FEMA Splits With States, Draws Own Disaster Plans

[babylonsister]

FEMA Shifts, Draws Own Disaster Plans
By Scott Lindlaw
The Associated Press

Friday 12 October 2007

Oakland - The Federal Emergency Management Agency is quietly drawing up plans for a handful of disasters: devastating earthquakes beneath San Francisco and St. Louis and catastrophic storms in South Florida and Hawaii, FEMA's chief said Thursday.

In a departure from its traditional expectation that states develop such responses, the agency is forming "base plans" for responding to specific calamities, FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.

FEMA officials expect to finish plans for a massive Bay Area quake by the end of the year and are at work on another response blueprint for a large quake on the New Madrid fault, which runs from southern Illinois to northeastern Arkansas and lurks beneath St. Louis, Paulison said.

FEMA also is preparing for a Category 5 hurricane in the Miami area and has nearly completed response guidelines for a failure of the 143-mile dike around Lake Okeechobee, northwest of Miami, he said. About 45,000 people live in flood-prone areas around the lake.

Also, the agency recently began assembling response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Hawaii, Paulison said.

more...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101307F.shtml

[aquart]

1. Oh, that's going to be helpful.

[me b zola]

2. Ah, like they did for NOLA.

No thanks, we've seen what that looks like.

I hope that returning FEMA to the effectiveness and credibility that it had under Bill Clinton is on the "to do list" of every Dem candidate.

[Igel]

4. No, just like a lot of people claim they had for NOLA. n/t

[me b zola]

5. I'm not sure that I understand your response.

[EFerrari]

3. "FEMA plans" is an oxymoran. n/t

[TheMadMonk]

6. Ah, but they'll be able to respond to any emergency, anywhere...

...with equal facility.

First let disaster strike.
Send in "first responders" (To "safeguard" the disaster area for "victims" and emergency teams.)
Award a no-bid contract to develop a tailored "emergency response plan".
Meanwhile "first responders", maintains order by restricting all unauthorised movement in, or about, the designated disaster zone.
All blanks filled, a file copy of a local or regional disaster response plan is submitted.
Tasks delineated in the "plan" are awarded first to "pre-registered/vetted" paid contractors.
Spillover/unassigned tasks might finally devolve to volunteers who have been on "site" for days with the wherewithal. Provided said people have had the forethought to ask for, receive and fill out the correct "I am not a terrorist, child molester, procurer of abortions and abortifacts" forms and sign the appropriate "loyalty oaths".

A win/win for everyone important. Idiots who didn't have the sense to get out of the way should be grateful for what they're given (at very charitable rates). Even some bleeding hearts have their chance to feel like they've contributed something.

[Swamp Rat]

7. FEMA is a dirty word.