
The greatest problem with Brown in dealing with the Hurricane Katrina was mainly his lack of passion to do his work. This was an individual that a week earlier had hinted on his interest to quit from his job mainly because he was not getting along with most of the other stakeholders in FEMA (Nguyen, 2015). The recorded emails of Brown show his desire to quit his position and his reluctance in helping respond to the hurricane disaster. One of the emails that were recovered from him indicates that a request to get emergency medical supplies to the sites of disaster was openly ignored for four days while he kept chatting with his friends about how exhausted he was with working in FEMA (Nicholls & Picou, 2013).
The rescue mission of the Hurricane Katrina was delayed for one week without any help getting sent to the affected areas because Brown did not put bother to do his work of organizing for a rescue (Slater, 2011). Brown’s argument in his defence lays blame on other leaders in other agencies for failure to provide the required equipment like transportation. Brown however was the head of the agency that is supposed to deal with matters of disaster and he was required to make the emergent request for equipment that was needed to help offer help to the hurricane’s victims.
Brown’s concern in this disaster was in matters of authority that were not of importance, instead of commanding the fire and rescue departments to move out and start with the rescue mission immediately, he advised them to wait for direct appeal from the local governments so that they do not overstep federal authority (Starks, 2006). This was an emergency issue, the lives of innocent people were at stake and it was not a time to start thinking about the legal option to provision of the required help and this is something that a great leader in an agency such as FEMA should know.
Another shocking revelation of the disaster is that Brown did not any point visit the affected areas to understand the impact of the disaster which would have helped him to make the necessary solutions to deal with the disaster (Starks, 2006). He also did not take the time to brief the public about the disaster which would have prompted donations from well-wishers as well as volunteer worker force that would have greatly helped with the rescue mission which would have prompted a reduce number of the people that died (Nguyen, 2015). Most of the people died because they could not get immediate help that they needed after the disaster.
Brown is to blame for all the damages and loss of lives that happened during the hurricane Katrina, he is truly a disaster in his own right. He choose not to do his duty as a director of FEMA to come up with a response strategy that would have helped save many lives of people as well as millions dollar worth property. Brown can be defined as a selfish and irresponsible individual whose interests did not integrate with the mission of FEMA whose main objective is to help in proving emergency help during disasters like the hurricane Katrina.
References
Corrêa d’Almeida, A., & Klingner, D. E. (2008). FEMA and the Witt Revolution: Testing the
Hypothesis of “Bureaucratic Autonomy.” Public Organization Review, 8(4), 291–305. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-008-0060-9
Gordon, K., & Emerson, J. (2010, August 06). Governing Through a Disaster. Retrieved from
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2010/08/06/8221/governing-through-a-disaster/
Kamel, N. M. O., & Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2004). Residential Assistance and Recovery
Following the Northridge Earthquake. Urban Studies (Routledge), 41(3), 533–562. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=12844520&site=ehost-live
Nguyen, T. (2015, August 27). Former FEMA Head: Don't Blame Me for Hurricane Katrina.
Retrieved from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/08/hurricane-katrina-fema-head-not-my-fault
Nicholls, K., & Picou, J. S. (2013). The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Trust in Government
The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Trust in Government. Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 94(2), 344–361. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2012.00932.x
Slater, R. B. (2011). Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm; Hurricane Katrina,
the Bush White House, and Beyond. Library Journal, 136(11), 103. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=61428529&site=ehost-live
Starks, T. (2006). Former FEMA Head Michael Brown Blames Departmental Setup for Hurricane Problems. CQ Weekly, 64(7), 442. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=20292994&site=ehost-live
