Simply put, FEMA sucks!!

FRPLG:

you went point for point, and except for one issue, every single one contains you making (wrong) assumptions about what i actually said. thus when you're trying to call me out on things i didn't say but you think i did, it's a bit hard to take.

and if you read about the charter they actually do cover civil defense and disaster preparedness, which you've been vehement in denoucing:


wikipedia:
September 11th, 2001, President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to better coordinate among the different federal agencies that deal with law enforcement, disaster preparedness and recovery, border protection and civil defense. FEMA was absorbed into DHS as of 2003. As a result, FEMA became part of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate of DHS, and employs more than 2,600 full time employees. In September 2003, Michael D. Brown, FEMA's director and DHS Undersecretary, warned that the shift would make a mockery of FEMA's new motto, "A Nation Prepared,"...

Again its not FFEMA's job to evacuate the city. Bush spoke to the mayoer and the governer. THey both knew that the city needed to be evacuated. By the time FEMA or Bush would have known that alot of people where not evacuating it would have been to late. Millions did evacuate remember the long line of trafic where people waited for up to 10 hours to get out of town and they and the gas stations where all running out of gas. If they knew to evacuate why didn't everyone know to evacuate? Or did they and they just refused to leave? I posted back some that they found a poll a year or two old and about 75% of the people in Olins said they would not evacuate. To top it all off they voted the mayor back into office and he screwed most of the stuff up. Goverment is the worse thing to rely on. I had to get a permit to build a garage. I started back on 05/11/06 and finaly got the permit today.

I think first off - it's about not having a leader to take responsibility. All of the leaders in this case were thinking about themselves; they didn't care enough to say: "what's done is done, I'll take responsibility for all of this- what's important now is trying to resolve all of this." No one stepped up.

And second - there are the abuses in these cases that should lead to criminal charges.

The sad part of all of this was: there was an entire nation of people willing to donate their time, money, and energy to help - but what leadership did was: blame others and abuse the powers and resources given to them.

And of course bush didn't cause all of this - but I can compare this to a good samaritan or just a passive bystander (doing nothing) when someone needs help. Did bush need to help ? no. Should he have tried to do more in this case and take some more responsibility on, to help in this situation ? I say yes.

TG -
No where does anything out there say that FEMA is responsible for preemptive preparedness; Everything refers to response. ie, after something has happened, not before.

TG -
No where does anything out there say that FEMA is responsible for preemptive preparedness; Everything refers to response. ie, after something has happened, not before.

except for things like this (which i already quoted):
FEMA became part of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate of DHS, and employs more than 2,600 full time employees.

and if you go to fema's website, they have a very large "plan ahead" section, with articles like "how to prepare for a hurricane", including evacutation info (http://www.fema.gov/plan/prepare/evacuation.shtm).


but apparently everyone missed that.

except for things like this (which i already quoted):
FEMA became part of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate of DHS, and employs more than 2,600 full time employees.

and if you go to fema's website, they have a very large "plan ahead" section, with articles like "how to prepare for a hurricane", including evacutation info (http://www.fema.gov/plan/prepare/evacuation.shtm).


but apparently everyone missed that.
Show me where it says that the agency will take "preemtive action".

FEMA looks at what *might* happen, then reacts to it when it *does* happen. It does not act on what might happen. That is the local authorities job. It has been since day one.

Show me where it says that the agency will take "preemtive action".

FEMA looks at what *might* happen, then reacts to it when it *does* happen. It does not act on what might happen. That is the local authorities job. It has been since day one.

EXACTLY!

If FEMA's job was to babysit everyone and make sure they're ready for any possible disasters that might happen someday, they'd need a branch office in EVERY town in the nation. Could you imagine how much money that would waste?

Their job is to help after disasters occur. It's the responsibility of each local government to prepare for emergencies.

Think of FEMA as an ambulance. You can't blame an ambulance driver for not arriving in time for a heart attack victim when the person who died sat around drinking beer and eating cheese-in-a-can on everything. They're an emergency response agency, not a babysitter.

EXACTLY!

If FEMA's job was to babysit everyone and make sure they're ready for any possible disasters that might happen someday, they'd need a branch office in EVERY town in the nation. Could you imagine how much money that would waste?

Their job is to help after disasters occur. It's the responsibility of each local government to prepare for emergencies.

Think of FEMA as an ambulance. You can't blame an ambulance driver for not arriving in time for a heart attack victim when the person who died sat around drinking beer and eating cheese-in-a-can on everything. They're an emergency response agency, not a babysitter.

Wait a minute. Are you guys actually defending FEMA ? Did you read the article ? And are you actually asking how much money that it would waste to "babysit" ? How about not wasting or defrauding taxpayers' money ? to the count of 1.4 billion dollars. How about that for wasting a little money ?

Show me where it says that the agency will take "preemtive action".

FEMA looks at what *might* happen, then reacts to it when it *does* happen. It does not act on what might happen. That is the local authorities job. It has been since day one.

you said they don't do preparation and that it's not mentioned anywhere, even though it's been in their job description for 3 years. I didn't say anything about pre-emptive action in that post you were replying to. When its pointed out that they do do prepartory work, you decide to throw up some weird strawman instead.

and yes, I do think someone should have tried harder to convince the locals or the people that an evacuation was necessary instead of staring at an oncoming train and throwing their hands up. It would have been in everyone's best economic interests.

for the sake of arguement, femas job is to react to any and all diasters within the united states. well , then what the hell took so long to get to those people? it took w almost a full week to make an appearance in new orleans, and look whats going on with the funding. this is a case of gross mis management starting at the top the whole way to the bottom. everyone, including one george w bush shares the blame. how mayor nagens got re elected is beyond belief. but then again, one marion berry also won after smoking crack. so as the saying goes, only in america