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Jun 9, 2009 8:29 pm US/Eastern
I-Team: GAO Insists FEMA Is Still Unprepared
WASHINGTON (CBS4 I-TEAM) ―
Congress' Investigating Arm confirms that FEMA is woefully unprepared to adequately handle a major hurricane if it were to hit the southeast United States.
CBS4 I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock first broke the story of FEMA's unpreparedness more than two years ago.
Stock reported that FEMA doesn't have a plan to provide mass numbers of long-term temporary housing units in the event of a massive storm. And
Stock reported FEMA lacked the ability to coordinate aid for victims in many other instances.
Now, in a 123 page report from the General Accountability Office, the GAO says FEMA needs to complete and integrate planning and assessment efforts for the next big storm. While the report says FEMA has made some progress since Hurricane Katrina, the GAO also believes FEMA is not fully prepared for when the next big hurricane hits.
For more than two years South Florida congressmen, on both sides of the political aisle, have been warning us about another Hurricane Andrew or Katrina hitting the Sunshine state or anywhere else.
It's not the winds and the rains of a major hurricane that worry critics. Rather it is the ability, or lack thereof of the federal government – especially FEMA – to fully respond adequately to another hurricane Andrew or Katrina.
"It scares me immensely," Republican US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, of West Miami-Dade, recently told the I-Team. "It scares me immensely, (as it does) all of us who lived through Hurricane Andrew."
"We wanted a plan and we haven't been able to get the administration for the last several years to come up with a plan," said Florida Democratic US Senator Bill Nelson.
Now, the GAO confirms, in its report released last month, FEMA's critics' biggest fears.
Years after being warned that there is no long term plan, no clear definition of responsibilities and coordination between federal, state, and local governments to better serve hurricane victims, the GAO says FEMA still falls short of being fully prepared to handle coordination of relief should another large hurricane hit anywhere in the United States.
The GAO says FEMA has made progress towards these goals, but, "FEMA has not established a program management plan, "to help define roles and responsibilities..." on national state and local levels.
"We're not where we should be," Senator Nelson said. "And if the big one hits in the next two months, we're going to be in big trouble on housing (storm victims over the long term). But that's going to change."
The GAO's report backs Senator Nelson up. The report reads "FEMA lacks reasonable assurance that entities (such as local and state governments) have taken actions aimed at improving preparedness."
However, the GAO concedes that FEMA lacks the authority to compel other agencies to act, and critics say that's part of the problem.
FEMA critics such as Diaz-Balart and Nelson applaud the new FEMA director, Craig Fugate, because they say he can make the proper changes to make the agency better prepared. Fugate was Florida's emergency director until last month when he took over FEMA. The critics expect that with Fugate in charge some of these problems will get fixed. They just worry it's a matter of whether a big hurricane hits before Fugate can fix the problems.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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