The EOC Podcast: Emergency Operations Conversations

FEMA: A History of Heroes, Headlines, and Hard Lessons

• Jeff Perkins • Season 2 • Episode 1

Share episode

Send us a text

After a long hiatus, the EOC Podcast returns with the first installment in a timely new series examining FEMA's past, present, and uncertain future. As the emergency management community grapples with unprecedented federal changes, understanding FEMA's evolution provides critical context for navigating what comes next.

From its formation in 1979 under President Carter to its current challenges, FEMA's journey reflects America's evolving approach to disasters. We trace how an agency initially focused on nuclear war preparation transformed through failures during Hurricane Andrew, achieved excellence under James Lee Witt in the 1990s, lost momentum after being absorbed into Homeland Security post-9/11, faced its darkest hour during Hurricane Katrina, and gradually rebuilt its capabilities leading up to COVID-19.

This comprehensive look at FEMA's trajectory reveals much more than organizational history – it illuminates the critical importance of federal emergency support as communities nationwide face increasingly frequent and severe disasters. As host Jeff Perkins notes, "FEMA is the E in the PACE plan" – the emergency option when all other resources are exhausted. With training programs disrupted, staffing reduced, and fundamental questions about federal disaster support unresolved, emergency managers must understand where we've been to navigate the road ahead. Join us for this essential conversation about the agency that serves as America's disaster safety net, and stay tuned for future episodes diving deeper into specific aspects of FEMA's operations and the challenges facing our profession.

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the EOC Podcast, Emergency Operations Conversations. I am your host, Jeff Perkins, and I'm very happy to have you with me again. It's been a long time, folks. It's been quite a while since I've been able to get behind the mic and actually do an episode here. The last episode that we did was the Los Angeles fires and kind of a comprehensive overview of that, and then something happened after that point and since that time, man, I tell you what federal resources have been strapped.

Speaker 1:

There has been some craziness going on Now again, just like the episode about the Los Angeles fires. I'm not going to get political here. I really do not have an interest in engaging in political conversation back and forth. I'm just going to look at the facts and you know I will say that it has been a very rocky road these last couple of months. It has been a very rocky road these last couple of months and you know I thought you know, hey, once the dust settles, let me go ahead and get back on and I'll do an episode at that time.

Speaker 1:

But unfortunately the dust continues to be kicked up. It is one thing after another. It seems like nothing is going to stay the same. There is monumental change happening everywhere and no one is experiencing this more. I think Now again, I only have one scope that I see this through. But man, FEMA is under some intense, intense scrutiny. They are really getting it from all directions and it is, you know, to say the least, interesting to watch and be part of this whole situation and the wondering what happens, when do we go from here? What does the future look like in terms of federal assistance, whether that be public assistance, training, private assistance, All of these things that the federal government has owned and us state and local agencies have had to adapt to and finally figured things out? In a way, it is all going to change.

Speaker 1:

And so, you know, obviously waiting for the dust to settle wasn't going to happen, or else I just wasn't going to do another episode. Waiting for the dust to settle wasn't going to happen, or else I just wasn't going to do another episode. So I figured why not? Let's dive into it, let's look at this situation for what it is and let's unpack it. You know, the last episode I did was the wildfires and I unpacked that and I did it in a way that was just the facts, and that's what I intend to do here but you know, like I said earlier is that we don't know what the future forecasting, what we're going to do, and then when I say we, I mean the entire emergency management profession. What are we going to do in the future? We have to look to the past, and so I am starting this today as episode one of a series on FEMA.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is going to look back, it's going to look at the present, it's going to look potentially towards the future, and we're going to unpack all of the things that FEMA does, all the things that FEMA did, and I'm really excited about this. Now I am building the ship while I'm sailing it, folks, so it's not going to be a perfect symphony of what a podcast should be. I am literally going to look at what is happening at the present moment and I'm going to do my absolute best to be able to string that together and be able to tell the story of what is FEMA, what do they do, how does it affect local agencies and what do those local agencies or state agencies, what do they have to expect as we go forward in this new world of emergency management? So hang on tight, folks, we're going to go ahead and we're going to get right into this. We're going to start unpacking this and we are going to start today with this new series, episode one the story of FEMA. The story of FEMA, let's get right into it.

Speaker 1:

So let's rewind to the 1970s. Obviously, there was some pretty good music happening in that time, but also America's disaster response was, let's just say, less than ideal. It was a little messy, right. So there was various agencies, some in the DOD, the Department of Defense, others in HUD or Housing and Urban Development, Department of Commerce. They were all responsible for different aspects of emergency management. It was chaotic, it was duplicative and it was slow. Right, Speed of government. Right, it was exactly what you'd expect.

Speaker 1:

So in 1979, President Jimmy Carter at the time he signed Executive Order 12127, and that officially created the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. Now it was designed to be a one-stop shop, a single federal agency for coordinating the response to disasters, big and small. Now FEMA absorbed various functions from five different agencies. That included the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration and the National Preparedness Agency. That consolidation was a big deal. It meant that for the first time, the federal government had a dedicated agency for planning, response, recovery and mitigation.

