1/05 Flood experts warn Dennis Hastert FEMA to FAIL in FLOOD

[seemslikeadream]

1/05 Flood experts warn Dennis Hastert FEMA to FAIL in FLOOD
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BREAKING NEWS:
FLOOD EXPERTS WARNED SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE DENNIS HASTERT(R)THAT FEMA WOULD FAIL IN FLOOD DISASTER WHILE UNDER DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

I just found a January 2005 smoking gun letter from flood experts known as the Association of State Floodplain Managers written to Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert warning that FEMA had been dangerously weakened by being made part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Other warnings go back to September 2003 and include Congressional subcommittees!

www.floods.org

"Dedicated to reducing flood losses in the nation."

"The Association of State Floodplain Managers is an organization of nearly 7,000
professionals involved in floodplain management, flood hazard mitigation, the National
Flood Insurance Program, flood preparedness, warning and recovery and the multi-objective
management of our nation's floodplains and waterways. ASFPM is a respected
voice in floodplain management practice and policy in the United States. It represents the
flood hazard specialists of local, state and federal government, the private sector, the
research community, the insurance industry, and the professional disciplines of
engineering, planning, hydrologic forecasting, emergency response, water resources, and
others."

www.floods.org/PDF/ASFPM_...inDHS_H...

The letter reminds Hastert(R) that the General Accounting Office had warned that FEMA would be weakened under DHS back in September, 2003.

The letter also reminds Hastert that the House Judiciary Committee and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committees had agreed with the importance of FEMA staying independent of DHS to remain effective and recommended FEMA therefore be kept out of DHS.

The ASFPM letter describes exactly how FEMA was dismantled and buried under DHS:

"Since FEMA has become part of the Department of Homeland Security, it has been a
struggle. Funds have been raided, staff have been transferred into other DHS functions
without being replaced, slowdowns because of added layers of bureaucracy for nearly all
functions have dramatically increased, and there is the constant threat of reprogramming
appropriated funds."

"If FEMA is pulled apart, doesn’t have a direct link
to the President, and cannot communicate effectively with Congress, all of the progress
made over the last 15 years could be for naught."

THIS MEANS THAT THE GOP 'LEADERSHIP' IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MUCH OF THE LACK OF DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND LOSS OF LIFE DUE TO STORM KATRINA BECAUSE THEY TOOK APART FEMA AND DIDN'T LISTEN TO WARNINGS OF THE CONSEQUENCES.

TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.
--------------------------

(full transcript of letter to Dennis Hastert from pdf file at above url)


ASSOCIATION OF STATE FLOODPLAIN MANAGERS, INC.
2809 Fish Hatchery Road Madison, Wisconsin 53713
Ph: 608-274-0123
Fax: [phone]
Website: www.floods.org
Email: [e-mail]

Dedicated to reducing flood losses in the nation.

Chair
Chad Berginnis, CFM
Supervisor
Ohio DNR - Division Of Water
1939 Fountain Square, Bldg. E-3
Columbus, OH 43224
614-265-6715
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]

Vice Chair
Pam Pogue, CFM
NFIP State Coordinator
Rhode Isl. Emerg Mgmt Agency
645 New London Ave.
Cranston, RI 02920
401-946-9996
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]

Secretary
Rhonda Montgomery, CFM
NFIP State Coordinator
Kansas Dept. of Ag.- DWR
109 SW 9 th St., 2 nd Floor
Topeka, KS 66612
785-296-4622
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]

Treasurer
William Nechamen, CFM
NFIP State Coordinator
New York State DEC
625 Broadway, 4th Floor
Albany, NY 12233
518-402-8146
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]

Executive Director
Larry A. Larson, P.E., CFM
Executive Director
2809 Fish Hatchery Road
Madison, WI 53713
608-274-0123
Fax [phone]
[e-mail]


January 6, 2005
The Honorable Dennis Hastert, Speaker
United States House of Representatives
H 232 Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

RE: House Reorganization of Authorizing Committees involving FEMA programs
Dear Mr. Speaker:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is one of the 22 departments and
agencies that were combined to create the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),
where the primary mission is to protect the nation against terrorism. The effectiveness of
FEMA's all hazards programs is increasingly threatened with regard to natural disasters.

