Hi All. So far only the tip of the iceberg is showing in regards to the sinking of New Orleans, which is the latest version of “Titanic.”

Most of the following is cut and paste. This was done for two reasons. One is that it is faster and two, the writers were a lot kinder then I would have been. Take Care…Don in creepy town

“FEMA was born in 1979, the offspring of a number of federal agencies that had been functioning in an independent and uncoordinated manner to protect the country against natural disasters and nuclear holocaust. In its early years, FEMA grew and matured, with programs being developed to respond to large-scale disasters and with extensive planning for what is called ``continuity of government.''

“President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to be director of the agency. Witt was the first professional emergency manager to run the agency. Showing a serious regard for the cost of natural disasters in both economic impact and lives lost or disrupted, Witt reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation. In an effort to reduce the repeated loss of property and lives every time a disaster struck, he started a disaster mitigation effort called ''Project Impact.” Part of FEMA’s mission was disaster mitigation – measures to keep the next flood or earthquake from doing as much damage as the last. In the 1990s, the centerpiece of this effort was “Project Impact”, which assisted local governments in funding such local needs as buyouts of houses in flood plains and seismic retrofitting of buildings in the Puget Sound region.”

“Sept. 11 was not good for disaster preparedness. In its commendable effort to focus federal resources on terrorism, the Bush administration made the mistake of folding FEMA – which had reported directly to the White House – into the Department of Homeland Security. This left the agency buried in a much larger entity that is overwhelmingly about dealing with the likes of al-Qaida, not hurricanes or tornadoes.”

“Worse, the administration had already moved to reduce funding for disaster mitigation. “Project Impact” – which was hardly breaking the budget at $20 million a year – was eliminated in 2001. In 2003, Congress cut FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program by half. Federal grants for local mitigation efforts became hard to come by. Last year, Louisiana – perhaps the most flood-plagued state in the union – wasn’t able to get a hazard mitigation grant to prepare for just the kind of floods New Orleans is suffering right now.”

“The focus on terrorism is critical, of course. But the U.S. government ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Anti-terror efforts should not be permitted to compromise the nation’s response to hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and all the other catastrophes Mother Nature throws at us.”

“The advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the ``homeland security borg.''

“This year it was announced that FEMA is to ''officially'' lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.”

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/opinion/12569332.htm

http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/story/5143684p-4679606c.html

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.fema.brown/