FEMA: Tornadoes Could Be Second Worst Ever

Jessica Rettig

Agency administrator says FEMA isn't close to reaching a breaking point

Tornadoes ravaged the South just two weeks ago, and now floods along the Mississippi River add to the list of natural disasters sweeping through America. It's safe to say that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is busier than usual, with 3 in 5 states declaring a recent emergency or disaster. However, according to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, the agency and its regional partners can handle the extra load. He recently chatted with U.S. News about FEMA's supporting role and why a decentralized agency is better.

Excerpts:

How do the damages from recent tornadoes compare to those from past disasters?

Because the damage is so concentrated, you're not going to see what you normally see, like in hurricanes, where a community gets hit hard, and all their fire stations are heavily damaged or destroyed. Everybody wants to compare it to something else, and the best thing we can compare it to is actual tornado outbreaks. The weather service is looking at this as one of the top five -- possibly the number two -- tornadoes as far as loss of life. We'll get a better sense of the dollar figures as we complete damage assessments and begin writing projects on public assistance.

How would you compare the preparedness of your organization now compared with pre Katrina days?

There's some things that you guys in the press haven't really picked up on yet. Part of the things that we were able to do are based upon changes in the law that Congress enacted when they passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. But also, a lot of this was based upon Homeland Security dollars that had built capabilities at a local and state level, for them to respond more effectively with their own state resources. If these tornadoes had hit prior to September 11, you would have seen a much greater requirement for direct federal response for search and rescue. Particularly, in Alabama, they had built mutual aid teams at the local level throughout the state, additional search and rescue capabilities, mobile command posts and communications. And so, while it was a very challenging response, much of that initial assistance came from within the state from systems that they had built, teams they had trained and equipped with Homeland Security dollars.

So moving forward, should states and local communities take the lead on emergency management?

That should be the approach that we use in all disasters. That is, maximizing the local response with the state leading, and [allowing that] a governor be able to call up nonimpacted communities and the National Guard in their state, and FEMA in a supporting role. This was the way that the system was actually designed and built. It should never imply that FEMA will willingly stand by and allow the team to fail, but our level of assistance with the state is going to vary upon what their needs are. With these tornadoes, as horrific as the loss of life was, the initial response in these storms was actually state and local governments, who can get there a lot faster.

Is there enough in the agency's Disaster Relief Fund to go around?

Well, we're over $2 billion in that fund. The recent budget provided additional funds for the disaster relief fund, and this was again prior to these tornadoes and the flood. At these levels, we have absolutely no limiting factors on our initial response and support to life-saving and life-sustaining and individual assistance. Until we see what the damage assessments are that come in from the states for the tornadoes, [or until we] look at what the impacts of the flooding is going to be, [we won't be able] to determine if there will be any need for additional funding in the current fiscal year. Now, these disasters -- we don't fund them up front. People think when you have a big disaster like this, you get all the money at the beginning of the disaster. [But] you actually get it as you go through the rebuilding process.

You've been critical in the past of the centralization of FEMA in Washington. How is that reconciled now?

Well, FEMA has 10 regional offices. If we were trying to run everything from Washington, the sheer number of current disasters that we're working could easily overwhelm us. We've had success in recruiting. We have, prior to these latest run of disasters, been providing additional staff and positions in the regions to strengthen them to handle more and more of these disasters. Decentralizing from Washington and building up from the 10 regions actually gives us the flexibility to respond to multiple disasters across this country, shift resources from those regions that weren't as heavily engaged in disasters. Here in Washington we have an oversight on what's going on, but we're able to empower the regions to deal with much of the response issues they're facing. [That] allows us to focus on the most critical areas. The reality is that by decentralizing and empowering our regions, we've actually made ourselves more resilient because we don't have headquarters here in Washington as a single point of failure.

Does it matter that national attention has been drawn elsewhere in the wake of these disasters?

We don't care. We're focused on the survivors. We're not just saying that. We really try to focus in on not what the national media covers, or where people think the issues are; we try to focus on where the survivors are and where their needs are. There is only one motive here, and that is supporting state and local governments, and primarily for us, focusing on making sure we're doing everything we can to meet the needs of our survivors in those communities that are impacted.

You're dealing with tornadoes, flooding, wildfires in more than half the states in this country. Is FEMA reaching a breaking point with all these disasters?

No. If FEMA was doing all this by ourselves, then yes. But we're not. We're part of a team. And there's a lot of resources at the state and local level that people tend to gloss over. [People] immediately jump to FEMA and forget that almost in every one of these cases, and even the tornadoes in Alabama, that initial response was not a federally-led response. It was local officials and the governor responding with in-state resources. Because of everything that happened with Katrina, everyone's looking for some super, uber agency that's going to come in and do everything. That's not the structure of our government. We're part of a team. We all have roles to play.

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FEMA's Fugate: Tornadoes Could Be Second Worst Ever