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97 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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HELP BUNGLED AND DISORGANIZED
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By Martin Mann and George Nicholas
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Exclusive to The SPOTLIGHT
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Washington, DC -- One after another, two violent, cataclysmic disasters
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struck the United States in the fall of 1989. Hurricane Hugo roared
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through the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Carolinas in September.
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Within weeks, northern California was shaken by the Loma Prieta earthquake
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that left hundreds of thousands of victims and billions of dollars in
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damage in its wake.
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Having spent "over $25 billion on setting up FEMA," American taxpayers
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were entitled to expect "quick and efficient help" from it in the face of
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such shattering calamities. But the response by the Federal Emergency
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Management Agency (FEMA) to these upheavals was "bungled" and
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"disorganized," says Ray Groover, who reported on the hurricane for a San
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Juan, Puerto Rico, newspaper and is now studying for a graduate degree in
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journalism at Columbia University in New York.
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Since the Disaster Relief Act of 1988, FEMA has been responsible for
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coordinating the "[disaster] preparedness, response and recovery actions of
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state and local governments." Unable to live up to these responsibilities
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during the 1989 crisis, the agency drew sharp criticism from the press and
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from Congress, whose leaders assigned the General Accounting Office (GAO)
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to conduct the first-ever detailed investigation of FEMA.
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For a year, GAO field examiners interviewed hundreds of disaster
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victims, state and local relief workers, journalists and other witnesses.
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The agency has assembled a 71-page report on U.S. relief operations.
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WATCHDOG AGENCY RATES FEMA
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Having obtained an advance copy of that survey, a team of SPOTLIGHT
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reporters found that the congressional watchdog agency rated FEMA's ability
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to deal with natural disasters as being "inefficient," "weak" and
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"dilatory."
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Noting that "emergency management includes three phases:
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preparedness, response and recovery," GAO probers warned that FEMA failed
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to operate "as efficiently as possible" in all these areas.
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There was evidence of "inadequate planning ... inadequate or no
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standard operating procedures ... [and a] lack of coordination" wherever
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FEMA's bureaucrats intervened, the GAO report concluded. Among the results
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of these botched relief attempts were "delays in providing disaster
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assistance and duplicate payments for some [of FEMA's] activities," the
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congressional overseers discovered.
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One example of FEMA's failure cited by the GAO survey team involved
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4,000 low-income units wholly destroyed in California's devastating October
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1989 earthquake. "Thirteen months later, only 114 units had been processed
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and approved for [rehabilitation] funding," the report reveals. Similarly,
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10 months after Hurricane Hugo, most of the families left homeless "had not
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yet been provided with housing assistance from FEMA."
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DIRECTORS SHELL GAME
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Warned that the GAO report will expose FEMA as incompetent and
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wasteful, President George Bush fired agency Director Julius Becton, an
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elderly three-star general, whose principal qualifications for flag rank
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was Henry Kissinger's wish to promote "minority" officers, Defense
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Department sources say.
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Becton was replace by Wallace Stickney, a former New Hampshire state
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official whose colorless and low-profile reputation is expected to dampen
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the fireworks the GAO report might otherwise touch off about the inadequacy
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of federal relief operations.
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But simply shifting directors "does not answer the real question: If
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[FEMA officials] seem uninterested and negligent when it comes to disaster
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response, what are FEMA's thousands of bureaucrats working on?" asked
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Groover.
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The answer, a SPOTLIGHT investigation has found, is that FEMA's
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leadership is developing programs that will not merely "[ensure] the
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continuity of the federal government in any national emergency-type
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situation," as decreed by President Gerald Ford in Executive Order 11921,
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but REPLACE the nation's Constitutional statecraft with a centralized
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"command system."
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-----------------
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Reproduced with permission from a special supplement to _The Spotlight_,
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May 25, 1992. This text may be freely reproduced provided acknowledgement
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to The Spotlight appears, including this address:
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The SPOTLIGHT
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300 Independence Avenue, SE
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Washington, DC 20003
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