The Sorry State of Emergency Management

By: George "Sonny" Hoffman

I hear Katrina will cost $200,000,000,000.00, and I heard she killed over 1,500. Some say global warming is responsible. I have been out IN hurricanes of all categories since Hurricane Camille in 1969, mostly as a storm chasing party animal and cheap-thrill seeker. I was born during a hurricane in the record year of the hurricanes, 1950. I can't see much difference in the storms, but there is a vast difference in the people, the government of the people, and the media. I'd call it a disaster, but it looks more like a catastrophie.

I have first-hand knowledge and experience with emergency management and FEMA. In 1995, I dropped out of the nation's only emergency management degree program offered by the University of North Texas just twelve weeks shy of that coveted rare degree. I quit in protest of institutionalized mass stupidity. I simply could not go to work in a FEMA-driven industry that is far from the solution, as federal intervention IS the cause.

National Flood Insurance to be specific, because without that, no insurance company will insure for water damage in a flood plain. If you can't insure your dream or enterprise, you can't get the funds to build it. If you don't build it, government can't tax it and all the income from it. Local governments can't tax to the max worthless property. NFIP is there to encourage you to do something terribly stupid and very dangerous in any flood-prone area of our great nation of flood-prone areas. FEMA has evolved into a nifty little agency that allows incumbents to buy votes with your children's money.

Government will always get more of what it pays for and less of what it taxes. Our federal government buys debris, and local governments waive, reduce, or exempt taxes to lure developers into high-risk areas. What no responsible insurance company will insure, some level of government will. There are no foolish or greedy property owners, just victims with a vote for sale. The head of this enormous snake with a voracous appetite for tax dollars is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Now, EMAs exist in every state and every county, all big cities, and even the small towns have an Emergency Management Office or Officer, usually a retired police chief or fire chief.

In fairness to the people of FEMA, they are good people trying to do a good job. They are NOT and never were first responders. It's a bad rap blaming them for the chaos and piss-poor planning on the part of those who ARE first responders, managers of emergency, and primary mitigators. That heavy burden rests squarely on the stooped shoulders of the state and local governments right down to the community police and fire chiefs who when cornered all cried FEMA.

If FEMA could be divorced from politics, it might serve a useful purpose. I just don't think it can be, and placing a political dole-out agency under Homeland Security made it the red-headed step-child of government agencies--stripped, raped, beaten, demoralized, as useless in a real emergency as a battered child in a riot. Great as a scapegoat. We lopped off its head. That'll fix it.

Take away NFIP and FEMA, communities perish when they go to war against Mother Nature and lose, the way it has been since the days of the cave man. They all had storm-proof homes like the ants. Somewhere in the distant past we got smart, came out of our caves in favor of beach-front condos, but we elect idiots who appoint idiots who hire emergency managers who are trained by retired idiots to manage disasters that would not be disasters were it not for the idiots on the planning and zoning commission taking advice from their emergency manager, in most cases, a political appointee of an elected idiot who got elected by promising to give voters stuff their kids and grandkids will have to pay for. Who is the root idiot here? I mean, besides the author.

Their collective ignorance is costing lives by the score and the waste is now tallied in the billions per hurricane event. If I were the Hurricane Czar with absolute authority, very few would die and no structures would fail. Some will die, because full control can only be exercised over structures. I would be effective but very controvercial, for I would shoot all subordinates who are responsible for deadly and dangerous debris that takes innocent life. If your area of responsibility was declared a disaster area, BANG! You failed to manage your emergency.

Drastic, yes, but I wouldn't need many bullets before my subordinates began doing their job so well that just and reasonable punishment could be reinstated along with due process and human rights. A few responsible adults would be lost, but dozens, perhaps hundreds of dozens of innocent, dependent, helpless citizens would be saved by emergency managers who aggressively do their job to insure that no weather event can become any kind of disaster within their area of responsibility.

Emergency Managers ARE responsible whether we shoot them, shun them, shame them, shout at them, or as we now do, declare entire states disaster areas then slap them all on the back and agree that not much can be done to mitigate an act of Almighty God. Shooting the responsible individuals will end the prevailing practice of giving the critical job to political helpers as a thank-you, or to retired police and fire chiefs in lieu of a gold watch. We need emergency management professionals who ARE responsible for any disaster within their area of responsibility. Any weather event that becomes a disaster is somebody's fault.

