Thursday
Jul172008
Recent disasters challenging and improving FEMA
Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 4:41PM
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.
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.
Chertoff Disappointed With Emergency Response Communication
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff noted Thursday that while many improvements have been made in U.S. emergency response capabilities, more can be done to improve communication between different agencies.
"All of the groups need to make an agreement on the [technological] language used," Chertoff said during a panel discussion at the National Press Club. "We still have a ways to go."
To counter the current shortcomings of inter-agency communication, Chertoff suggested reserving part of the radio spectrum solely for emergency response, thus allowing responders to transmit voice, data, and video more efficiently through portable devices like BlackBerrys and iPhones.
The idea to scrap the system we have now or to wait for equipment to become obsolete is not a viable option, Chertoff warned.
$1 billion has been distributed to states and localities to promote interoperable communications.