LTG Frank Camm, RET. Death notice!

President James Earl Carter created FEMA in his Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 which was implemented by two Executive Orders, 12127 and 12148.
General Camm was confirmed by the Senate in the position of Associate Director of Plans and Preparedness by the Armed Services Committee of the Senate and full Senate. He served until January 20, 1981, and was delegated authority from the Director of FEMA John Macey for the former functions of the Federal Preparedness Agency (GSA) and the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (DoD) that were two of several predecssor organizations of FEMA.
General Camm graduated from West Point in 1943. An obituary appeared in the WAPO on January 29, 2012.
He was succeeded in his position by Col. John Brinkerhoff, RET., West Point Class of 1950, who served until a reorganization of FEMA was conducted by Director Louis O. Guiffrida, an appointee also confirmed by the US Senate, of President Ronald Reagan.

Quick Update on Current Events and this blog!

It has been over 20 days since I last posted on this blog. It will however continue because a bunch of FEMA policy and organizational issues will be hitting the proverbial fan this spring. Why? FEMA performance in a record 14 billion dollar disasters in 2011 will be looked at closely. Also the President's reorganization efforts may have fall out for FEMA. And the NFIP expires again this summer and many on the HILL are vowing reforms. I have seen few reforms actually suggested as most would do nothing but continue defective policies in place. The NFIP should only provide flood insurance in the mapped and enforced 100 year flood plain actually the 1% annual excedence interval flood plain.

So here is my take on other current events.
And by the way my FACEBOOK page--William R. Cumming--is now my third blog. Try it and you may like it.

And my main blog is still found at http://www.vacationlanegrp.wordpress.com

CURRENT EVENTS:
The STATE of the UNION message flopped.

The ARAB SPRING flopped.

The ECONOMY continues to flop!

The military efforts in Afghanistan continue to flop!

The EUROZONE financial crisis continues and rescue efforts for Greece have flopped.

CAIN, PERRY, BACHEMAN, PALIN, HUNTSMAN, PAWLENTY, and others flopped bigtime in 2011. All current candidates will stay in through Supertuesday.

Joe Biden is a flop even as VP and will be replaced by Obama on the ticket.

Wall Street has flopped.

The Japanese response to the FUKISHIMA event has flopped.

PUTIN has flopped!

The theory that the climate has not entered a long term warming period has flopped.

Your questions answered, perhaps incorrectly, at vlg338@yahoo.com

Still 9 weeks of "winter" whatever that means for the weather!

FEMA as safety net!

No FEMA director or administrator has ever resigned or departed from the job voluntarily. But suppose a crisis of conscience did occur with that result. W. Craig Fugate has pretty much had a successful tenure as Administrator of FEMA since May of 2009 but he might be a candidate.

Why?

FEW anywhere understand that FEMA is not the federal safety net for either domestic crisis management, prevention, response, recovery and mitigation. It is still even with expansion of numbers a relatively small underfunded federal agencies whose major partners, the OFAs [other federal agencies] are experiencing rapid decline in their preparedness capability and this will accelerate over the next calendar year. The same holds true for FEMA's state and their local government partners. And now Administrator Fugate advocates FEMA policy and the Stafford Act being brought into alignment with SCOTUS rulings and USA history and treating the Federally Recognized Native American Tribes as being direct recipients of FEMA grants and agreements. I support this effort by the way. The problem of course is that the 500+ federally recognized tribes have almost no Emergency Management or HS capability and won't have it until built over at least a decade. So the complex administration of FEMA's efforts to have full fledged partners to help out is still a long way off and promises to recede even further into the future.

So perhaps W. Craig Fugate needs to get the Administration and Congress to address the issues raised by FEMA not being the safety net, and merely a small cooperative and collaborative agency that does not do that particularly well either.

Time runs out on Fugate whether because of a catastrophic event or whatever! Hope he survives and can address the issues underlying this post in a successful manner. Otherwise by by like all others who held his position before him.

Welcome to 2012

Well 2012 is finally here. And guess what at least 10 countries that may well impact this century in good and bad ways have Presidential elections including the USA.
My take on Iowa is pretty meaningless as New Hampshire and S. Carolina will soon demonstrate.

Barring a catastrophe and poor FEMA response W. Craig Fugate is very likely to be a holdover whomever is the next President. Longest serving FEMA Director or Administrator is still James Lee Witt, arriving early in 1993 and departing in January 2001. His greatest contribution to FEMA policy was a management decision to implement the recommendations of the Trefry Report issued in 1992 that recommended a reduction of cleared personnel in FEMA and he did that by 45%. Thus, information sharing was encouraged not discouraged by the "need-to-know" doctrine often utilized by bureaucrats to prevent discovery of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Two greatest financial problems in FEMA history. Alleged defalcation by a Senior Accounting Official of $21 million and some change. And the immediate disposal post exercise of a communications system that cost about $70 million to create and was totally inadequate for the job.