No hurricane need be a disaster for they have been unable to sneak up on us for a hundred years, and we know exactly what they do and don't do, what will be debris and what won't. End debris of the floating or flying kind, what I call F-type debris, you end disaster. RIP-type debris is the Remain In Place type that stays on the property it fails and falls on. RIP sinks in any wind or rushing water. RIP makes good rubble and as debris is very useful as fill. F-type can only elevate a landfill. RIP stays put. F-type travels and has enough strength and substance to do damage. Litter isn't F-type, but an asphalt roofing shingle is.

Classic RIP is a cinder block. Classic F is a two-by-four stud. Carried on the wind or coming in on a wave, the classic F goes right through the classic RIP, then continues on to crash through something else. If F-type encounters a survivalist, you might hear the word that gave the F-type its name. You can stand on RIP to keep your head above water, or you might cling to the trunk or branch of natural debris, but watch out for that F**KING debris that can float or fly!

Steel and concrete, brick and mortar, ceramic and stone, laminated glass and heavy plastics rarely fail. In most cases, when they do fail, an F-type impact caused the failure or a large tall tree that should not have been there or been allowed to grow so tall fell on it. In a hurricane zone, ALL building materials should be of the RIP type. F-type should be illegal in buildings, awnings, and signage because F-type debris begets more debris of all types, and the F-type kills.

Trees need to be topped and trimmed at the start of every hurricane season. Some need removal or buttressing, but all utility lines need to go underground. Anything outside (sheds, dumpsters, propane tanks, stuff) must be made impossible to become F-type debris. Any item with the potential should be marked and traceable to the property owner who must be held responsible and should be taxed for even owning high-risk property.

What hurricanes do best is put things to a true test. FEMA only tests plans. When those plans fail, FEMA will mandate mitigation, which communities get waivers for by getting their elected representitives to represent them. FEMA will then test the new modified plan, a negotiated compromise plan which will most certainly fail, bringing about proper mitigation once again which is destined to be shot down, a viscious, deadly, very expensive cycle.

I recently took a bicycle tour of a new development of single family housing units in the Back Bay area of Biloxi and saw hundreds of beautiful two-story homes ruined by hurricane storm surge. All were within a Chihuahua's walk to the bay on land three to six feet above sea level, every house insured by the National Flood Insurance Program and sanctioned by every level of EMAs. If that isn't proof that our experts aren't, then offering a hundred more cases just like it isn't proof either, but the Katrina impact area is littered with proof of grand-scale incompetence if we allow them their mantles of expertise.

I say, STOP THE BULLSHIT! Fire all the idiots who had anything to do with managing our disasters of the past fifty years and install all new idiots, but hold these new idiots personally accountable for anyone who dies and financially responsible for any damage done by debris from a waterfront home. Make FEMA a non-political agency of accountable professionals. Any elected official who attempts to waive a FEMA mitigation should be arrested and charged with attempted murder. All who pushed, pulled, or applied influence or leverage need to be charged with conspiracy. That will stop the bullshit, but what will stop the building of death traps and future debris piles.

Immediately terminate ALL federal insurance subsidies and put the insurance industry back on a sound actuarial underwriting basis. If you can't get it insured, you can't get it financed. In most cases, if you can't get your project financed, you can't go forward. Those who do are totally at risk, and if their risky project becomes debris that causes damage, death, and destruction, criminally liable, for these are not acts of God, they are recurring forces of nature that property owners need to anticipate, plan for, and effectively mitigate responsibly.

All F-type building materials need to be traceable to the property they were used on so that the owner may be prosecuted and/or sued for the death and destruction his property caused. That should give a Home Depot shopper pause before buying lumber, sheet metal, cheap shingles, or that nifty looking metal storage shed. His liability carrier should influence his decisions. A restrictive clause that bold-print states no F-type materials may be attached to any weather exposed areas of the house or property should do.

Liability insurance for development gambles should be prohibitive, and putting a sheet metal awning over a service station's pump islands should be as insurance costly as putting a ten-meter diving platform at a motel pool. Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, but if your sign is as good as a gas station awning, your liability insurance needs to be as good. We MUST wage war on debris and get good at identifying the deadly dangerous F-type debris in its innocent state.

Take it from a man who has dodged enemy bullets, rockets, mortars, and hurricane debris, there is little difference and no difference when one fails. We would not tolerate a VC machinegun position on the corner of Broadway and Elm, nor a mortar pit next to the Piggly Wiggly firing deadly projectiles into our housing areas, so why tolerate Texaco's awning or a casino's sign just because they aren't firing right now. In Nam we just assumed they would when we least needed it, and I can't say we ever assumed wrong. You won't want any flying or floating debris before or after a terrible storm, but you'll want it least during.

