the cavalry ain't comin'

Andrew showed us the hazards of moral hazard in south florida

Thirty years ago today, on the morning of Monday, August 24th, 1992, a Florida politician named Lawton Chiles was less than a year into his first term as governor as Andrew, a Category 5 hurricane, plowed through the town of Homestead, Florida, completely obliterating the houses and stripping them off their foundations. In Miami-Dade County, the 165-mile-per-hour winds destroyed more than 25,500 houses and damaged more than 101,000 others, leaving sixty-five people dead along its trail of destruction. And then came the aftermath…

“WASTELAND—Across the region, the looting that had begun as pure plunder became more an act of desperation.”—Newsday

“CATASTROPHIC —As we moved into the response mode, things kept getting worse. We were faced with hundreds of people who needed emergency care with no place to take them.”—The Times-Picayune

“HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?—The air reeked with dead animals, human waste and soaked fabric. A message was sent to the President that the National Guard could not control the mob, feed the hungry, rebuild the infrastructure and police the streets.”—TIME

Three days after Andrew made landfall, Dade County emergency management director Kate Hale, during a televised news conference, said: “Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one? They keep saying we’re going to get supplies. For God’s sake, where are they?”

The people of Dade County had been left largely to fend for themselves up to that point. In the early hours after Andrew made landfall, FEMA was waiting for direction from the president. The president was waiting for a written request for assistance from the governor of Florida. The governor was unaware that such a request was required.

And then the finger-pointing started…

“HURRICANE ANDREW; BREAKDOWN SEEN IN U.S. STORM AID

WASHINGTON—Interviews with officials at numerous Federal agencies suggest that there was a breakdown in communication and coordination at the top levels of the Government. The victims’ anger at the delay burst into the national news media on Thursday, creating a serious political problem for [the] President. White House officials did not realize the severity of the damage.… Even some officials of the emergency management agency were puzzled by the pace of the Federal response. Peg Maloy, the agency’s spokeswoman, said: “Something is wrong. I don’t know where things are breaking down. Nobody knows where it’s breaking down. I’d like to know myself.”—The New York Times, August 28, 1992

In the months and years leading up to Andrew, Governor Chiles, or more accurately Governor Chiles’s disaster team, was under the grip of moral hazard. It was under the mistaken notion that it needn’t prepare too much for disasters because it would be protected from their consequences. It hoped and believed that FEMA would come and that it would bring the cavalry with it. Unfortunately for the people of Homestead, the cavalry didn’t come.

the benefit of experience

As you might expect, Florida learned a lot from Andrew. This experience, as well as that of the devastating storms of the 2000s (including Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma, Ivan, and Charley), relieved the state of Florida disaster team of any illusions that it had regarding FEMA.

a fragile bromance

Many will argue that much has changed in the decades since that hot August morning thirty years ago when Andrew slammed into South Florida. But let’s go back to the words of former FEMA Administrator, Craig Fugate, who liked to say, “FEMA is not the nation’s emergency management team—FEMA is only a part of the team,” how is the team doing? Can we assume that, as The New York Times puts it, the “lessons have been learned”? Have we fixed the flaws the world has seen in past disasters?

The answer is, yes and no.

Again, it depends on which disasters you are talking about. While FEMA is much better at disaster response and recovery, as a nation we have made little progress in our readiness for Andrew-class disasters. The Andrew-class disaster is a different kind of disaster, one that requires a completely different approach.

Early in the response to the next Andrew-class disaster, these lessons will be revealed yet again. This is because most governors continue to believe that a national disaster system stands ready to assist them if a disaster gets too big for them to handle.

They believe that requesting a presidential major disaster declaration will bring FEMA, and when FEMA comes, it will bring the cavalry with it.

Here’s the problem. Everybody believes that—except FEMA.

what exactly do you mean when you say “cavalry”?

For one clue, let’s look more closely at FEMA’s definition of “major disaster declaration:”

“A major disaster declaration provides a wide range of federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure, including funds for both emergency and permanent work.”—Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act

Does that sound like the cavalry to you?

Dozens of times every year, a governor appeals to the president for help with disaster relief. And so, every month or so on average, the help comes. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t come ‘round the mountain on a white steed with the flag flying and the cavalry close behind. Instead of a national disaster response, FEMA just brings itself. FEMA’s cavalry is a bunch of emergency managers in polo shirts clutching checkbooks.

To be fair, FEMA does have the ability to move massive quantities of bottled water and packaged food. And it can bring other resources too, mostly through mission assignments to other federal agencies. Examples of this include emergency power generators and water pumps from the US Army Corps of Engineers and temporary field hospitals and medical teams from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

But, in the aftermath of a catastrophe, any help that FEMA brings will be too little and too late. As Chuck Hagan, the State of Florida’s Unified State Logistics Chief and disaster logistics legend, once said to me, “We know that we are going to be on our own. For us, FEMA is just another vendor.”

the myth of the system

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States of America has a national disaster system that can mobilize an immediate and massive response in the aftermath of a catastrophe. It turns out that, as with a lot of conventional wisdom, this is a myth.

Instead, we face a dangerous future with fifty-plus state disaster systems duct-taped together, with fifty-plus different structures, capabilities, and methods.

Individual states have responsibility for their own disasters and no responsibility for disasters anywhere else. And they are on their own when it comes to asking for help from other states. The problem is that each state is ‘an empire within an empire’ with relationships between them shifting with the political winds. Although some states do reach across to help their neighbors during disasters, the process is ad hoc, haphazard, and slow. So, during the next Andrew-class disaster, as with all past disasters, it will be the responsibility of the state to activate its own national disaster system.

there ain’t no such thing as free money

One problem is that the promise of FEMA free money causes states to underprepare for disasters. Another, even more destructive effect of FEMA free money is the process itself. It is a massive administrative burden, both for the state and for FEMA, leaving no time for the real work that must be done.

FEMA’s biggest free money programs are Individual Assistance and Public Assistance. The Individual Assistance Program, as its name suggests, is for individuals—whether they are homeowners or renters. It gives them money to fix disaster-related damage to their homes. The Public Assistance Program gives money to state and local governments to repair roads, bridges, public buildings, and parks. It also pays for the overtime worked by first responders and emergency managers during disasters.

Experts have long debated the wisdom of this approach. They question why the rancher in Wyoming should be forced to pay the salary of an emergency manager in Key West during a hurricane response. Economists argue effective risk management would call for the state that benefits year-round from a tropical climate to bear the cost of its hazards from tropical storms.

Beyond the dysfunctional incentives caused by Individual Assistance and Public Assistance, is the damage they do to our national preparedness. The IA and PA process (including client contacts, negotiations, paperwork, and field inspections) for the dozens of active DRs is a massive task that takes up the lion’s share of FEMA’s time, leaving little time for its primary mission, preparing the nation for catastrophes.

Every day all around the country, FEMA wraps its time and talent around a free-money paperwork exercise while the nation remains unprepared. Thus, we have succeeded in nationalizing the local and localizing the national. In some ways, FEMA is doing what states and locals should be doing and leaving to them the one thing that it should do itself.

Somehow, we have managed to build the system exactly backwards...