Well the future is now for FEMA. By the way PKEMRA 2006 had lots of HUMAN CAPITAL mandates for FEMA and wonder when GAO or OIG/DHS will investigate current compliance?

Here is to a year without CAT 5 storms, no major dam or levee failures, no earthquakes, and no tornadoes. Unlikely I know.

Statutory Mandates and FEMA

FEMA in 2011 definitely staffed up but quality and competence yet to be established by the acid test of events. Still a start made on the decline in staffing from January 20, 2001 to August 29, 2005 {Hurricane Katrina]!

But it should be noted that extensive HUMAN CAPITAL mandates were included in PKEMRA 2006 largely effective on March 31, 2007.

It would be helpful if FEMA published more about its demographics and the cohorts involved as to length of service. That latter number is not outcome determinative as to competence and skills but it certainly is a marker.

And since in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, FEMA with its administration of the DRF makes some other agencies much less significant when it comes to actual numbers.

Again a year in which certain disasters such as radiological releases and terrorism not specifically included in the events subject to disaster declarations. This should happen.

A compilation of FEMA legislative proposals sent to OMB and Congress and outcome would be of interest. NFIP reform also died on the vine.

But hey thanks to those who offered reform legislation in both the Executive Branch and the Congress.

Happy New Year and welcome to the 2nd Session of the 112th Congress.

The End is Near! 2011 that is!

I had long speculated that President Obama would break the century mark for declarations this year. He may just be short of that figure for major disasters. Still quite a year. With 10 billion dollar disasters a good warm up year for FEMA and the big one or ones to come.

I find the most interesting story of the year the FUKISHIMA tragedy. It now appears that event alone may well knock Japan out of the top ten leading countries of the world this century. This should motivate USA Emergency Management and Homeland Security to understand the importance of their efforts to improve the disaster paradigm of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation. Note that "prevention" added by Congress in PKEMRA 2006 but undefined. Now defined in part by PPD-8 issued on March 31, 2011 and partially implemented.

Political and economic consolidation of the Eurasian heartland and extremes suffered some large blows this year but eventually perhaps 2 centuries down the road its history will have shaped a new dominant force in world history. One that if it can manage environmental issues and change that may last a long long time.

Despite a half-century of independence it now looks more and more like Africa will again undergo domination by foreign powers including those with resource shortages and the economic muscle to exploit Africa's richest.

And the USA and DHS and FEMA seem content to remain ignorant of policy impacts of new scientific developments and technology.

The most important development in the last decade has been social media and web 2.0 but few have really captured its potential or dangers to EM and HS.

Whatever the outcome of the 2012 elections it is apparent that self-delusion about American exceptionalism and ourselves will continue to be the dominating factors in American politics. It is never fun to watch people, cultures, or civilizations commit suicide so hoping none of that in 2012, but I may just be averting my eyes not escaping reality.

In two years the Flood Disaster Protection Act of 1973 will be 40!

Well the 13th short term extension until September 30, 2012 is now law. Congrats to Congress for failing to understand what it has wrought.

As 2011 winds up the real question is what did the dramatic changes wrought by that 1973 legislative enactment accomplish for mitigation and the closely related mandatory "mitigation" placed in the Federal Disaster Relief Act of 1974, Public Law 93-288? Both laws were designed in tandem to hopefully reduce disaster outlays over time and use a quasi-insurance mechanism to make the communities with flood plains bear the full costs of that occupancy, in particular for placing houses in the flood plain.

I think it is plain that after almost 40 years part of the problem is that FEMA did not get the message when it was formed that it real job was preventing disasters and doing mitigation not creating a moral hazard with "free" disaster relief as was the worry of Senator William Proxmire and others in not opposing the creation of FEMA. There were no ATMs at the time in 1978 and 1979 but many worried that FEMA would just become another focus of federal largesse largely creating even more problems.

So as the year winds up announcing that the year 2012 will be the year flood insurance and federal disaster relief are reformed. How will be explained in a series of posts although much has already been laid out for the last few years here in this blog.

So here is the new FEMA mantra: Prevent Disasters Don't Promote them!

And as a subset further analysis will be made on how FEMA has in fact through its policies and bureacratic dishonesty undermined the STATES and their local governments in their preparedness, prevention, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts.

Hoping Congressional hearings will delve into these concerns this spring even as the spring runoff occurs.

A compliment to FIMA

The Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration should really be more honest and be named the Flood Insurance and Natural Hazards Mitigation Directorate. This may well be its last year in FEMA. However, I do have to compliment that FEMA Directorate for its helpful webpage on FEMA.gov!

The webpage gives some history and lists current guidance in a quite helpful manner.

So thanks and happy holidays in that directorate. Wish all of mitigation in FEMA was housed with you. But hey I fought and lost that issue with a former GC of FEMA who did accomplish expansion of OGC FEMA DAE lawyers but little else.

Happy Holiday to all my friends and enemies in FEMA. 12 years and marking at this point since I left you behind.