Rain Monkey
September 8th, 2005, 07:38 PM
In June (2004), Pleasant Mann, a 16-year FEMA veteran who heads the agency's government employee union, wrote members of Congress to warn of the agency's decay. "Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation's emergency management capability is being eroded," he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors."
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html
And recently:
Before the change, a FEMA employee on site at a disaster could request that an experienced employee he knew had the right skills be dispatched to help him. But now that requested worker is first made to travel to a location hundreds of miles from the disaster site to be "processed," placed in a pool from which he is dispatched, sometimes to a place different from where he thought he was headed.
Pleasant said he knew of a case where a worker from Washington State was made to first travel to Orlando before he could go to Louisiana, losing at least a day. What's more, that worker was told he might be sent to Alabama, not Louisiana, after all.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12549282.htm
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html
And recently:
Before the change, a FEMA employee on site at a disaster could request that an experienced employee he knew had the right skills be dispatched to help him. But now that requested worker is first made to travel to a location hundreds of miles from the disaster site to be "processed," placed in a pool from which he is dispatched, sometimes to a place different from where he thought he was headed.
Pleasant said he knew of a case where a worker from Washington State was made to first travel to Orlando before he could go to Louisiana, losing at least a day. What's more, that worker was told he might be sent to Alabama, not Louisiana, after all.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/12549282.htm