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Emergency management was organized in the 1950s to the early 1960s around the perceived threat of a nuclear attack and the Cold War. President Truman constructed the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), which became an independent agency in the beginning of 1951. The FCDA monitored disasters in the United States and advised the President, but did not offer direct assistance to local or state governments. The Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM) formed within the Department of Defense (DOD), was created to coordinate the federal response during an attack. The ODM evolved into an agency that was also responsible for the coordination of relief activities after a disaster. In 1958, the FCDA and the ODM were combined to form the Office of Defense and Civilian Mobilization (ODCM) and was located in the President’s Executive Office. The ODCM was allowed to distribute funds to local and state governments as stated in the amendment of the Federal Civil Defense Act. These funds were used for civilian defense preparedness activities and started the concept that federal, state, and local governments all shared in the responsibility of emergency management.

In 1961, the civil defense aspects of emergency management were sent to DOD’s newly created Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and the preparedness activities were left in the Office of Emergency Planning. The office was later renamed the Office of Emergency Preparedness (OEP). President Kennedy recognized the growing threat of natural hazards and thought that the OEP being located in the White House could better coordinate disaster relief when it was separate from civil defense activities. By 1970, the organization and funding of emergency management activities was spread out between hundreds of different federal departments; for example the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration, provided funding assistance to disaster victims, was located in the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 1979, under pressure from the state governors to form a more efficient emergency management system, President Carter formed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that again combined the activities of civil defense and natural disaster response.

III. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
FEMA was created to integrate all the components of the federal government’s emergency management functions into one agency. This became the US government’s one stop shop for preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery programs for natural disasters and civil defense. FEMA was a combination of: The Federal Preparedness Agency, Federal Disaster Administration, Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, Federal Insurance Administration, National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, Executive Office of Dam Safety Coordination, Executive Office of Earthquake Hazard Reduction, Executive Office of Consequence Management in Terrorism and the Executive Office of Warning and Emergency Broadcast.

FEMA now has over 2,500 fulltime employees and has the ability to call in over 5,000 disaster “reservists” as needed. The agency’s director, deputy director, and chief of staff are politically appointed positions that have offices in the Office of the Director. The Office of General Counsel, Office of the Inspector General, Office of Equal Rights, Office of Federal Coordination Officers, and the newly formed Office of National Preparedness all report directly to the FEMA leadership in the Office of the Director. The Stafford Act allows FEMA to coordinate and pay for the different emergency management activities that their partners take part in. Their partners consist of state and local emergency management agencies, 27 federal agencies, and the American Red Cross. The Office of National Preparedness was established because President George W. Bush wanted an office inside FEMA to again focus on the potential threat of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon attack on United States soil. The new office coordinates all federal agencies dealing with civil defense. FEMA is broken up into seven different departments: Regional Operations, Readiness Response and Recovery, Federal Insurance and Mitigation, US Fire Administration, External Affairs, Information Technology Services, and Administration and Resource Planning. Each department has different divisions. The agency is able to focus on all types of hazards and has a mission to, “Lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters.”

FEMA’s focus and organizational structure has changed over its existence depending on what was perceived as the nation’s greatest threat and which president was in office. During the Carter administration, FEMA was trying to merge all the different agencies together to form an all hazards approach to emergency management. The focus shifted back to civil defense and the continuation of government during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations until the cold war ended in 1989 with the breakup of the Soviet Union. President Clinton appointed James Lee Witt Director of FEMA in 1993. Director Witt shifted the focus back to natural disasters and streamlined FEMA’s operations to better service the local population affected by a disaster. Director Witt's prior knowledge of emergency management and his close relationship with President Clinton brought FEMA to the forefront of the federal government and Director Witt a chair in the President's cabinet.

IV. 9/11 And Homeland Security
    The events of 9/11 have once again changed the organizational structure of emergency management due to what the federal government believes is the greatest threat to the United States. President George W. Bush responded on September 20, 2001 announcing that an Office of Homeland Security (OHS) was going to be established in the White House. Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Ridge, headed the new office. Governor Ridge was sworn in on October 8, 2001 with the mandate to advise the President on homeland security issues. The mission of OHS was "[T]o develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks…[and to] perform the functions necessary to carry out this mission." OHS had a few problems. It was not given any statutory authority or budget control over the agencies it was suppose to coordinate. The closest thing to authority that Governor Ridge had was being a trusted friend of the president's. Members of Congress, especially Senator Joseph Lieberman, recognized early that OHS had no real resources/power to make the United States safer. Senator Lieberman proposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by combining many related agencies from different departments and making homeland security a cabinet level subject. The Bush administration resisted at first, but then surprised everyone when they proposed a plan that had an even larger merger of agencies.

President Bush signed the "Homeland Security Act of 2002" on November 25th, 2002. The act established the largest restructuring of government since the creation of the Department of Defense. The new department is a merger of 22 different agencies and more than 170,000 employees. It will have an estimated budget of $37 billion and become the second largest department of government in the United States. President Bush plans to appoint his Homeland Security Advisor, Governor Ridge, as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. His choice for Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security is the current Secretary of the Navy, Gordon England. Asa Hutchinson, the current head of the DEA, will become the Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security, which is the largest division of DHS. The President will appoint an additional 12 unspecified assistant secretary positions that will have to be reviewed and confirmed by the Senate.

The Department of Homeland Security will have four major divisions: Border and Transportation Security, Emergency Preparedness and Response, Science and Technology, and Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection. The Secret Service will stand-alone and report directly to Secretary Ridge. FEMA's Office of National Preparedness and the Justice Department's Office of Domestic Preparedness were originally slated to be a part of the DHS division of Emergency Preparedness and Response (see Economist.com chart below), but are now included to be a part of Border and Transportation Security. That would mean FEMA, the only independent agency merged into the new department, would be broken up.

