Hurricane Irene swept up the East Coast this weekend, leaving a path of flooding and devastation in her wake. Despite being downgraded from a Category 1 to only a tropical storm, the slow-moving storm forced evacuations, killed more than 10 people and left millions without power. Irene is projected to cause billions of dollars in damage. Recovery is surely going to be a challenge for the East Coast, but thankfully organizations such as Federal Emergency Management Agency exist to come to its aid.
But Republican presidential candidate and Congressman Ron Paul, R-Texas disagrees. After a campaign event in New Hampshire on Friday, Paul told CNN, “There’s no magic about FEMA.” He went on to call the relief agency a great contribution to deficit financing and disparage its effect on the government finances as well as its general effectiveness.
“They hinder the local people, and they hinder volunteers from going in,” Paul said. “We should be coordinated but coordinated voluntarily with the states. A state can decide. We don’t need somebody in Washington.”
Because clearly the states most prone to hurricanes, such as Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, have enough money laying around to be able to fund their own relief and rebuilding effort and be back to normal in a matter of weeks, despite the fact that they can barely afford public schools.
Besides, according to Paul, “All they do is come in and tell you what to do and can’t do. You can’t get in your houses.”
Darn that FEMA, trying to keep me out of my structurally unstable house and keeping me from drinking this suspiciously tinged water!
“I live on the Gulf Coast,” Paul said, referencing the catastrophic 1900 Texas storm that killed more than 6,000. “We deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.”
He said the people on the Texas coast were able to rebuild their cities without the aid of the federal government, thank-you-very-much.
“We should be like 1900,” he said. “We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960.”
Of course! What we need right now is to return to turn-of-the-century disaster relief methods. Clearly back in the day they did it right: no fancy National Weather Service, no organized relief effort, no specialized rebuilding plans, just disaster victims running around with no particular plan trying to fix what they can with whatever they’ve got laying around. All we really need is good old-fashioned American elbow grease, and maybe a couple of sandbags.
I’m kidding. That’s ridiculous.
Sure, FEMA botched the Katrina relief effort, and it’s certainly not saving the government any money, but a government agency is only as good as the people who run it. During the Bill Clinton administration, FEMA ran smoothly and efficiently under the direction of James L. Witt, who streamlined relief efforts and turned FEMA into a model organization.
After George W. Bush took office, FEMA was in shambles, partially due to Bush’s appointment of Michael D. Brown, who, unlike Witt, had no previous disaster experience, but rather was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association. Brown did such an abysmal job post-Katrina that he was forced to resign.
Under President Barack Obama, however, FEMA seems to be regaining some of its former glory with administrator W. Craig Fugate. On “Meet The Press,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley had nothing but good things to say about the agency’s response to Irene.
“The federal response was excellent,” O’Malley said. “They have been with us since day one, and actually, before the storm arrived, they were here, and it’s worked really, really well. This is a much better FEMA than the olden days.”
He also said the relatively low number of casualties was “because of FEMA’s partnership, because people listened, we were able to avoid any big threats.”
FEMA isn’t perfect, but it’s a good deal better than nothing.