WP: FEMA Let Reserves Wither, Hurting Response, Some Say

[DeepModem Mom]

FEMA Let Reserves Wither, Hurting Response, Some Say
As It Seeks More Workers, Agency Relies on Contractors in Gulf Coast

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 26, 2005; A15


The Thursday after Hurricane Katrina hit, Eileen Thaden received a call from the Federal Emergency Management Agency: Could she be at the airport within an hour?

The 45-year-old Anne Arundel County resident had been expecting the call ever since she had signed up a year earlier to be a disaster assistance employee -- part of the surge force that the government has long relied on for extra manpower in emergencies.

Thaden had the desire and the skills to help. She had lost her own home in Hurricane Isabel, and she had spent two days at a FEMA training program where she learned how to assist other disaster victims. But now, faced with one of the largest disasters in U.S. history, she could not go.

Because of a bureaucratic foul-up she had been trying to resolve for months, FEMA had never issued her the special credit card that is the lifeline of any reservist. "I couldn't help," she said, "because they couldn't get their act together."

Although it is not known how many others are in Thaden's predicament, her experience showcases a reserve force that has been allowed to wither from inattention in recent years, according to former and current agency employees and outside experts. Its decline, they say, has contributed to the government's slow response to Katrina and has kept FEMA personnel stretched to the limits as the agency grapples with the aftermath of Hurricane Rita....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501171_pf.html

[aquart]

1. What useless, worthless idiots.

[Divernan]

3. It was Bush/Allbaugh/Brown gutting the reserve part of FEMA

Just so you understand, the useless, worthless idiots you refer to are not the career civil service professionals at FEMA, but that slimy oilslick of political appointees at the top who were instructed to gut FEMA.

[MissMarple]

2. What a total inability to govern. These people are worthless.

They are killing us, they are destroying our country, our people.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Self-kick in honor of Michael Brown's new role as FEMA consultant