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<p> HELP BUNGLED AND DISORGANIZED</p>

<p> By <ent type='PERSON'>Martin Mann</ent> and George Nicholas
Exclusive to The SPOTLIGHT</p>

<p><ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent>, DC -- One after another, two violent, cataclysmic disasters
struck <ent type='GPE'>the United States</ent> in the fall of 1989. <ent type='EVENT'>Hurricane Hugo</ent> roared
through <ent type='GPE'>the Virgin Islands</ent>, <ent type='GPE'>Puerto Rico</ent> and the <ent type='GPE'>Carolinas</ent> in September.
Within weeks, northern <ent type='GPE'>California</ent> was shaken by the <ent type='GPE'>Loma Prieta</ent> earthquake
that left hundreds of thousands of victims and billions of dollars in
damage in its wake.</p>

<p> Having spent "over $25 billion on setting up <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>," <ent type='NORP'>American</ent> taxpayers
were entitled to expect "quick and efficient help" from it in the face of
such shattering calamities. But the response by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (<ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>) to these upheavals was "bungled" and
"disorganized," says <ent type='PERSON'>Ray Groover</ent>, who reported on the hurricane for a San
Juan, <ent type='GPE'>Puerto Rico</ent>, newspaper and is now studying for a graduate degree in
journalism at <ent type='ORG'>Columbia University</ent> in <ent type='GPE'>New York</ent>.</p>

<p> Since <ent type='EVENT'>the Disaster Relief Act</ent> of 1988, <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent> has been responsible for
coordinating the "[disaster] preparedness, response and recovery actions of
state and local governments." Unable to live up to these responsibilities
during the 1989 crisis, the agency drew sharp criticism from the press and
from <ent type='ORG'>Congress</ent>, whose leaders assigned <ent type='ORG'>the General Accounting Office</ent> (<ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent>)
to conduct the first-ever detailed investigation of <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>.</p>

<p> For a year, <ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent> field examiners interviewed hundreds of disaster
victims, state and local relief workers, journalists and other witnesses.
The agency has assembled a 71-page report on U.S. relief operations.</p>

<p> WATCHDOG AGENCY RATES <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent></p>

<p> Having obtained an advance copy of that survey, a team of SPOTLIGHT
reporters found that the congressional watchdog agency rated <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>'s ability
to deal with natural disasters as being "inefficient," "weak" and
"dilatory."</p>

<p> Noting that "emergency management includes three phases:
preparedness, response and recovery," <ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent> probers warned that <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent> failed
to operate "as efficiently as possible" in all these areas.</p>

<p> There was evidence of "inadequate planning ... inadequate or no
standard operating procedures ... [and a] lack of coordination" wherever
<ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>'s bureaucrats intervened, the <ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent> report concluded. Among the results
of these botched relief attempts were "delays in providing disaster
assistance and duplicate payments for some [of <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>'s] activities," the
congressional overseers discovered.</p>

<p> One example of <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>'s failure cited by the <ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent> survey team involved
4000 low-income units wholly destroyed in <ent type='GPE'>California</ent>'s devastating October
1989 earthquake. "Thirteen months later, only 114 units had been processed
and approved for [rehabilitation] funding," the report reveals. Similarly,
10 months after <ent type='EVENT'>Hurricane Hugo</ent>, most of the families left homeless "had not
yet been provided with housing assistance from <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>."</p>

<p> DIRECTORS SHELL GAME</p>

<p> Warned that the <ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent> report will expose <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent> as incompetent and
wasteful, President <ent type='PERSON'>George Bush</ent> fired agency Director <ent type='PERSON'>Julius Becton</ent>, an
elderly three-star general, whose principal qualifications for flag rank
was <ent type='PERSON'>Henry Kissinger</ent>'s wish to promote "minority" officers, Defense
Department sources say.</p>

<p> <ent type='ORG'>Becton</ent> was replace by <ent type='PERSON'>Wallace Stickney</ent>, a former <ent type='GPE'>New Hampshire</ent> state
official whose colorless and low-profile reputation is expected to dampen
the fireworks the <ent type='ORG'>GAO</ent> report might otherwise touch off about the inadequacy
of federal relief operations.</p>

<p> But simply shifting directors "does not answer the real question: If
[<ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent> officials] seem uninterested and negligent when it comes to disaster
response, what are <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>'s thousands of bureaucrats working on?" asked
Groover.</p>

<p> The answer, a SPOTLIGHT investigation has found, is that <ent type='ORG'>FEMA</ent>'s
leadership is developing programs that will not merely "[ensure] the
continuity of the <ent type='ORG'>federal government</ent> in any national emergency-type
situation," as decreed by President <ent type='PERSON'>Gerald Ford</ent> in Executive Order 11921,
but REPLACE the nation's Constitutional statecraft with a centralized
"command system."</p>

<div>-----------------</div>

<p>Reproduced with permission from a special supplement to _The Spotlight_,
May 25, 1992. This text may be freely reproduced provided acknowledgement
to The Spotlight appears, including this address:</p>

<p> The SPOTLIGHT
300 Independence Avenue, SE
<ent type='GPE'>Washington</ent>, DC 20003</p>

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