FEMA Disaster budget cuts info: rallying points

[eek]

I started gathering up some articles having to do with the bush admin's budget cuts to FEMA's Project Impact - the pilot disaster preparedness campaign.

The VERY promising program started in 1997but was cut PDQ by bushco.
IMO, all of these articles are terrific resources because they contain:

- names of people who had warned of the potential disasterousness of the budget cuts,
-people that had talked of what a lifesaver the program had been in their community
-politicians speaking out against the cuts
-journalists who had reported on the importance of Project Impact

I don't know the best way to go about it but I propose that these people should be *seriously* brought to the MSM's attention.
We should somehow get these people out there shouting "told ya" to the heavens.

Here is the quickie list but there is *so much more*

What do y'all think? What should we do?

Here's some of what I got from Googling ""Project Impact" 1997 budget cut"
....................
BellSouth Joins FEMA "Project Impact" Initiative for Disaster-Resistant Communities
"Project Impact provides a practical, cooperative approach to disaster preparedness that benefits the entire community," said Rod Odom, president of BellSouth Business Systems. "BellSouth is fully committed to supporting FEMA's initiatives, and our Business Continuity Service is an excellent example of how we can help local companies protect critical business operations from any type of disruption."
http://www.fema.gov/regions/iv/1998/r4_055.shtm


..............
FEMA Selects Burnsville as First Project Impact City in Minnesota Partnerships Are a Key to Building a Disaster Resistant Community

Project Impact is supported by a grant from FEMA. The amount of the grant will be approximately $300,000 to serve as "seed money" to support community wide disaster prevention. A kickoff event for the project will be held in February and the official designation from FEMA will happen in March.
http://www.fema.gov/regions/v/1999/r5_05.shtm
.......................
9/22/04
In North Carolina, no emergency power and an end to a program that saved millions

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover2.html


Disaster in the making

As FEMA weathers a storm of Bush administration policy and budget changes, protection from natural hazards may be trumped by “homeland security”
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html

Among emergency specialists, "mitigation"--the measures taken in advance to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters--is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now, communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars.

...............
Bush's budget cuts disaster preparedness funding
http://archives.thedaily.washington.edu/2001/030101/N9.BIHquakebu.html
..................

(EXCELLENT Article

March 8, 2001
Bush Plan To Can "Project Impact" Could Be Disastrous
by Broderick Perkins

http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20010308_impact.htm
................................

April 6, 2001
Cantwell Says Republican Budget Fails to Meet National Responsibilities
http://cantwell.senate.gov/news/releases/budget4-6.html
........................
more more more

[babylonsister]

1. You get a nom. from me;

maybe we can activate letter-writing to the MSM? One problem is that the MSM seems to think anything that's happened in the past is old news, like the DSM. But 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease'.

[classof56]

2. Great links--thanks!

Nominated and bookmarked.

[indepat]

3. Nominated: these should continuously stream on every cable new outlet

but am going to guess will get little play in the MSM.

[eek]

4. apart from mass emailing, how can we get these people out there?

I've lost track on whether we have any journo's, PR's, people with media contacts ...

I know we have WR Pitt. Don't we also have Raw Story?

isn't someone in here tight with Olbermann?

[eek]

5. is it uncool to kick one's own thread?

just asking.
I really think this stuff is important enough to be dragged back to page 1.

But maybe that's just the whiskey talkin'.

[babylonsister]

6. PM Kick! nt

[Politicub]

7. Nominated

Bush's tax cuts for the rich have been paid for with money that was earmarked to improve the levies and fund FEMA. He is a ghoul and the chickens are coming home to roost.

[mzmolly]

8. PM Skinner, perhaps we can get some activism going on this?

I think we can start by sending these links to the media and our representatives as well as sending letters to the editor.

Great job gathering information :toast:

Here's more from google - http://www.google.com.ar/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2004-45,RNWE:en&q=bush+cuts+fema

[RedEarth]

9. Nominated

[cascadiance]

10. Bush's faux pas that made California wildfires worse should also be added!

FEMA rejected doing anything about their responsibility to make sure that fire hazards created by trees infested with the bark beetle were cleaned up on federal parklands here in Southern California. They sat on a bipartisan request from California's governor and congressional delegation to do something about it for six months and didn't deliver this rejection until just a few days before the horrific wildfires that killed many more and destroyed many other homes here in San Diego and other places in Southern California were made worse by these fire tinder parklands...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/31/MNG3S2NI081.DTL

State: Bush ignored fire plea
CHARGES: Officials warned of 'tinder box'

Sacramento -- California officials accused the Bush administration Thursday of ignoring urgent pleas months ago for emergency help to remove beetle-infested trees that experts warned could fuel a catastrophic Southern California fire.

The U.S. Senate passed controversial legislation Thursday allowing the thinning of forests across the West, and another debate erupted over whether dire warnings about a bark beetle infestation were ignored in Washington. In April, Gov. Gray Davis requested $430 million to remove unhealthy trees on 415, 000 acres of forest, but the request for emergency funds went unanswered until last week -- and then was denied.

"There was a reason the governor requested the declaration,'' said Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio. "And I'm sure there are a lot of families without homes that are disappointed it wasn't approved.''

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, speaking in the Senate during Thursday's debate on the "Healthy Forests'' bill, complained that President Bush had failed to act on the state's request for help and that now Californians were suffering.

...

[mzmolly]

11. *

dup

[mzmolly]

12. By the way - check this out.

Here is more/old information that at the very least Bush failed us on 911 ~ and oddly enough he wanted to lean on FEMA re. the matter of terrorism. Strange for a guy who made such cuts to the program after 911 ey?

Sept. 12, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president "We told you so."

But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Linky: http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/

[Byrnt]

13. FEMA Budget Cuts - Great Coverage

You may be interested to see this too.Wall Street Journal wrote that NOLA covered its own story before it was published..

Really will make you mad to read it all laid out, and how it didn't have to like it is today in New Orleans....

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway /

Sorry, I don't know html.
Byrnt

[mzmolly]

14. Thanks for the information.

And, welcome to DU! :toast: