Monday, January 30, 2012

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.

Friday, January 27, 2012

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!

Friday, January 6, 2012

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.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

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.