Speaker 1:

But in the early days it was very, very rocky and unpredictable. Kind of seems relevant, right. So FEMA was immediately politicized, of course, and like so many other federal entities, it had to figure out its identity on the fly. So it's easy to forget, but FEMA wasn't originally created for natural disasters. The things that we think about FEMA now hurricanes, wildfires, whatever it was primarily focused on one thing, and that one thing seems a great deal different than what we deal with now, and that was the potential for nuclear war. So during the Cold War, FEMA's budget and planning prioritized continuity of government. In the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. That meant stockpiling supplies, building bunkers and creating secret evacuation plans for top government officials. And while that work had value, especially in the eyes of the national security leaders at the time, it came at the expense of real-world natural disaster preparedness.

Speaker 1:

During this era of FEMA, their response to floods, earthquakes and all the other things that we think of FEMA now was often criticized by many as slow and ineffective. Internal management was described by some as bloated and overly focused on doomsday scenarios, disconnected from the needs of actual communities for emergencies that were actually happening. One example is the 1989 earthquake in California that took place during the World Series. Fema was widely seen as sluggish in coordinating a federal response. Critics pointed to the agency's Cold War fixation as the reason they were unprepared for an actual, real-life, real-time disaster. So now let's fast forward from that to 1992, and Hurricane Andrew comes in and just absolutely devastates South Florida, Kills 65 people, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Speaker 1:

And FEMA's response? It was, in a word, a disaster. Their response was equally as disastrous as Hurricane Andrew itself. Federal officials were slow to arrive, Relief supplies were misallocated, Bureaucratic red tape held up recovery efforts for weeks. Imagine that Public outrage followed, and rightfully so. But FEMA became a national punching bag at that time and congressional hearings were held and the media tore that agency completely apart. But here's the silver lining right, it was a wake-up call. You know, obviously somebody did an AAR and identified that there needs to be some sort of action taken. Right, we cannot continue to march forward with the way that we've been handling these things. So, you know, FEMA at the time identified that they definitely need to wake up and adjust how they do things for emergencies that actually happen. And how do we help locals recover and respond to these emergencies.

Speaker 1:

So in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, there was a bipartisan agreement that FEMA needed some serious reform. So President Clinton at the time appointed James Lee Witt as the FEMA director in 1993, the first director with actual emergency management experience. That appointment would change FEMA as we know it. So under James Lee Witt FEMA transformed, and I do not say that lightly, it was an absolute transformative experience that they went through once Mr Witt, or Witt, was put in charge. So he decentralized FEMA's operations, he gave regional directors more power, he improved coordination with state and local governments. He focused on mitigation and preparedness, not just the response part. So during this time FEMA was elevated, actually to a cabinet-level status, giving the agency more authority and more visibility. And the results spoke for themselves. From 1994, there was the North Ridge earthquake, there was the Oklahoma City bombing and FEMA's responses were praised as organized, efficient and compassionate. This was FEMA's golden age. For the first time the agency had real credibility with the public, with Congress and with the emergency management community. All right now this is going to be something that a lot of people remember, A lot of people remember.

Speaker 1:

Then came 9-11. September 11th 2001,. Terrorist attacks changed the national focus and FEMA's place within the federal government in 2003 was completely changed. Fema was absorbed into the newly created Department of Homeland Security and that made it not a cabinet-level position anymore. The cabinet-level position was then the director of Homeland Security and FEMA was underneath them.

Speaker 1:

Now, this move was controversial. Critics warned that folding FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security would potentially dilute its mission, with too much focus on terrorism and not enough on these commonly occurring natural disasters. And that was, you know, really due to the experience that FEMA had gone through previously, with the focus on nuclear war and not enough focus on the actual preparedness, response and recovery related to actually occurring things that affect Americans on a regular basis. Now, when it became part of the Department of Homeland Security, those fears were not wrong. So the years after 9-11, FEMA lost a lot of funding. So now that it was part of this new DHS or Department of Homeland Security, the funding had to be split amongst all of these different agencies. So FEMA really wasn't funded the way that it was, as it was a cabinet level position. They also lost the authority and they lost a lot of momentum. Preparedness programs were defunded in favor of counterterrorism and it was a pivot that had major consequences down the line.

Speaker 1:

So here we go, fast forwarding again. Let's go forward a couple of years and boom, 2005, hurricane Katrina. This was FEMA's lowest point. Now, just saying the word Katrina to anyone that worked in emergency management at that time, man, they know what you're talking about. You know. All you got to do is do a Google search of Kanye West and Hurricane Katrina and you'll see some of the fallout that came from that storm, and that was a big one. That was a doozy.

Speaker 1:

Now, in August 2005, that hurricane, Hurricane Katrina. It made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi and the levees completely failed. Thousands were stranded and it wasn't hard to find images of people trapped on rooftops pleading for help. And it really shocked the world, not just the United States world, not just the United States. Now, FEMA's response was and this is being generous an operational failure, and that's no secret it is now. I got my bachelor's degree in emergency management and the response of FEMA to Hurricane Katrina is a massive lesson that they teach on what not to do. So that speaks for itself.

