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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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November
2006
Volume 11 -
Number 2 |
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Political responsibility for Katrina
By Byoungdo Jung What is politics? Wikipedia defines “Politics
is the process by which groups make decisions.” Who is responsible for
natural disasters like a hurricane Katrina? Schneider(1990a:172) states that
the government supports extensive public warning systems, builds damns, demarcates
flood plains, requires buildings and property to take adequate precautions,
and administers a wide array of regulations aimed at reducing loss of property
and life stemming from natural disasters. When natural disasters do occur,
it is the government that responds with police, fire fighters, emergency
personnel, and financial assistance. Consequently, “disasters are an excellent
test of government performance” And Wortman (1976) also says that the target
of blame is focused on those who can do (or should have done) something to
minimize the negative impact of disasters or prevent them altogether.
In the same context, Peter Dreier point out in “Urban Affairs Review”(March 2006) that the federal government has a reasonably good track record of responding to earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. President Lyndon Johnson quickly responded to Hurricane Betsy, which struck New Orleans in September 1965. More recently, the Clinton administration significantly professionalized and improved the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), appointed an experienced administrator (James Lee Witt), increased its budget and developed close working relationships with governors, mayors and their disaster management agencies. Its success in overseeing relief and reconstruction after the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake suggests that the federal government can act effectively and efficiently in times of crisis. He also designated that what is clear is that its indifference toward New Orleans began long before Katrina struck. The Bush administration systemically stripped FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers of authority, money and key staff; undermined their moral; and ignored warnings by state emergency managers that its actions were sabotaging FEMA’s capacity to respond to disasters. It folded FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security, diminishing its role as an emergency planning and relief agency while viewing it as simply another part of the administration’s “war on terror.” The Bush administration knew long before the storm hit that 100,000 New Orleans residents had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of its evacuation plan. The National Weather Service correctly predicted the force of the storm, but the top officials in the Bush administration failed to heed the message. Since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, including EEMA’s Project impact have been cut or canceled outright. In addition, in 2003, the Republican-controlled Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) in half. In fiscal year 2004, the average budget for a state emergency management agency was $40.8 million, a 23 percent reduction from fiscal year 2003. In an effort that showed the president’s lack of personal concern for natural disaster preparedness, Bush called for cutting the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster preparedness expenditures from 75 percent of such costs, with states and municipalities funding the other 25 percent, to a 50 percent federal responsibility. New Orleans population has dropped by nearly 60 percent since Hurricane Katrina, according to a post-storm survey. A third of the residents lives below the poverty line, and have lost family, house, job, and almost everything. The last thing they still keep in mind is a hope in the future. If Bush was not in the line of responsibility for the disaster, it is time for him to be in the line of the responsibility and to show them his political ability if he can as a president of the most powerful and developed country in the world. References http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/145/politicaldisaster.html |