Well there is no statutorily mandated Disaster Housing Strategy in place nor a Long-Term Recovery Strategy but hey FEMA is on the move. In two wide scale geographic events, an historic level of tornado activity in the month of April and what appears to be large-scale main stem Mississippi River flooding of historic proportions we are about to find out if it is the NEW FEMA or not. Good luck to all involved. Please also cancel NLE 2011 because Craig you need any and all talent for the real deal.
But the subject of discussion is how lucky some STATES and their local governments are to be experiencing natural disasters since at least potential federal stimulus dollars will be arriving through FEMA as long as they are smart enough not to wast them on restoring existing mistakes.
We only have to look at Japan as a sophisticated nation-state seven weeks into its major crisis to see that efforts there have been stymied and blown by bureaucratic stove piping, failure to deal with reality, dependency on the private sector to fix what is has broken (with help from Mother Nature of course) to make us understand that EM is the real deal and not pretend. Real events whether labeled Black Swan or otherwise do occur and they must be responded to by any of those in governance positions. These events will test President Obama and FEMA over the next few months and may possibly overshadow foreign policy during those months in particular if the President and his advisers now think they can rest on their laurels after expending over two trillion dollars on the hunt for one man who until the very end outsmarted the USA big time.
Well we now know levees not only are proved valueless when over topped by events exceeding design intervals, or poorly maintained, but also by USACOE dynamite.
And keep your eyes on the Old River Control Structure and the Morganza Spillway. If you don't know what these are please get a copy of John McPhee's wonderful book from early 80's "The Control of Nature"! Goodbye Morgan City?
