From HSToday: Podcast re What Comes After a Community Receives Federal Disaster Funding
“A new episode of the DisasterSmiths™ podcast is taking a closer look at what comes after a community receives federal disaster recovery funding.”
From the WashPost: FEMA national security functions ‘significantly constrained’ during shutdown, email warns
“An internal email sent to FEMA’s leader expressed concern about impacts to the Office of National Continuity Programs, tasked with keeping the executive branch running during a catastrophe.”
From the NY Times: A Post-Katrina Law Guards FEMA Resources. Why Hasn’t It Stopped Noem?
A key statute was designed to rein in the Homeland Security secretary and prevent deadly mistakes. Lawyers say its provisions are difficult to enforce.
From NPR:: 3 big changes are proposed for FEMA. This is what experts really think of them
” The Trump administration is undertaking the biggest overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in a generation. President Trump has been a vocal critic of the disaster response agency and, shortly after taking office, he appointed a 12-person review council to propose sweeping changes to FEMA.
Preliminary recommendations by that council would “eliminate FEMA as we know it today,” according to a draft of its report obtained by NPR. The 89-page draft dates from December, when the FEMA Review Council was scheduled to adopt final recommendations, but the council’s final meeting was abruptly canceled.”
From HSToday: What Can Be Done When FEMA Goes Quiet?
“Whether caused by a lapse in appropriations, political gridlock, workforce disruption, or structural reorganization, even a short-term FEMA shutdown has immediate and cascading consequences. Emergency management is built on layered capability. Remove the top layer abruptly, and stress fractures begin to show everywhere else.
This is not a political argument. It is a planning exercise. And emergency managers should treat it as one.
What Breaks First?
Disasters do not shut down. When FEMA shuts down, it means that coordination, reimbursement, and surge support slow down or disappear precisely when they are needed most.
From HSToday: When emergency management walks out the door
“Across government, a generational turnover is underway. Many of the men and women who built modern emergency management came of age professionally after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the wars that reshaped homeland security. They learned through lived catastrophe. Their judgment was forged not just in classrooms but in EOCs at 3 a.m., during fuel shortages, radio failures, and moments when the plan fell apart and improvisation saved lives.
Now they are retiring. Not gradually, but in clusters. “
From the NYTimes: Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down, Though Essential Work Continues. Though funding for the department ran out early Saturday, officials said its essential functions would continue.
“Most FEMA employees are expected to continue working without pay, and agency leaders have said that its disaster relief fund has enough money for its current and anticipated emergency response activities. Still, the fund would be strained if a catastrophic disaster were to occur during the shutdown, according to agency leaders.”
Two prominent academics, Susan Cutter and Kathleen Tierney, have written an article titled Grandmothers of Invention: A Community on Fifty Years of Hazards and Disasters Research and Practice in the U.S., just published in Progress in Disaster Science.
Please note that the Diva is one of the women featured – details are on page 5 of the article.
From History Today:
The Strategic Imperative of Emergency Management Leadership
“Emergency management is one of the most consequential functions in state government, yet in most states it is not positioned that way. Today, only about 27 percent of state emergency management directors report directly to their Governor. The rest operate through additional layers of bureaucracy, despite being responsible for coordinating life-saving decisions during disasters. This column makes a straightforward business case: state emergency management directors should work directly for the Governor, with full executive-level access, because the mission demands speed, clarity, authority, and leadership at the highest level of government.”
From AP News: FEMA staff reductions paused during winter storm will resume
“The Federal Emergency Management Agency will resume staff cuts that were briefly paused during January’s severe winter storm, according to two FEMA managers, stoking concern across the agency over its ability to address disasters with fewer workers.”
Recovery Diva 