Recent disasters challenging and improving FEMA

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery held a hearing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) performance in handling disasters since Katrina. Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said there have been 169 major disasters and 250 federal emergencies since Katrina.

David Maxwell, Director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, said he was very pleased with FEMA’s creativity in responding to storms in his state, but said the Administration took fourteen days to respond to a request for assistance. James Bassham, Director of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said that after several tornadoes hit in his state, a FEMA liaison arrived in two hours and a response team arrived the next morning. Stephen Sellers, Deputy Director in the Regional Operations Division for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said local responders worked side by side with FEMA to provide assistance after wildfires.

Admiral Harvey E. Johnson, Deputy Administrator at FEMA, said the Administration took a lot of criticism and scrutiny after Katrina, but has improved greatly since then. FEMA has increased cooperation and collaboration with local and state responses, creating a national response framework that dictates how each level works together. Regarding recent disasters, Johnson said FEMA worked with local responders after tornadoes in Tennessee to reach rural areas and register victims. Now, FEMA is responding to flooding in the Midwest. Johnson said FEMA is working hard to build a response system free of bureaucratic red tape that may impede response times.