FEMA after Katrina

Policy Review

Volumn , Issue 137, 2006, Pages 15-33

  Roberts, Patrick S ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33745656154     PISSN: 01465945     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (31)

1. National Academy of Public Administration, Coping with Catastrophe (Washington, D.C., February 1993), ix, 87.
2. Unattributed quotations can be found in Patrick S. Roberts, "FEMA and the Prospects for Reputation-Based Autonomy," Studies in American Political Development (Spring 2006).
3. Simon Winchester, A Crack in the Edge of the World (Harper Collins, 2005), 307-310;
4. Doris Muscatine, Old San Francisco: From Early Days to the Earthquake (Putnam and Sons, 1975), 428.
5. Peter J. May, Recovering from Disasters: Federal Disaster Relief Policy and Politics (Greenwood Press, 1985).
6. "Domestic Terrorism," Emergency Preparedness Project (Center for Policy Research, National Governors' Association, 1978), 107.
7. Jimmy Carter, "Message to the Congress Transmitting Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978" (June 19, 1978) in Public Papers of the Presidents (1978) 1: 1128-1131.
8. National Academy of Public Administration, Coping with Catastrophe (February 1993), 13.
9. Roberts Sheets, "The National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1991," Statement before Hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (July 27, 1992);
10. Gilbert M. Gaul and Anthony R. Wood, "Uncle Sam, Insurer of First Resort," Philadelphia Inquirer (March 7, 2000).
11. Robert Ward et al., "Network Organizational Development in the Public Sector: A Case Study of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA)," Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51 (2000).
12. See, for example, National Security Decision Directive 47, "Emergency Mobilization Preparedness" (July 22, 1982).
13. Frank G. Hoffman, personal e-mail correspondence (December 11, 2003). FEMA'S witnesses before the Hart-Rudman Commission were Lacey Suiter and V. Clay Hollister. Notes of their briefing do not exist.
14. Garrett and Sobel note both that from 1991 to 1999 states politically important to the president had a higher rate of disaster declaration by the president and that disaster expenditures were higher in states that had congressional representation on FEMA oversight committees. They also find election-year impacts for disaster aid, controlling for the true size of a disaster measured through private property insurance claims and Red Cross assistance levels. Thomas A. Garrett and Russell S. Sobel, "The Political Economy of FEMA Disaster Payments," Economic Inquiry 41 (2003).
15. Other studies have found that the president's decision to issue a disaster declaration is influenced by congressional and media attention. See Richard T. Sylves, "The Politics of Federal Emergency Management," in Richard T. Sylves and William H. Waugh Jr., eds., Disaster Management in the US and Canada (Charles C. Thomas, 1996).
16. Audrey Hudson, "'Malfeasance' cited in Katrina flooding," Washington Times (November 3, 2005).
17. Also see the October 2005 Social Science Research Council Forum, "Understanding Katrina: Perspectives from the Social Sciences."
18. Historian and New Orleans resident Douglas Brinkley provides the first and most thorough book-length account of the failures of leadership at the federal and, especially, state and local levels during the hurricane. See Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (William Morrow, 2006).
19. FEMA ranked last in worker satisfaction among large agencies in a 2003 survey. In 2005, the Partnership for Public Service and the Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation ranked the Department of Homeland Security, which absorbed FEMA, next to last among agencies (twenty-ninth out of 30) as "best places" to work in government. Stephen Barr, "Morale Among FEMA Workers, on the Decline for Years, Hits Nadir," Washington Post (September 14, 2005);
20. Federal Emergency Management Agency: Status of Achieving Key Outcomes and Addressing Major Management Challenges (GAO-01-832, July 9, 2001).
21. Patrick S. Roberts, "Shifting Priorities: Congressional Incentives and the Homeland Security Granting Process," Review of Policy Research 22:4 (July 2005).
22. Experts predicted that New Orleans would flood and publicized their warnings in the popular media. The New Orleans Times-Picayune published a series in 2002 on the danger the city's weak levee system posed to the city, compounded by the erosion of the coast's natural defenses. In addition, a 2001 Scientific American article predicted that the city would be devastated by floods. Mark Fischetti, 17 Drowning New Orleans," Scientific American (October 2001).
23. National Response Plan, Department of Homeland Security (December 4, 2004), CAT-3.
24. As of February 2006, 39 percent of the 824 victims identified at the St. Gabriel Morgue were 75 or older, and the majority were over 61. Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, "Vital Statistics of All Bodies at St. Gabriel Morgue" (February 23, 2006).
25. Patrick S. Roberts and Robert Bateman, "The Roots of Extreme Practice in Crisis Management," paper presented at the Race and U.S. Political Development conference, Eugene, Oregon (May 12, 2006).
26. Michael Porter, Hirotaka Takeuchi, and Mario Sakakibara, Can Japan Compete? (Macmillan, 2000);
27. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company (Modern Library, 2003), 134-135.
28. One of FEMA'S strengths is its regional command system in which ten regional offices coordinate preparedness efforts with state governments.
29. James Jay Carafano and John R. Brinkerhoff, "Katrina's Forgotten Responders: State Defense Forces Play a Vital Role," Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum 984 (October 5, 2005).
30. There is precedent for this approach. The Department of Defense issued a directive to this effect in 1993. Department of Defense Directive 3025.1, "Military Support to Civilian Authority" (January 15, 1993).
31. Michael Grunwald and Susan B. Glasser, "FEMA, Brown Lost All the Turf Wars," Washington Post (December 26, 2005).