On June 8th, I did a posting titled FEMA Wants More Responsibility for Recovery to Go to State and Local Governments.  The article discusses a major policy change underway at FEMA.

On July 19, the Pew Trust released a report titled What We Don’t Know About State Spending on Natural Disasters Could Cost Us. Here are the 2 concluding paragraphs:

In an era of increasing expensive disasters, efforts to adjust the funding relationship among the federal, state and local levels and managing growing costs though mitigation are likely to increase. However Pew’s research shows that states are not comprehensively tracking their disaster spending. The limited available state data strongly indicate that these expenditures very widely across states. Without complete data about state investments and local cost-sharing practices, any proposal tackling intergovernmental spending issues or cost reduction will be operating largely in the dark.  [Emphasis added.]

As federal efforts take shape in the context of increasing expenditures on all disaster phases, a commitment from state and federal policymakers to collect and share comprehensive data is critical. Understanding the full scope of spending on natural disasters will help leaders at all levels of government as they work to control the growing costs of these events in dollars, property losses and lives.

Bottom line:  the change in policy needs to be based on facts and reality. I see a major disconnect here.  I think we headed for growing threats/risks/vulnerabilities while simultaneously seeing retrenching and weakened federal capabilities. It is not going to be pretty.

Your comments are invited.

The Diva is feeling discouraged this week from the lack of interest and comments from readers. In the past week or so, she posted two really serious articles:

(1) June 8 – FEMA Wants More Responsibility for Recovery to Go to State and Local      Government, which discusses a policy shift by FEMA, which would mean the agency plans to pull out much sooner from the recovery process and expect state and local agencies to manage the long-term recovery.

(2) June 13 – Staffing Problems at FEMA, which discusses the serious deficiencies in the Reservist program as well as staff depletion issues. In recent disasters the lack of staff, and lack of well-trained staff has been a serious limitation to the response and recovery. One has to wonder what the agency plans to do to increase its effectiveness?

This blog reaches several hundred people per day, all of whom seemingly have an interest in disaster recovery. Yet the response to the major issues raised by the two posting noted is limited and passive.

Update on June 16 – it took a while but finally several people have provided comments. Thanks!

[Note: recent changes to the blog format  means that those of you who subscribe to the service noting a new posting get that notification from WordPress and not RecoveryDiva, as was true in the past. Sorry, but that change came with the upgrade. ]

How corruption slows disaster recovery.  Much of this article seems obvious but it is worth noting that corruption may not only slow down recovery but contribute to deaths.  A couple of quotes follow:

We believe progress would have been quicker if Puerto Rico’s first big energy contract had been correctly executed. After a disaster, corruption can literally kill.
Our work also identified several ways that Caribbean countries could limit how corruption harms future hurricane recoveries.

Better disaster preparedness – including building code compliance, zoning enforcement in exposed locations like beaches and hillsides and transparent, well-resourced disaster-response teams – would reduce turmoil after extreme weather. That, in turn, would minimize opportunities for the kinds of chaos-related corruption we documented across the Caribbean.

Excellent new article in the Environmental Law Reporter. See: Superstorm Sandy at Five: Lessons on Law as Catalyst and Obstacle to Long-Term Recovery Following Catastrophic Disasters, by Donovan Finn and John Travis Marshall.

Note: The Diva has a copy of the full article and can share it with a limited number of people. Please email her with your request.