There’s an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times that suggests restoring the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could go a long way in restoring public faith in federal government. The performance of FEMA, and the decline in its capacity, provided a stark contrast to where we’ve come since 9/11 when you compare that response to how the agency handled Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA has a strong geospatial mission, and continues to move toward some innovation under the Department of Homeland Security, but communication at this monster agency means that things have moved at a glacial pace. The lessons learned at Ground Zero had about a five-year run before they got pushed down into a bureaucratic quagmire.
I’m hoping there’s a more coherent, cohesive and cooperative plan to address mapping in emergencies in the next administration. Communications and command and control for emergency response is a bi-partisan issue, and state and local governments have called for a more accountable disaster response agency.
I’m hoping there’s movement on this front in the next administration as emergency response is one area wehre a clear national policy on disaster response can have a strong impact on spatial data infrastructure (SDI) for the nation.
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and what do you think about gas problem in Ukraine?