the abridged version of fema's history

I’ve copied a LinkedIn post from Quin Lucie below. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, since I have lived it more than researched it. I’ll have to vouch for the fact that federal agencies can get jealous and be vengeful when it comes to budgets and budgeting. OMB did not like it that James Lee Witt could go directly to President Clinton since he had a personal relationship with him since serving as his State Emergency Management Director. When he left, they took their pound of flesh from FEMA. And, I do see a turn back to civil defense/national security is coming in the future…for all emergency managers and state and local programs.

Here’s what Quin wrote:

I've had several people send me the new podcast on FEMA's history. Here is the actual 30 second nutshell. -FEMA traces its roots to the Office for Emergency Management created in 1940 to manage national mobilization. -In the 1950's its functions were split between the Office of Defense Mobilization in the EOP (and its functions during the Korean War employed 10's of thousands) and the independent agency Federal Civil Defense Administration which also handled very limited disaster relief under the Disaster Relief Act of 1950 (Congress broke its century plus aversion to institutionalized disaster relief after flooding hits the conservative upper midwest). -In 1958 these functions were combined to bring "all non-military relief functions" together in the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (OCDM). This was the true birth of "FEMA" not the more widely noted one in 1979. It was based upon a McKinsey Report commissioned by Eisenhower (I have it!). -Kennedy does his own report and renames OCDM the Office of Emergency Preparedness. OEP remains in the EOP (and I believe on the NSC) while the operational functions for civil defense are moved to DOD. -Birch Bayh finally gets permanent disaster recovery authorized in the Disaster Relief Act of 1970 which is replaced in 1974 by the current act (renamed the Stafford Act in 1988). While hurricanes and earthquakes get it over the top, once again it is flooding, this time in conservative southern Indiana (see a theme here?). -Disaster relief is a program that is constitutionally under the 10th Amendment a state responsibility that is supplemented by the Federal Government and was always a supplemental program to the primary focus of emergency management on national security prior to the end of the Cold War. Disaster assistance programs were funded as a way to practice civil defense missions before 1970 and really up through 1980 when the Civil Defense Act was officially changed to allow for its dual use for disasters and defense. -COOP/COG is a MEANS not an ENDS and existed to support the mobilization and civil defense programs to ensure senior leaders could be safe, coordinate, and disseminate decisions that led to actions to meet national goals and objectives. There is WAY too much emphasis on the "mystery" functions of FEMA and its predecessors, though it was the only one of the three main programs to exist after 1993. -Nixon broke up OEP (where I think federal emergency management worked best historically) in 1973, and depending on who you talk to it was because the EOP got too big or OMB got jealous of the disaster relief money now going to OEP. Disaster relief to HUD, mobilization to GSA and civil defense to DOD. It was a disaster. -The reports of the 1970s to create "FEMA" specifically included and emphasized its national security function. One stop shopping for disaster relief was important, but was just one argument to basically recreate OCDM. -I'd say more but I've run out of lines.