As you are well aware, the Congress is in the process of reorganizing itself to better
consider homeland security issues. The Department of Homeland Security is now 2 years
old. As the organization of the DHS itself and Congressional reorganization are
considered, the Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) urges you to make
sure that natural hazards programs retain their integrity and, therefore, their effectiveness.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers is an organization of nearly 7,000
professionals involved in floodplain management, flood hazard mitigation, the National
Flood Insurance Program, flood preparedness, warning and recovery and the multi-objective
management of our nation's floodplains and waterways. ASFPM is a respected
voice in floodplain management practice and policy in the United States. It represents the
flood hazard specialists of local, state and federal government, the private sector, the
research community, the insurance industry, and the professional disciplines of
engineering, planning, hydrologic forecasting, emergency response, water resources, and
others.

FEMA, since its creation, had matured into an organization that became recognized for
effectiveness in carrying out its mission – preparing for, responding to, recovering from,
and mitigating against all hazards. Natural disasters are the most frequent and,
cumulatively, most costly disasters, including terrorist events. FEMA had established a
reputation for nimble responsiveness. This was closely related to the agency's capacity for
flexibility and especially well coordinated, genuine give-and-take partnerships with states
and localities. In addition to supporting responsiveness, these factors also allowed FEMA
to develop well conceived programs promoting hazard mitigation. Such programs sought
to permanently break the cycle, after a disaster event, of damage/rebuild/damage since
much of the recovery and repair costs were borne by taxpayers. After the terrorist attacks
on September 11 th and FEMA’s inclusion into the Department of Homeland Security, this
began to change.

----------------------------------
Page Two

The ASFPM has been concerned from the beginning that inclusion of FEMA in DHS
might not bode well for the progress the nation has made in reducing the nation’s risk to
natural hazards. We fully recognize the need for our national emphasis on terrorism;
however, the effectiveness of natural hazards programs and the all-hazards concept must
not be sacrificed in the process. Due to the sheer number magnitude of impact of natural
disasters, FEMA's work is more heavily focused on these events.

The ASFPM is not the only organization that has these concerns. The General Accounting
Office, in its September 2003 report, said the following:
Moreover, the placement of FEMA within DHS represents a substantially changed
environment in which FEMA will conduct its missions in the future, and missions
that focus on reducing the impacts of natural hazards, such as hazard mitigation
and flood insurance, may receive decreased emphasis. Sustained attention to
these programs will be needed to ensure they maintain or improve their
effectiveness in protecting the nation against, and reducing federal costs
associated with, natural disasters.

It should not be surprising that there is concern about FEMA’s organizational structure or
its loss of focus on a multi-hazard mission – it is merely a continuation of the debate that
began in Congress when DHS was created. The House Judiciary Committee and the
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committees had misgivings about the inclusion
of FEMA in DHS and both recommended that FEMA remain an independent agency to
preserve the traditional mission of FEMA. Also, a Brookings Institution analysis in 2002
raised concern that much of the progress FEMA has made over two decades could be
reversed.

Since FEMA has become part of the Department of Homeland Security, it has been a
struggle. Funds have been raided, staff have been transferred into other DHS functions
without being replaced, slowdowns because of added layers of bureaucracy for nearly all
functions have dramatically increased, and there is the constant threat of reprogramming
appropriated funds. Strongly felt worries about such matters led the ASFPM Board of
Directors, in August 2004, to pass a resolution recognizing FEMA’s accomplishments and
its challenges. The resolution calls for FEMA to be removed from the Department of
Homeland Security and for its ability to report directly to the President to be restored.
The Board, made up of state and local officials, felt strongly that FEMA doesn’t have to
be part of a larger agency to share its expertise and utilize its network of state and local
officials for all hazards management. If FEMA is pulled apart, doesn’t have a direct link
to the President, and cannot communicate effectively with Congress, all of the progress
made over the last 15 years could be for naught.

