Globally we know that the impoverished are disproportionately impacted by disasters both in direct affects and recovery. I have to wonder if the same holds true within the borders of the United States and I am interested in reader’s responses on the issue, potential reasons if you feel there is disparity in preparedness and more importantly look for innovative solutions.
The role of FEMA (2013 budget near $14 billion and 10,000 employees) is to manage and coordinates the Federal response to and recovery from major domestic disasters and emergencies of all types, in accordance with the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. FEMA also serves to coordinate programs to improve the effectiveness of emergency response providers at all levels of government to respond to terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. If this were carried out evenly across the country, we should see consistent performance because of the systems and processes in place and would not expect to see the winds of influence involved, but I think the post-Sandy response and recovery will be worth watching.
The State of Louisiana in 2005 when hurricane Katrina came ashore was ranked 42nd nationally in per capita income and Mississippi was ranked 49th and the response and recovery has been soundly criticized. The States of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York where major disaster declarations have been made for hurricane Sandy rank 1st, 3rd and 4th nationally in per capita income. I could be wrong and we might see similar dysfunction in our disaster response and recovery that occurred in 2005, but my gut is telling me that we will be rolling out the green (as in money and resources) carpet to make things right as quickly as possible, especially in the more affluent areas. For those communities where there are more challenges, issues and dissatisfaction in the response and recovery, I wonder if the demographic make-up will show them to be in the “other” class relative to areas where things seem to go well.
There’s an old saying…”If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”…and I have to wonder if we are ignoring an obvious problem because it would indicate we have classes within our borders and admitting it’s a problem is too embarrassing. If we have subjective response and recover in play during a major disaster and it pits one class of citizens against another, what will a catastrophic event like a New Madrid or Cascadia earthquake expose in our system? According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Commerce, CATO Institute there are:
Total number of Americans on welfare 4,300,000
Total number of Americans on food stamps 46,700,000
Total number of Americans on unemployment insurance 5,600,000
In addition, CBS News reports roughly 38 percent (about 118 million) of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
Preparedness publications give a list of steps and items we should all have in order to take some personal responsibility when disaster strikes. What disaster preparedness publications seem to disregard is the ability of the person to actually follow these recommendations. It appears sometimes after a disaster when these same Americans are suffering we blame the person for not taking personal responsibility as opposed to the ability of government to mitigate their suffering in a timely manner. I read one recent article where the author was encouraging those impacted by hurricane Sandy to be patient as it takes time to restore the tremendous scope of damaged infrastructure and restore services. I would add patience is a virtue…but not a replacement for poor planning, preparedness and response on the part of government for those less fortunate.
I was astounded when former FEMA Director Michael Brown criticized FEMA for reacting too much and too soon to Superstorm Sandy because it would somehow make people more dependent and less responsible for themselves. It rang an alarm bell like Romney’s 47% comments did. It may point to a right wing Republican disdain for government management of anything, more than it points at blatant class warfare although that may be a component of the general attitude. Romney’s primary debate answer to a question about FEMA funding and importance was that the private sector should take over those sorts of services. George W. Bush’s appointment of Michael Brown showed a fundamental ignorance or disregard for the FEMA role or perhaps just a political patronage appointment to a government job not considered important enough to hire a qualified professional. Is there any wonder that when politicians and bureaucrats who fundamentally dislike government and resent the people who may have to depend on it for services at times, are running the agencies responsible for those services, those agencies will not respond well?
While I agree 100% that lower income/living classes are hit harder than are higher income classes, I don’t believe it is true class warfare causing the impacts. It varies in different parts of the world but, in the US at least, many lower income class areas self impose some of the impacts due to lack of trust, listening, and preparing. Also, they cannot afford the same level of preparation. Most lower class areas were once in better shape and have been run down by crime, etc. imposed by those living there who take advantage of the situation and of course, make it worse. Just with the statistics provided, there was a huge difference in response and violence after the impact of Katrina, and also Rita, betwenn LA and MS. Mississippi had a different culture, thus it was easier to assist, especially with neighbors helping neighbors.