Texas SpeedDiva
08-14-2009, 04:39 PM
This is amazing, a federal appointee who is actually qualified and experienced in the same field as his agency. :confused: Wonder how long he'll last
FEMA’s new administrator has a message for Americans: get in touch with your survival instinct
Craig Fugate, the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Barack Obama, is an unusual choice for the job, historically speaking. Unlike many of his predecessors, most famously Michael “Heckuva Job” Brown under President George W. Bush, Fugate (pronounced few-gate) has experience in the relevant subject matter. A former firefighter, Fugate managed disasters for 20 years in Florida, the fiasco capital of America. Even more bizarrely for FEMA, often a dumping ground for friends of the powerful, Fugate has no political connections to Obama. Instead, he got his job the old-fashioned way—when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was looking for candidates, people kept mentioning his name. He has a reputation for telling it like it is—in a field where “it” is usually bad. And what Fugate has to say may come as strong medicine for his fellow citizens, nine out of 10 of whom now live in a place at significant risk for some kind of disaster.
Fugate is well respected, which is not the same thing as being well liked. “If they wanted a politician, Craig’s not your man,” says Ed Kennedy, who drove ambulances with him in Alachua.
He criticizes the media for “celebrating” people who choose not to evacuate and then have to be rescued on live TV—while ignoring all the people who were prepared. “This is a tragedy, this whole Shakespearean circle we’re in. You never hear the media say, ‘Hey, you’re putting this rescue worker in danger.’”
At his first all-staff meeting with FEMA employees, Fugate asked for a show of hands: “How many people here have your family disaster plan ready to go? [If you don’t], you just failed your first test … If you’re going to be an emergency manager, the first place you start is at home.” Already, Fugate is factoring citizens into the agency’s models for catastrophic planning, thinking of them as rescuers and responders, not just victims. And he has changed FEMA’s mission statement from the old, paternalistic (and fantastical) vow to “protect the Nation from all hazards” to a more modest, collaborative pledge to “support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together.”
In Florida, Fugate was notorious for what he called “Thunderbolt” drills. Once a month, he’d walk into the office with a large Starbucks coffee and tell everyone to stop what they were doing and respond to a catastrophe baked in his imagination. Sometimes it was a blackout; other times it was a small nuclear bomb.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/fema
Link to the story about the "Thunderbolt Drills"
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Thunderbolt-Exercises-Helped-Florida.html
FEMA’s new administrator has a message for Americans: get in touch with your survival instinct
Craig Fugate, the new head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Barack Obama, is an unusual choice for the job, historically speaking. Unlike many of his predecessors, most famously Michael “Heckuva Job” Brown under President George W. Bush, Fugate (pronounced few-gate) has experience in the relevant subject matter. A former firefighter, Fugate managed disasters for 20 years in Florida, the fiasco capital of America. Even more bizarrely for FEMA, often a dumping ground for friends of the powerful, Fugate has no political connections to Obama. Instead, he got his job the old-fashioned way—when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was looking for candidates, people kept mentioning his name. He has a reputation for telling it like it is—in a field where “it” is usually bad. And what Fugate has to say may come as strong medicine for his fellow citizens, nine out of 10 of whom now live in a place at significant risk for some kind of disaster.
Fugate is well respected, which is not the same thing as being well liked. “If they wanted a politician, Craig’s not your man,” says Ed Kennedy, who drove ambulances with him in Alachua.
He criticizes the media for “celebrating” people who choose not to evacuate and then have to be rescued on live TV—while ignoring all the people who were prepared. “This is a tragedy, this whole Shakespearean circle we’re in. You never hear the media say, ‘Hey, you’re putting this rescue worker in danger.’”
At his first all-staff meeting with FEMA employees, Fugate asked for a show of hands: “How many people here have your family disaster plan ready to go? [If you don’t], you just failed your first test … If you’re going to be an emergency manager, the first place you start is at home.” Already, Fugate is factoring citizens into the agency’s models for catastrophic planning, thinking of them as rescuers and responders, not just victims. And he has changed FEMA’s mission statement from the old, paternalistic (and fantastical) vow to “protect the Nation from all hazards” to a more modest, collaborative pledge to “support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together.”
In Florida, Fugate was notorious for what he called “Thunderbolt” drills. Once a month, he’d walk into the office with a large Starbucks coffee and tell everyone to stop what they were doing and respond to a catastrophe baked in his imagination. Sometimes it was a blackout; other times it was a small nuclear bomb.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/fema
Link to the story about the "Thunderbolt Drills"
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Thunderbolt-Exercises-Helped-Florida.html