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Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
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SuperFlyBCat Offline
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Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
11-11-2012 09:28 PM
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T-Monay820 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
Its a frickin cluster**** up there. And most of it boils down to two things: money and lack of common sense. FEMA is again demonstrating they have no clue what they are doing. The Unions are doing their best to get as much of the government money as they can at the expense of the residents. People who should have left didn't have the common sense to leave. And those who are still stuck there seem to have no clue that they should have prepared better despite the fact that storms like these don't just suddenly show up. While the damage the storm caused was not preventable, the current humanitarian situation should not be this bad. We as a soceity seem to be incapable of learning how to take care of ourselves anymore. It took the frickin Marines to get people out of their homes and cleaning up the streets so that utility vehicles could get through. I've lost a lot of respect for this allegeded New York "resiliency" they speak about.
11-12-2012 09:53 PM
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GrayBeard Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
Darn that George Bush and his plan to let the black people die.
11-12-2012 09:57 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
(11-12-2012 09:53 PM)T-Monay820 Wrote:  FEMA is again demonstrating they have no clue what they are doing.

No.

FEMA is demonstrating that they don't actually do anything. FEMA is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, just like it did after Katrina. How many vendors have you heard screaming about getting paid late?

The things that FEMA is failing to do are things that are not FEMA's job. There is this huge misconception that FEMA is somehow charged with coordinating the response to a disaster and picking up all the loose ends. Nope. FEMA are the bean counters. State and local governments coordinate the response. FEMA pays the bills. The quality of the response depends on governors and mayors, not FEMA.

Before the disaster, they negotiate open purchase orders with vendors. Think you might need a boat if a hurricane hits? Call FEMA and they will negotiate an open purchase order with a Joe's Boats to provide X boats at a cost of $Y per boat per day. Storm hits, you call FEMA and tell them you need a boat, they tell you to call Joe's Boats, you call Joe, Joe sends you a boat and a bill, you pay the bill, FEMA reimburses you. The problem here, as it was in New Orleans, is that Joe's Boats got wiped out too.

I think we SHOULD have an agency tasked with response coordination. It needs to be an agency with a lot of assets. I would make it the national guard. They have assets and a lot of training time. Make emergency response a bigger part of their mission. Clinton proposed this. Republicans shot it down because he was a democrat. Democrats shot it down because, because--well, gee whillikers Batman, I don't know why they shot it down, maybe because they hate black people.
(This post was last modified: 11-12-2012 11:45 PM by Owl 69/70/75.)
11-12-2012 11:40 PM
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nomad2u2001 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
(11-12-2012 11:40 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(11-12-2012 09:53 PM)T-Monay820 Wrote:  FEMA is again demonstrating they have no clue what they are doing.

No.

FEMA is demonstrating that they don't actually do anything. FEMA is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, just like it did after Katrina. How many vendors have you heard screaming about getting paid late?

The things that FEMA is failing to do are things that are not FEMA's job. There is this huge misconception that FEMA is somehow charged with coordinating the response to a disaster and picking up all the loose ends. Nope. FEMA are the bean counters. State and local governments coordinate the response. FEMA pays the bills. The quality of the response depends on governors and mayors, not FEMA.

Before the disaster, they negotiate open purchase orders with vendors. Think you might need a boat if a hurricane hits? Call FEMA and they will negotiate an open purchase order with a Joe's Boats to provide X boats at a cost of $Y per boat per day. Storm hits, you call FEMA and tell them you need a boat, they tell you to call Joe's Boats, you call Joe, Joe sends you a boat and a bill, you pay the bill, FEMA reimburses you. The problem here, as it was in New Orleans, is that Joe's Boats got wiped out too.

I think we SHOULD have an agency tasked with response coordination. It needs to be an agency with a lot of assets. I would make it the national guard. They have assets and a lot of training time. Make emergency response a bigger part of their mission. Clinton proposed this. Republicans shot it down because he was a democrat. Democrats shot it down because, because--well, gee whillikers Batman, I don't know why they shot it down, maybe because they hate black people.

