The Continued Existence of the DoHS

[asterion]

With the attention focused this last week on the screwup in New Orleans, combined with the testimony out of Mississippi and Alabama that they also didn't get any help, it seems to me that the very existence of the DoHS should be in question. I know that someone in Congress (no, I don't remember the name, it was on either Fox or MSNBC yesterday before the "briefing" by Chertoff) is already preparing legislation to remove FEMA from the DoHS. Now, it seems to me that there are two types of potential crises facing various parts of the US. One is terrorism--another 9/11 or Oklahoma City/first WTC-style bombing, attacks on mass transit ala London or Tokyo, or some sort of NBC attack. The other is natural--tornadoes and hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, volcanic eruption, tsunamis, and (way low probability) meteorite impact. Now, if the DoHS could not do anything in the aftermath of a natural disaster, why should we trust them again for another natural disaster or a large terrorist attack? I propose that, if nothing else, FEMA and related organizations should be pulled out of the DoHS. The DoHS itself should be carefully looked at, with heads rolling if need be (same goes for FEMA) and restructured or disbanded. If anything, FEMA should take control of a response in either case and DoHS subsumed into the DoD or the like, concentrating on anti-terrorism.

[dalej42]

I completely support the immediate abolishment of the Department of Homeland Security. Even the name conjures up visions of Stalinist Russia to me.

Tom Ridge and his "heightened" terror alerts and silly color-coded system did absolutely nothing. This current crisis has shown that DoHS is nothing but a wasteful bueraucracy.

Set up FEMA as a seperate agency. Get better coordination between the FBI/CIA/Military and major police departments.

[kniz]

FEMA being part of DoHS just meant that they had that much more red tape to wade thru before doing their job. They in effect weren't even in charge of doing their job. Tom Ridge did nothing to make things safer. His was a political appointment rewarded for being a good boy. He just loved to cut ribbons and go to banquets. The new guy is in over his head. Why not turn natural disasters over to the Red Cross and tell them if they screw up, we'll be calling the Salvation Army?

[Big Whistle]

FEMA has never been able to handle disaster relief adequately of any significant size. It dragged its feet in 1989, again after the 1994 Northridge quake, totally blew its response to Andrew in 1992, etc.

Doesn't matter who FEMA answers to, they don't do a good job, usually.

[BobLibDem]

Homeland Security just sounds creepy. Sounds either Stalinist or Third Reich. Do they do squat besides issue those worthless color coded warnings and absorb FEMA?

[MMI]

I've never liked the name.

But.

The problem with D of HS is the same as the problem with FEMA. FEMA's problem is not that it isn't a cabinet level post. FEMA's problem it is staffed with a political hack whose job is to win votes for his boss. Putting qualified people in charge and part of the problem goes away. Funding the agency at an appropriate level and another chunk goes away.

FEMA's current leadership crisis is hardly new. Apparently FEMA has been a joke for most of its history, with the noted exception of under James Lee Witt.

Saying that FEMA/DHS has overprepared for the terrorist end of things doesn't address the fact that coping with disaster is coping with disaster - if the levees are destroyed by Katrina and the waves or by some terrorist who hates jazz there are still going to be the same base issues to cope with.

[Acsenray]

Originally Posted by MMI

FEMA's problem it is staffed with a political hack whose job is to win votes for his boss.

A political hack? I knew someone who worked for FEMA in the 1980s and he said that pretty much everyone there was a former flunky of a Republican politician who had lost an election.

[Merijeek]

Originally Posted by acsenray

A political hack? I knew someone who worked for FEMA in the 1980s and he said that pretty much everyone there was a former flunky of a Republican politician who had lost an election.

Ahh...again the American public gets to suffer an anal fisting* due to the lovely 'spoils system'.

-Joe, unspoilt

*Apologies to those Dopers who don't think of that as a bad thing

[What Exit?]

FEMA should be pull out of DoHS and I have heard they are already generating a bill to liberate the Coast Guard before DoHS screws them up.

The DoHS chief should resign immediately as should the FEMA chief.

[asterion]

I think Chertoff summed his competence up nicely when he said that "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater." I heard him say it back on Saturday but I really wasn't paying attention and then Olberman pointed it out on Monday.

[kniz]

Didn't we miss out on a promising candidate for DoHS because of an illegal nanny? ^{Just our luck!}

[rjung]

To be fair, FEMA wasn't always a useless red-headed stepson; the Stafford Act and the Clinton Administration are considered the two turnaround forces that led to FEMA's renovation in the '90s:

Virtually overnight, the agency has developed a new reputation for quickness and efficiency. Gone are the bureaucratic swamps that the old FEMA had made its hallmark. It is telling that when state disaster officials talk about FEMA's response time, they no longer speak in days or weeks, but in hours. They speak of phone calls, not of forms dropped in the mail.

Consider the Oklahoma City bombing. Tom Feuerborne, director of Oklahoma's Civil Emergency Management Department, can cite the events of April 19, 1995 almost down to the minute. It was 9:02 a.m. when a truck bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building in downtown Oklahoma City. At 9:30, Feuerborne placed a phone call to FEMA's headquarters in Washington. At 2:05, FEMA's advance team arrived, complete with damage assessors and members of Witt's staff. Six hours later, at 8:10 that evening, Witt himself arrived to be briefed on the situation. By 2:30 a.m. April 20, the first of FEMA's search and rescue teams had arrived to supplement the efforts of the Oklahoma City fire department. Says Feuerborne, "My office is very happy with the quick response of FEMA."