At FEMA: turmoil and lack of preparedness

This CNN story describes the current situation at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Exclusive: FEMA is ‘not ready’ for hurricane season, internal agency review shows

Every day recently my LinkedIn account has messages from FEMA employees who are leaving the agency. Some taking the buyout and others looking to escape the agency that is in an operational freefall. Decades of experience is walking out the door with every retirement or senior staff resignation.

Based on all my readings I think the linked article is pretty accurate for what is ongoing at FEMA. The agency has only one hope for the immediate future. They need to drastically reduce their responsibilities in all phases of emergency management. The plan is to shift disaster operational response totally to states and drastically reduce the numbers and types of disasters that they respond to and fund for disaster recovery.

They may get away with that for a period of time…but, what they need to fear is a Katrina Hurricane or Super Storm Sandy event. They can make all the public pronouncements they want about 1) How effective and efficient they are 2) They are using a new model for shifting responsibilities to the states 3) Things are not as bad as they are being reported by the media

But, but, but visual images of Americans suffering the impacts of a huge disaster will overcome anything they might try to spin about how well they are doing. In this case, the cries about “where is FEMA?” will ring true and state and local jurisdictions will join that chorus.

Mark my words, they are doing just about everything possible to set themselves up for failure in the coming months.  Facts and reality are going to implode their vision for the future. As an example, there is this quote from the article, “…At a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Noem told lawmakers “there is no formalized, final plan” for how the administration will handle disasters.”

Disasters are complex events. You can’t be operating on “concepts” when trying to administer disaster relief and recovery. The agency and staff will be “frozen” not knowing what the rules of the road are. It will be sheer chaos with conflicting messaging and actions from FEMA.

God help us!