Thanks to the efforts of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) and to Bill Cumming, a nice collection of about 60 classic documents related to FEMA is stored on the FAS website. The direct URL is here.

A note about a recent addition to that list, at the bottom.  Bill Cumming asked the FAS to add the report titled Coping With Catastrophe; Building an Emergency Management System to Meet People’s Needs in Natural and Manmade Disasters, done by research team assembled by the National Academy of Public Administration in 1992-3. He and I recently reviewed and discussed this 20 year old report, which probably remains the only major assessment done of FEMA during its 25 years of existence as an independent agency. The report is a good example of the value of engaging professional public administrators when dealing with a “wicked” problem, as recommended in the previous posting on this blog.  It’s insights and recommendations were used for many years and some are still current.