I'd like to know the actual structure of FEMA and the qualifications of the people at different parts of the structure. I've worked with a few of them once in my career after Fay hit Florida.
11-12-2012 11:55 PM
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nomad2u2001 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
I should also mention that I didn't even actually see them. I'm an OS so I was on the phone/radio with them.
11-12-2012 11:59 PM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
(11-12-2012 11:59 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  I should also mention that I didn't even actually see them. I'm an OS so I was on the phone/radio with them.

What issues were you discussing with them and where were they?

Just trying to understand how they were operating.

There is a FEMA org chart online, updated 24 Sep 2012, and it shows about 50 people nationwide. Of course that doesn't appear to include administrative assistants, but it does appear to go down pretty low in the organization. A similar chart from the Bush administration that I also found online shows 45. And I've always been told their headcount was less than 200 nationally, so they're not going to be able to do much. We worked with FEMA New Orleans when I was doing readiness planning for the Gulf Coast back around 1990, and at that time he was a two person shop--he and an administrative person--and I got the impression that's the way most field offices were set up. Whatever the issue, he would always say, "Send us the bills. We can't do much else, but we can get the bills paid."
11-13-2012 12:34 AM
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RobertN Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
03-lmfao The election is over. You guys can stop making **** up to try and make Obama look bad.
11-13-2012 01:10 AM
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nomad2u2001 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
(11-13-2012 12:34 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(11-12-2012 11:59 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  I should also mention that I didn't even actually see them. I'm an OS so I was on the phone/radio with them.

What issues were you discussing with them and where were they?

Just trying to understand how they were operating.

There is a FEMA org chart online, updated 24 Sep 2012, and it shows about 50 people nationwide. Of course that doesn't appear to include administrative assistants, but it does appear to go down pretty low in the organization. A similar chart from the Bush administration that I also found online shows 45. And I've always been told their headcount was less than 200 nationally, so they're not going to be able to do much. We worked with FEMA New Orleans when I was doing readiness planning for the Gulf Coast back around 1990, and at that time he was a two person shop--he and an administrative person--and I got the impression that's the way most field offices were set up. Whatever the issue, he would always say, "Send us the bills. We can't do much else, but we can get the bills paid."

I think they were in Naples. It was basically me, the CO, and my chief on the phone while they told us to send some of our auxiliary members their way.

It was weird at the time because FEMA was going through some changes and they had a new, required test that Auxiliary boat crews had to take that they just implemented that year. None of our people had taken it at the time so there was a long string of phone calls on their part to remove some of the red tape.

What I got from them is that they try to get as close to the center of the disaster as possible and make sure everyone's reimbursed, everybody has the proper quals, and that nobody's committing major fraud.

One thing that may really be changed from your time is that FEMA does have a distribution center in each region as assets. They keep water, blankets, and non-perishable food. They either rely on trucks from other agencies or contracted companies to deliver them though.
11-13-2012 01:19 AM
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nomad2u2001 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
(11-13-2012 01:10 AM)RobertN Wrote:  03-lmfao The election is over. You guys can stop making **** up to try and make Obama look bad.

You're the first person to even mention the name Obama on this thread. It's not even in anyone's sig.
11-13-2012 01:21 AM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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RE: Sick, frail struggle most in storm's aftermath
(11-13-2012 01:19 AM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  I think they were in Naples. It was basically me, the CO, and my chief on the phone while they told us to send some of our auxiliary members their way.
It was weird at the time because FEMA was going through some changes and they had a new, required test that Auxiliary boat crews had to take that they just implemented that year. None of our people had taken it at the time so there was a long string of phone calls on their part to remove some of the red tape.
What I got from them is that they try to get as close to the center of the disaster as possible and make sure everyone's reimbursed, everybody has the proper quals, and that nobody's committing major fraud.
One thing that may really be changed from your time is that FEMA does have a distribution center in each region as assets. They keep water, blankets, and non-perishable food. They either rely on trucks from other agencies or contracted companies to deliver them though.

We had some issues with the quals in planning for the Gulf Coast. When you rely on guard and reserves, the paperwork can be a bit uneven. We anticipated a lot of people who were qualified but not documented would show up, and never really reached a satisfactory answer.

There was a supply of blankets and such in New Orleans. Unfortunately IIRC they were stored in an old navy warehouse in 9th Ward and got pretty much wiped out.
11-13-2012 01:38 AM
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