If you ever have to endure a storm outside with any children, you will hate F-type debris and debris producers as much as I do. I came to hate the Cong because they repeatedly endangered the lives and property of the innocent peasant villagers, mostly the old folk, women, and children. I see our disaster management professionals doing the same damn thing. Property owners, builders, and developers are just ignorant. They rely on professionals to educate, illuminate, and guide. What guides most construction is code compliance and the ability to cost-effectively insure.

We can effectively wage war on debris by using these two weapons more intelligently, backed by the criminal code, because neglegent homicide is neglegent homicide whatever the weather. If a part of your sign took off a part of my grandchild, you best not try to tell me that God did it. I'll see a VC goon trying to tell me that Ho Che Minh direct ordered him to turn that flame thrower on the cold naked villagers.

STOP rewarding ignorance and expedience. Stop subsidizing graft and corruption. Stop bankrolling short-sighted and dim-witted projects that are high-risk gambles. Never reward anyone for losing a bet. Put a permanent end to the disaster gravy train and the boon catastrophe.

When you wage war on nature and lose whether as an individual, a family, a collective, a business enterprise, a community, or as a state of the Union it should cost you dearly to wage it and far more to lose. No one else should do anything, not before, during, or after that encourages you to wage war on Mom or to ever try try again after you eventually lose. When Mother Nature wins, she has the final word. The greatest insult is to go right back and exactly rebuild what she destroyed.

We the people need to remember that government will always get more of what it pays for while there is less of what it taxes. Pay for nothing that nature alters; tax potential F-type debris; fine and/or punish the owners of F-type debris. Measure the worth of a community emergency manager by the weight of unidentified F-type debris found within the area of responsibility. If there is so much the place looks like a disaster, fire that worthless bonehead while you bonus those with the least factored by were they are in the storm.

Mom Nature can hold a weather event, but only humans can turn that into a disaster. When we have one, WE need to find out who all is responsible and fire them all. While we are at it, we should find who all did good and elevate them all to hero status for they managed an emergency and avoided a disaster.

For the individial citizen there should be nothing but charity humanitarian aid after any event Mom puts on. If you didn't get good insurance and good advice, you are just SOL like a dumb squirrel who nests in a forrest of future lumber or paper. You lose. Pray we take pity, but if you insulted Mom, screw you.

In the area of recovery, do not use government resources to free individuals from a healthy dependence on friends, family, and community. Government is well advised to never do for people what they can do for themselves, and should only offer public funds to non profit relief agencies who offer some a helping hand and a select few charity. As for any business enterprise, offer loans unless that business was clearly gambling and lost.

If a community can't return to its former glory, luster, or appeal this way, then what it had was a facade and what it was running was a con. What evolves in its place will be real, solid, safe and secure, in harmony and balance with the other creatures and features, a place pleasing to Mom.

If we learn to live with nature as other life forms do, the cost of disasters will go way way down, and so will the number of disasters. We have it right when a cat-5 blow or a supreme deluxe direct hits a populated coastal area, nobody died, and it isn't considered a disaster. Like dropping a pizza top-down on fuzzy filthy carpet. A Damn!, but not any kind of Oh MY GOD!

We are a long way from having it right, because for decades we have been marching in the wrong direction with FEMA leading the parade, and political powers leading FEMA this way and that on the fickle trail of expediency through the forest of procedures and regulations with waivers and ammendments that reward incompetence, promote inefficient waste, covers uninsurable risk, and subsidizes stupidity in a relentless war being waged on that which sustains us in ways only our ancestors who lived in a state of nature fully understood and appreciated. We live in a state of disaster.

Today is well past the time that "WE the People" who have to pay for this idiotic bullshit collectively shout, ENOUGH!

The biggest problem with hurricanes is the way we build structures. Coastal lowland Americans are a bunch of misguided souls who think we can build habitats better than ants can. Big problem post Camille was fire ants so bad the Air Force sprayed 10,000 gallons of some exotic toxic waste on the debris field with no one getting down low to see how those damn ants survived twenty-five feet of water so damn well. We might have learned something. Those little critters and creepy crawlers are doing something right. You don't see them running alongside the freeway turned parkway.

We never learn because we have FEMA to subsidize our stupidity. Nebraska farmers will pay to rebuild our stick-built boxes on barrier islands and low coastal swamp land, and we will keep right on putting them back up each time Mother Nature blows them all down. We will keep right on putting our utility lines up in the trees, because our squirrels need a freeway, too. If Nebraska had trees and squirrels, they'd understand the need to connect them with energized wires.

