A History of FEMA

FEMA has been under a lot of pressure since the hurricanes hit. One of the reasons I started this blog was to discover if FEMA, which is a federal agency, should be getting all this flack from angry citizens, who believe they should be receiving more from the federal government. The

Federal Emergency Management Agency’s job is to coordinate federal, state, and local agencies in responding to floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. FEMA provides financial assistance to individuals and governments to rebuild homes, businesses, and public facilities. The agency also trains firefighters and emergency medical professionals, and funds emergency planning throughout the United States and its territories. FEMA has been around for over 200 years under different titles, but essentially doing the same thing. In 1803, a New Hampshire town suffered an extensive fire so the federal government passed the Congressional Act of 1803, which is considered to be the first disaster legislation. Throughout the next 100 years other ad hoc legislation would be passed to assist after hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.

After the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Herbert Hoover began the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The purpose of this program was to redistribute federal money as loans to banks and commercial institutions hit by a natural disaster. Then in 1934, the Bureau of Public Roads was given authority to help rebuild roads and bridges hit by a natural disaster. The Flood Control Act was passed next, which gave the Army Corp of Engineers greater control over flood control projects.

In the 1960s and 70s, a series of disasters hit including Hurricane Carla in 1962, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the Alaskan (Good Friday) Earthquake of 1964 and the San Fernando Earthquake of 1971. The Federal Disaster Assistance Administration was created under the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order, which merged many of the separate disaster-related responsibilities into a new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA absorbed: the Federal Insurance Administration, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, the Federal Preparedness Agency of the General Services Administration and the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. Civil defense responsibilities were also transferred to the new agency from the Defense Department's Defense Civil Preparedness Agency.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush established the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created to coordinated the different federal agencies that deal with law enforcement, disaster preparedness and recovery. FEMA is one of the four agencies under DHS.

The question still remains: once the president declares a state of an emergency to an area how is it decided who gets funds and who does not? In my next post, I will examine the requirements for getting FEMA. Has the federal government been warning these areas to be prepared for these disasters? And if so, should we blame state and local government for not taking notice?