The Association of State Floodplain Managers recommends that
1) Congressional
reorganization for homeland security reflect attention to the importance of natural disaster
programs and policies and that
2) the Congress undertake an evaluation of the structure of
DHS and FEMA as it affects retention of an effective capacity for natural hazards
response and mitigation programs.
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Page Three

Natural disasters impact Americans every single day. In 2004, 35 states had Presidentially
declared disasters – all as a result of natural hazards. Please do not allow the agency that
is in the forefront of dealing with these hazards to be made less effective or pulled apart
altogether. Please make certain that the Congressional structure reflects appropriate
attention to the frequency and the magnitude of impact of natural disasters. If you have
any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact Larry Larson, ASFPM Executive
Director, or myself.

Respectfully,
Chad Berginnis, CFM
Chair

from my friend JohnOneillsMemory

[rodeodance]

1. Sen. Mary Lampert has used these reports to try to fund the levee

projects. In the past she has been very vocal about getting the funding.

[indepat]

2. Virtually everything weakened, but the pork to friends fattened?

[Toots]

3. This will make a great addition to the documetary Michael Moore

could do about Katrina and how government (Republicans) has undermined most government agencies including ones dealing in America's security.

[seemslikeadream]

4. FEMA designed to protect the government from the American people

Don't think this Downing Street-type memo on FEMA weakness shows incompetence.

The people who died from FEMA's absence in Storm Katrina were killed by The Reagan Revolution against the American people who want peace, not permanent war.

History:
It's important to remember that FEMA wasn't designed to protect the American people. REAGAN AND OLIVER NORTH DESIGNED IT TO PROTECT THE GOVERNMENT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. We are a militarily occupied nation just like Iraq.

FEMA was designed under California governor and then president Reagan to protect the government FROM 'WE THE PEOPLE.' FEMA was a police-state plan to round up anti-war protesters and "militant negroes" in a time of war as if they were enemies of the state exactly like the Japanese-Americans interned in camps in 1942.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAR402B.html

>snip<

FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.

General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."



------------------------------
http://waynemadsenreport.com/

>snip<

A little history on FEMA: " When Ronald Reagan took
over the presidency in 1981 he named his old
California National Guard chief, retired General Louis
Giuffrida as his emergency czar. Giuffrida had a
tainted image as California's National Guard
commander. He drew up lists of 'militant negroes' who
were to be rounded up in emergencies. He designed
'Operation Cable Splicer,' which kept track of
political dissidents in California, especially
anti-Vietnam War protestors. When Giuffrida took over
at FEMA, he began to embark on similar projects. FEMA
began to store some 12,000 names it had obtained from
the FBI's domestic intelligence files. FBI Director
William Webster was so outraged at this interference
in FBI matters he forced FEMA to turn the list back to
the FBI. FEMA's surveillance lists may have included
at least 100,000 U.S.A. citizens that were assumed to
be potential threats to security. These included the
names of survivalists and tax protestors." -- Wayne
Madsen, Handbook of Personal Data Protection, Stockton
Press (NY) and Macmillan (London), 1992.
--------------------------------------------------

http://www.sanderhicks.com/fema.html

>snip<

FEMA's precursor was the California Specialized
Training Institute, a counterterrorism training center
started by then-Governor Ronald Reagan in 1971. Reagan
inaugurated the idea of utilizing the military and law
enforcement to combat dissent. He hired retired
National Guard General Louis O. Giuffrida to design
Operation Cable Splicer. The Cable Splicer plans were
martial law proposals to legitimize the arrest and
detention of anti-Vietnam war activists and other
political dissidents. At the Army War College in 1970,
Guiffrida had written a proposal that advocated the
roundup and transfer to relocation camps of at least
21 million "American Negroes" in the event of a
national uprising.

In 1983, at the annual meeting of the Academy of
Criminal Justice Sciences, FEMA's General Frank S.
Salcedo recommended expanding FEMA's power even
further. As he saw it at least 100,000 U.S. citizens,
from survivalists to tax protesters, were serious
threats to civil security. Salcedo saw FEMA's new
frontier as the protection of industrial and
government leaders from assassination, and the
protection of civil and military installations from
sabotage or attack. Notable for stations such as this
one, Salcedo warned against dissident groups gaining
access to U.S. opinion or a global audience in times
of crisis.