Speaker 1:

Now, during that storm, the leadership of FEMA was disorganized, Communication systems failed everywhere, Resources were misallocated, People died waiting for help. That never came. Michael Brown, the FEMA administrator at that time, became infamous after President Bush praised him with the now infamous line Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The backlash was immediate. Fema was investigated, then reformed, then ridiculed, reformed, again, ridiculed. More public confidence in the agency plummeted to almost non-existent. But again, just like after Hurricane Andrew, Katrina sparked reforms. It led to the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006, which gave FEMA more authority within the Department of Homeland Security and restored some of its preparedness functions.

Speaker 1:

Now we go into the more modern era of FEMA's existence, of FEMA's existence. So the post-Katrina FEMA obviously is very different than the pre and during Katrina existence had moments of redemption. So the agency's response to Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was actually widely praised by many. It was faster, it was more coordinated, it was better integrated with local and state agencies and under the leadership of people like Craig Fugate, another experienced emergency manager, FEMA emphasized whole community preparedness, resilience and the use of technology in disaster management. All right, so now we're fast forwarding again and we're getting to a point where people are really going to start to remember what things were like.

Speaker 1:

So now we go to the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic, and FEMA played a big part in that. They played a supporting role, helping to distribute personal protective equipment or PPE. They deployed field hospitals coordinated with state health departments. But the pandemic revealed cracks in the broader emergency management system supply chain issues, interagency, miscommunication and inconsistent federal guidance. The right hand wasn't talking to the left. It also blurred the lines between public health emergency management, which raised questions about how FEMA fits into a world increasingly shaped by long-duration, complex crisis, shaped by long duration, complex crisis.

Speaker 1:

So, after COVID-19, where do we go? So obviously, FEMA has come a long way since its inception in 1979. It's had shining moments. It's had embarrassing failures. It's been a Cold War civil defense agency, a response agency, counterterrorism support agency and a pandemic logistics agency.

Speaker 1:

But through it all, one thing is clear FEMA does matter. It is the last resort when local and state agencies have exhausted all of their resource. It's the last people that you call for help when you have nothing else. You've got to have a backup. So in my line of work we always talk about pace planning. You have your primary, your alternate, your contingent and your emergency. Now, a lot of the time that that you know that's about communications. You know when, when one line of communication fails, you know what's your alternate, what's your backup plan, what's your backup to the backup, and so on and so on. When it comes to emergency management as a whole, FEMA is the backup plan. Fema is the E in the PACE plan, and when you've exhausted all of your resources, you need that E in the PACE plan. So you know it's important, you got to have it, have it. Now.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to sit here and defend FEMA and say that everything that they do is perfect and that there was no need for reform. No, I would never say that, because that's just not reality. There was absolutely a need for reform. There was absolutely room for improvement. Maybe it was a little bloated, you know. And another thing that FEMA does is they provide training, they create curriculum, they design positions within the incident command system and then they train people on those positions and then those positions are staffed and carried out for local emergencies when they happen, and carried out for local emergencies when they happen. Well now, without that guidance and you leave it up to the states to figure out their own way there is going to be no central system that's relied on and used. The curriculum is going to be different, the credentialing is going to be different, the curriculum is going to be different, the credentialing is going to be different. So there is definitely some concern when it look at the past and we can learn from it and we can say how do we make the future better.

Speaker 1:

Now, again, there's a lot of questions that have to be answered. The dust finally has to settle. We have to stop kicking up new dust to be able to move forward in a way that allows us as a nation, and emergency management as a profession, to chart our best course forward, and it's going to take the entire emergency management community working together to make that happen community working together to make that happen. Now, natural disasters are becoming more frequent and again, I'm not going to get political on this, but they're also becoming more severe and a federal role is extremely important as those continue to happen. Now, in future episodes of this series, I'm going to dig deeper. I'm going to dig deeper into how FEMA works, or how it doesn't work in today's environment. We're going to talk about grant funding delays, staffing cuts, the temporary closure of the training academy and the future of federal emergency management as a whole.

Speaker 1:

But today I wanted to set the stage. Fema's story isn't just a history lesson. Like I said, it's a blueprint for understanding where we go from here. So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for bearing with me, Thank you for waiting, Thank you for having patience, Thank you for not going away and thank you for listening today, and I ask that you continue to listen, and I ask that you keep an open mind and I ask that you have hope.

Speaker 1:

Have hope that the dust will settle, have hope that our profession emergency management as a whole, will continue to survive, and have hope that maybe, just maybe, there are brighter days on the horizon. So, if you're struggling, talk to somebody. If you're having a hard time with dealing with the unpredictability of our future as a profession, if you've lost your job, if you're confused or not sure where to go, talk to somebody. Talk to somebody about it. There is now a whole new group of people that are going through a very similar experience. You are not alone and there are people to help. So thank you for listening to another episode of the EOC podcast emergency operations conversations. My name is Jeff Perkins and I'm happy that you joined me today, and I ask that you join me for the next episode and all the ones after that. I'm going to go ahead and close the EOC for today and I look forward to our next episode. Take care, Stay safe, Take care of each other. Thank you.