Like the thrifty stock holders of Mississippi Power might say, "It ain't unsightly if ya kain't see the wires fer the trees."

Since the Christian right of Mississippi didn't want gambling on Mississippi soil, the godless left and right put the casinos on barges and parked those in front of Mississippi. Mom wasn't very pleased about that. They are now ON Mississippi, but that was a gamble covered by the feds who, in effect, put a gun to the head of a Nebraska farmer and said, "Cover it!"

We can beat Mother Nature by dogged determination and pig-headed stubbornness. Ants and such cooperate with the enemy. They have to. No FEMA to make Nebraska ants help. No Red Cross to take pity and then distribute some. No Salvation Army to pass out coffee and donuts. No National Guard to bring ice and bottled water. No stores to loot, horns to toot, flags to wave, or "rebuild-even-better" slogans to offer from the rubble of a county emergency operations center. The creatures and features of nature must cooperate or perish.

Although I know there are some (professional storm chasers), I never met any professional in the profession who ever got feet wet in hurricane storm surge, but to a person they will tell you, "Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate, and if you can't or won't, avoid the storm surge for the storm surge IS the killer."

I cannot be one for I say, "Make your home a self-sufficient and Earth-loving storm shelter. Make your community hurricane compatible with numerous community storm shelters to meet all citizen needs. Top and trim trees, secure all potential debris, tax those who have potential debris, fine those who lose it, and strictly enforce intelligent cat-five hurricane building codes. Put the power grid and utilities underground. Put your neat 'n nifty stuff up high, or in floating tubs and vacu-sealed bags, or stowed in air-trapping spaces. Prop open the doors, raise the flag, and ride that bad puppy out like an American."

I said it in '95, but it bears repeating a decade later. We are going about this all wrong. We are spending this nation bankrupt and killing our most helpless and dependent citizens in the process. I also said that mass evacuation isn't practical for hurricanes as the impacted population density is too great to effectively and safely move in the brief window of time most hurricanes give. Evacuate to community storm shelters, yes, absolutely. Build them, and they WILL come. Every church, every school, every sports arena and public building should serve a dual purpose, all safe shelters in a storm. People with pets need a place to go, too.

For many of these meek people that God loves so damn much they get the Earth in God's will, a beloved mutt or cat is all they have while waiting on their inheritance. That pitiful pussy or miserable mutt is their baby. If someone told you to leave your child and you may enter the shelter, what would your answer be? Why can't there be shelters for people with pets? Why can't we evacuate those who wish to evacuate when we will spend billions supporting them if we don't, and by some miracle, they survive.

In my in-no-way-meek or humble opinion, experts kill nine out of ten people who die in hurricanes, and do so by terrifying them in the frightening hours prior to landfall when it is too late to evacuate. In those terrifying hours, the talking heads and their experts repeatedly warn about the dangers of the deadly storm surge and the vulnerable levees while giving no real practical advice on how to survive, like how, when, and where to abandon the structure, then what to do after you get out in the storm.

We used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, a very inventive independent minded people who hate taxes and government intervention in the private sector. We need to get back to that, for we are now the land of the dependent and coop of the chickens. Houston, we have a problem, and I was there for Allison. You had one then. Why didn't you fix it? Galveston did. Texans running from a female storm?

Mass evacuations of millions never was a practical solution. More died in the Rita evacuation than died in the storm, and they were the most aged and helpless. Gotta be a message there, but you can bet THEY will build more one-way freeways and tax the farmers of Nebraska to do that. To shut those sod busters up, they will say it is due to global warming caused in part by cow flatulance, ergo a situation they contributed to. Them sod busters will feel bad about that, pay the taxes and donate to the Red Cross, then buy fart arresters for their cattle, no doubt EPA tested and certified.

I think it is clear I lost faith in the system and in our government. I lost faith in the system in 1995. I lost faith in our government in 1975, for I was there during the fall of Saigon and put two tours in that war as a Green Beret, '69 thru '71. I earned the right to lose faith, but so did the people of Southern Mississippi and New Orleans. I must say, it feels about the same. Like the winds of a good trap, it sucks.

If that analogy makes no sense, read Survival Tips.

For the full story of survival in the eye of Katrina, read In the Eye of the Storm

Stand Your Ground or Wun Wike a Wabbit? A Biblical storm approacheth; whatcha gonna do or not do. Advice from those who stood ground in the face of Katrina, organized by occupation, avocation, and/or profession.

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