How the Bush II administration manufactured the disaster in New Orleans, Part I: Dismantling FEMA

I've already discussed the nature of FEMA as President George W. Bush inherited it, but I'll recap quickly here: by the year 2000, FEMA was internationally recognized as a leader in disaster management; reported directly to the President of the United States; recognized and promoted the value of hazard mitigation (which accounts for about 90% of successful disaster management); and had encouraged many, if not all states to focus on their own disaster management programs. FEMA under President Clinton had also successfully consolidated federal emergency management responsibilities, reducing confusion and increasing the efficiency and success of federal responses.

President Bush reversed many of the nation's disaster management gains. His first budget eliminated funding for Project Impact, a program that worked on building disaster-resistant communities, later citing uncertainty as to its usefulness. Before the budget appropriations passed through Congress, however, Seattle suffered a 6.8 earthquake, from which it only received minimal damage; Seattle's mayor publicly credited Project Impact with enabling his city to survive the quake so successfully.

Congress subsequently restored funding for Project Impact, but for this discussion the point is that Bush had sought to eliminate a program that successfully improved the nation's emergency management capabilities. What is more, President Bush appointed Joe Allbaugh to head FEMA; Allbaugh had no experience in emergency management.

Allbaugh publicly indicated that mitigation and preparedness would be high priorities for FEMA, but the events of September 11th, 2001 intervened. Shortly after September 11th, the Bush administration embarked on a massive reorganization of the federal government, focussed on meeting the threat of terrorism. Among many other changes, this reorganization created the Department of Homeland Security and demoted FEMA, placing it under DHS. Many disaster management responsibilities were stripped from FEMA and dispersed among several other governmental bodies. DHS's mission, and thus FEMA's mission, became almost entirely focussed on terrorism. Mitigation, outside of the context of terrorism, was almost entirely abandoned.

In the wake of 9/11, the focus on terrorism is understandable; indeed, it was terribly overdue. In focussing on terrorism to the exclusion of all other hazards, however, the federal government lost much of it's ability to respond to natural and accidental disasters. Capabilities at the state and local levels also degraded as these governments, influenced by the direction of the federal government (much as they had been influenced under James Lee Witt and President Clinton) abandoned their own nonterrorism-related preparedness functions.

DHS's initial Secretary was Tom Ridge, who stepped down following the 2004 presidential ellections. He was replaced by Michael Chertoff, a federal judge. Chertoff reviewed the state of DHS and released a six-point agenda. This agenda focussed heavily on anti-terrorism activities, but made no mention of nonterrorism-related mitigation. Thus, by the time Katrina formed in the Atlantic, the nation was no longer prepared to meet it.

[Stay tuned for Chapter II]
[Prologue: The Clinton Administration]

NOTES [(added 1 Nov 2007)]:
1. Disaster management and emergency management are interchangeable terms.
2. See Haddow and Bullock's Introduction to Emergency Management, 2nd edition, (C) 2006, at chapter 2 for a larger discussion of the above points.