FEMA’s Plan to Make States Pay More for Disasters. “It’s one of the many ideas and practices that Craig Fugate, the agency’s outgoing leader, hopes the Trump administration will adopt. Among the others: rescuing pets.” [Thanks to Ed Thomas for this citation.]
This concept is not new. The Diva recalls writing about the need for more state investment in preparedness for disasters back in 1993, when the topic was included in the milestone report Coping with Catastrophe, issued by the National Academy of Public Administration
Update: another take, this one from Bloomberg News, on the same topic.
Claire,
These issues have been dogging FEMA and its predecessor agencies for decades. FEMA has lived with it ever since it was founded. Here is a link to a GAO report asking FEMA to do a better job with disaster recommendations to the President…. from December 1981.
http://www.gao.gov/products/CED-82-4
In the end, it is a political question how best to divide responsibility between the states and the federal government. And now that we’ve spent more than half a century building infrastructure in locations heavily subsided for the costs of all types of disasters, and with the change in the weather putting even more infrastructure and homes at risk, it will be real interesting if a consensus can be reached, but I have hope!
I can see there is a really long history attached to this matter. Thanks for the 1981 citation.