Select federal recommendations could bring genuine reform to FEMA

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Special Correspondent

The public spotlight in Washington recently has been focused on the more draconian recommendations that would affect the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the organization now infamous for its response to Hurricane Katrina. In a report released in late April, for example, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs recommended FEMA be abolished and replaced with a new, more powerful organization within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

It is the latest of several federal reviews of FEMA. The White House, the Government Accountability Office, a House committee, DHS and the DHS inspector general also have weighed in with assessments of what went wrong in the Gulf Coast region last summer. However, it is unlikely Congress and the Bush Administration will agree on major FEMA changes prior to June 1, the start of the next hurricane season.

Over the long term, more drastic recommendations, such as the dissolution of FEMA, may be more than meets the eye, according to Senate staffers who note that FEMA’s legacy components and employees would all come together under a new agency created to replace it.

However, the fine print in the reports contains common recommendations that experts say strike at the heart of some of the agency’s substantial shortcomings and likely will be implemented.

These include improving FEMA’s logistical capabilities, clarifying its roles and responsibilities, strengthening FEMA’s work force and improving the coordination of all organizations involved in responding to national disasters.

Confusion was rife during the Katrina response in large part because FEMA’s logistics system could not track the location of supplies en route to the Gulf area, according to the DHS inspector general report.

“As a result, FEMA personnel and state and local responders did not know what type or quantity of commodities was on the way or even when resources would arrive,” the report said.

In Mississippi, only 25 percent of the requested water and ice, and a small supply of meals-ready-to-eat, arrived in the first week after Katrina made landfall, according to the state’s federal coordinating officer, William Carwile.

But the Senate report, “Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared,” said FEMA insiders were not surprised that their logistics failed during Katrina.

“FEMA already knew it lacked staff and systems needed to respond to a large disaster,” the report said.

The federal coordinating official in Louisiana, William Lokey, told Senate investigators that FEMA always fails to track its supplies.

“It has been a problem at every disaster I’m aware of,” he said.

In addition, the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), the FEMA unit responsible for maintaining a national capability to deliver quality medical care to victims of national disasters, did not have the supplies necessary to do its job, an NDMS team commander told Seapower.

FEMA logistics officials repeatedly told the medical response teams that they would be properly supplied in the field, but that never happened, the commander said. NDMS was transferred to FEMA from Health and Human Services.

“FEMA’s administrative processes are overwhelmingly cumbersome and very detrimental to the way the teams function in general,” the commander said. “The supply chain is absolutely preposterous.”

For instance, to order paper clips, there are about seven or eight people who need to sign off on that request, he said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has already promised an up-to-date and efficient logistics system, which he expects to be in place by the start of this hurricane season.

“FEMA is now implementing a new commodity tracking initiative that will enable real-time visibility into the movement and delivery of supplies and will allow FEMA to better manage and track inventories,” Chertoff said April 12.

In addition to logistics, the reports and recommendations propose that DHS shift the orientation of the entire agency from terrorism-focused programs to an all-hazards approach in both grant programs and department policy.

“Although an ‘all-hazards’ approach can address preparedness needs common to both man-made and natural events, [DHS] must ensure that all four phases of emergency management — preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation — are managed throughout the department on an all-hazards basis,” the inspector general’s report stated.

Regardless how FEMA is reorganized, there is broad agreement on Capitol Hill that the agency in the future will focus on all hazards, according to a Hill staffer.

Another common theme is to strengthen FEMA’s work force and ensure that senior leadership positions are filled with employees who have adequate emergency management experience.

The Senate report noted that in recent years, 15 to 20 percent of the agency’s positions — 375 to 500 jobs in a 2,500-person agency — have been vacant.

The administration is already taking steps toward meeting that goal. In April, Chertoff filled senior FEMA positions, including appointing Coast Guard Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr. as deputy FEMA director. In addition, Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison has pledged that FEMA will fill most of its vacancies by June 1.

This is one area where FEMA can make a difference in time for the 2006 hurricane season, said John Copenhaver, former FEMA Region IV director during the Clinton administration. But filling the vacant positions will be effective only if the new hires are qualified for the job.

“If they are able to bring in experienced emergency managers, that can help,” he said.

The problem with filling these positions right now is finding people who want to take a job at an agency with an uncertain future.

Many of the recommendations also addressed the need to clarify roles and responsibilities as defined in the National Response Plan, the country’s guide for disaster response. FEMA and the DHS already have begun looking at emergency plans for states and high-density urban areas — a process that will continue.

Many of these types of recommendations, however, carry unfunded mandates. All of the recommendations for required planning would also necessitate the development of standards for evacuation and coordination — which means an increased workload at all levels of government, said Michael D. Selves, first vice president of the International Association of Emergency Managers. For instance, the department has already implemented the National Plan Review to provide the status of catastrophic planning in all states and 75 of the nation’s largest urban areas.

Selves, director of emergency management and homeland security in Johnson County, Kansas, said the National Plan Review has already cost his department $4,000 in staff time alone.

At some point in time, the cost of meeting federal planning mandates “will exceed the value of the federal grants,” Selves said.

The most important factor that will affect the beleaguered agency’s future success will be the commitment of the administration, said George Haddow, former FEMA deputy chief of staff during the Clinton administration.

“Until the president makes comprehensive emergency management a top priority of his government, nothing will change,” he said.