FEMA and the Department of Defense began a continuing
tradition of biannual joint exercises to test civilian
mobilization, civil security emergency and
counterterrorism plans. The Rex-84 Alpha Explan
(Readiness Exercise 1984, Exercise Plan), showed that
FEMA lead 34 other federal agencies, including CIA,
FBI, and US Treasury, in a massive civil readiness
exercise. It was conducted in coordination with "Night
Train 84", a worldwide military command post exercise,
based on multi-emergency scenarios operating both
abroad and at home.

The exercises envisioned that the previously mentioned
100,000 U.S. citizens, labelled "national security
threats" would be rounded up and thrown into
concentration camps.

>snip<

more...
---------------------------------------

JACK ANDERSON
1984 United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
weekly special


DRAFT LEGISLATION WOULD SUSPEND CONSTITUTION IN AN
EMERGENCY

WASHINGTON-Attorney General William French Smith
recently voiced his alarm at Federal Emergency
Management Agency Director Louis Giuffrida's proposal
to crown himself the nation's "emergency czar" in the
event of war or natural disaster.

Smith's legal and constitutional sensibillities were
offended by the thought of the civil defense agency
usurping the powers of Cabinet-level departments,
emergency or not.

But the attorney general will be positively stunned
when he learns of Giuffrida.s latest plan. It would
suspend the Constitution and give the president as
much arbitrary power as Hitler or Stalin ever
exercised.

This blueprint for autocracy is in the form of
"standby" legislation drafted by FEMA's eager
empire-builders. That means it won't be submitted to
Congress in advance--when its drastic provisions would
certainly spark debate and draw opposition from
conservatives and civil libertarians alike.

Instead, it is intended to be held on "standby" until
an emergency arises. Then a panicky Congress will
presumably be ready to abdicate its responsibilities
under the Constitution and vote for a dictatorship.

Our associates Donald Goldberg and Indy Badhwar have
seen the draft legislation, which would be titled
disingenously the Defense Resources Act. Here are some
of the specific outrages:

-Private property would be effectively abolished. Real
estate and personal belongings "that shall be deemed
necessary for national defense purposes" would be
confiscated by the government. And there'd be no
haggling or taking it to court.

"Upon or after filing the condemnation petition," the
standby legislation reads, "immediate possession may
be taken and the property may be occupied." There goes
your house. There goes your car. There goes the
neighborhood.

-The bureaucrats at FEMA want to nationalize the means
of production. If a factory owner proves reluctant to
turn out what the bureaucrats dictate, the president
"may take immeidate possession of such plant, mine or
facility and operate it for the production of such
materials or services as may be necessary."

-Just to be fair, FEMA proposes nationalizing labor as
well. The government would be empowered to set limits
on the number of employees in any type of work, and in
fact restrict workers to "activities essential to the
national health, safety or interest."

And if anyone lies to a federal bureaucrat about the
availability of manpower, it'll rate either a $10,000
fine or a one-year hitch in the gulag. The right to
strike will, of course, be revoked. Violators will be
declared felons in the same class as those who try to
overthrow the government.
---------------------------------------------

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/FEMA_WC_JVW.ht...

>snip<

Meanwhile, in cooperation with the Pentagon and
various federal and local police agencies, CSD engaged
in a series of national training exercises -- "Proud
Saber/Rex-82, "Pre-Nest," and "Rex-84/Night Train,"
etc. -- in preparation for a suspension of the
constitution in case of massive domestic political
turmoil. The exercises envisioned "at least 100,000"
U.S. citizens, identified as "national security
threats" being rounded up and thrown into
concentration camps for unspecified periods.

Simultaneously, FEMA was opening files on the U.S.
activists who would comprise those interned whenever
the exercise plans were put into "real world"
practice. This last placed FEMA in direct conflict
with the FBI, precipitating a power struggle in which
Bureau Director William Sessions ultimately prevailed,
compelling Giuffrida to turn over the more than 12,000
political dossiers his agency had already assembled.

--------------------------------------------

Do you really need anymore information than this to see that 'We the People' are considered enemies of the state?

[IndyJones]

5. Wow, thanks for the info!