V. Analysis Of Past Versus Present
    The organization of emergency management has always been dictated by the current threat. The United States prepares for the future by learning from what just happened in the past. This practice can be useful because the government needs to always adapt, but does not allow for continuity between programs. The constant change of focus between civil defense and natural disasters hampers the effectiveness of America's emergency management. FEMA's evolvement to an all-hazard approach in emergency management has proved that it can stand the test of time and should be replicated in the Department of Homeland Security. During the past decade FEMA has been able to respond to different kinds and varying sizes of disasters. FEMA successfully responded to recent natural disasters and the terror acts of 9/11. FEMA's organizational structure and statutory authority has enabled it to coordinate the mass numbers of agencies involved in emergency management. The Office of National Preparedness addressed the concern that the threat of terrorism on American soil is on the rise.

    In a recent publishing about the Homeland Security Act of 2002 during the signing ceremony President George W. Bush stated, "In establishing a new Department of Homeland Security, the Act for the first time creates a Federal department whose primary mission will be to prevent, protect against and respond to acts of terrorism on our soil."   In a memorandum to federal employees President Bush states, "As you know, the Department of Homeland Security will focus on three critical objectives to: 1). Prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; 2). Reduce America's vulnerability to terrorism; and 3). Minimize the damage from potential attacks and natural disasters." Natural Disasters was only mentioned once. The structure and focus of the Department of Homeland Security is too much on civil defense and terrorism. What is going to happen when the next category four hurricane slams into the Florida Panhandle? Is the terrorism-focused Department of Homeland Security going to be able to respond effectively? If this decade is as nasty as the 1990s in dealing with natural disasters, will the federal government restructure emergency management?

VI. The Future
    The Department of Homeland Security is a step in the right direction, but it is with the wrong foot. Consolidating related programs and streamlining the response to disasters is why FEMA was created in 1979. The problem with the DHS is that it restrains FEMA's response capabilities by burying it in one of the four DHS divisions. Also, DHS does not answer the question of what went wrong leading to the events of 9/11.
    The Department of Homeland Security should not breakup FEMA nor put it in one of its divisions. FEMA should stand alone in DHS just like the Secret Service. They should report directly to the secretary and keep their broad mission to, “Lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters.”   Their all hazard approach and mission can fit in the new department, but their focus should never be just civil defense. FEMA needs to strengthen its civil defense programs and improve the response capabilities of the state and local emergency management agency. FEMA's response to the events of 9/11 was not a failure. It is an agency that is trusted and known by state and local governments. By putting FEMA in a division of DHS, the federal government might be jeopardizing its emergency management response capabilities to all disasters.

      The big failure of 9/11 was in intelligence gathering. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not communicate between each other and subsequently allowed the terrorist to plan, develop, and perform the attacks. The Office of Homeland Security was established to better coordinate these two agencies, but lacked any power to do so. The DHS has an Informational Analysis division, but relies on the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies for its information. The secretive nature of these groups does not lead people to believe that they will be willing to share. The DHS needs to have its own intelligence agency.

Since the FBI's main function is not intelligence, HSD should partition that department from the FBI to form the Domestic Intelligence Gathering Group (DIGG). DIGG would work under the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection division of HSD and provide it with the intelligence it needs to keep the United States safe. With DIGG, HSD would be able to better coordinate all intelligence agencies and not have to rely on them for success.

What is in a name? The Department of Homeland Security is structured in a way where it could effectively help the United States respond, mitigate, prepare, and recover from all disasters. The DHS should change its mission statement to include all aspects of emergency management. The agencies that are involved in the merger have different emergency management responsibilities and research functions that lay outside of terrorism. The DHS should be renamed the Department of Emergency Management in order to better serve the American population and ease the merger of the 22 different agencies.

Resources:
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. 2002. The History of Civil Defense & Emergency Management in Tennessee. Internet Site. http://www.tnema.org/Archives/EMHistory/TNCDHist3.htm. November 29.
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. 2002. The History of Civil Defense & Emergency Management in Tennessee. Internet Site. http://www.tnema.org/Archives/EMHistory/TNCDHist4.htm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA History. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/history..shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA History. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/history..shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA Who We Are. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/who.shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. Office of National Preparedness. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/nwz02/nwz02_03a.shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA Organizational Chart. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/femaorg.shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA History. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/history..shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA Organizational Chart. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/femaorg.shtm. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA History. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/history..shtm. November 29.
Wermuth, Michael A. 2001 Mission Impossible? The White House Office of Homeland. Internet Site. http://webdev.maxwell.syr.edu/campbell/Governance_Symposium/wermuth.pdf. November 29.
The Economist. November 2002. Washington's Mega-Merger. Internet Site. http://www.economist.com/world/na/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1455184. November 29.
The White House. November 2002. Memorandum to Federal Employees. Internet Site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/release/2002/11/print/20021126-10.html. November 29.
The Washington Post. November 20, 2002. A Single Roof for Homeland Security. November 29.
Government Executive Magazine. November 2002. Homeland Security Organized Along Administration's Proposal. Internet Site. http://www.govexec.com/news/index.cfm?mode=report&articleid=24387&printfriendlyVers=1&. November 29.
The Economist. November 2002. Washington's Mega-Merger. Internet Site. http://www.economist.com/world/na/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1455184. November 29.
The White House. November 2002. Statement by the President. Internet Site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/release/2002/11/print/20021125-10.html. November 29.
The White House. November 2002. Memorandum to Federal Employees. Internet Site. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/release/2002/11/print/20021126-10.html. November 29.
Federal Emergency Management Agency. September 2002. FEMA History. Internet Site. http://www.fema.gov/about/history..shtm. November 29.