10-29-2012, 06:06 PM
cbelt3 wrote:
I'm of two minds about this. Historically, government agencies like FEMA who exist to 'help in disasters' become unwieldly self-perpetuating bureacracies that lose the very flexibility that they need to have to fulfull their missions.
However, historically, when massive disasters strike, the local resources are quickly overwhelmed and go under without external help. That is the very syndrome that FEMA is supposed to resolve.
Snip away the BS and it's a good thing to have a centralized resource that the whole country feeds into to help locales that are affected. But when the bureacracy runs the show, stupid stuff happens. That's what happened in Katrina. The bureacracy won. Local responders were overwhelmed.
FEMA was never contemplated to be a 'first responder'. The media and politicians always get that wrong.
Why is the Red Cross successful ? Not because it's a 'private organization' or 'not a government'. Because it's an intelligently run distributed organization with a reasonable amount of local flexibility.
Remake FEMA with a more flexible and smaller organization. Give them the ability to repurpose national guard units for support.
I've been in a flood. The Salvation Army blows the Red Cross out of the water, pun intended. I am so over the Red Cross when it comes to disaster relief. Anyone who wants to contribute and know that their dollars are being used wise and well by folks who aren't afraid to get wet, please give to The Salvation Army and not the Red Cross.
FEMA is intended to help you recover from the storm. Which it does. Admirably.