From Bloomberg News: FEMA Is Spending Billions, and Some Questionable Companies Are Getting Work. A surge in disaster contracts from hurricanes has put the agency under pressure to bypass the usual competitive bidding process.

Two excerpts:

This year’s record hurricane season has led to the biggest spike in government disaster contracts in more than a decade, testing the government’s ability to manage the unpredictable and growing costs of climate change. Since Hurricane Harvey struck Texas on Aug. 25, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded $2.2 billion in contracts….

BOTTOM LINE – Since Hurricane Harvey hit, FEMA has given out $2.2 billion in contracts, some of which are being awarded to companies with past violations for similar work.

With Harvey And Now Irma, Federal Funds And FEMA Are Put To The Test

From NPR, this interesting article with details about how FEMA operates and its spending capacity.

From the Wall St. Journal: Back to Back Hurricanes To Test Post Katrina Reforms. 

FEMA is a relatively small federal agency, but it has 5,000 staffers at work presently.

[Since H. Harvey, several news sources, like the Wall St. Journal, are making articles available with a subscription. Not sure how long it will last, but it is nice to have these extra sources. ]

From NPR, the former Director of FEMA talks about what the agency actually can do:  FEMA’s Role in Responding to Disasters

Suggestions to FEMA on improving and expediting disaster aid from the folks in LA who have lots of experience.  From the LA Advocate, Louisiana’s past could provide a blueprint for how FEMA could restructure disaster aid

Starting hurricane season without leaders of NOAA and FEMA should ‘scare the hell out of everybody’

“That should scare the hell out of everybody,” retired US Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré told CNN. “These positions help save lives.”

Lately in Washington, it is hard to believe anything is going to get done that involves Congress, but here is an article re some possible changes in national legislation. See” House advances legislation to enhance FEMA disaster response, recovery programs
This comes from Homeland Preparedness News.

FEMA hopes to speed disaster response with Baton Rouge contingent of home-based ‘reservists’

Baton Rouge will serve as the test site for a program designed to convert hundreds of temporary FEMA workers into reservists — creating a ready-made response team prepared to tackle any future disasters in this area.

“For the regions most impacted by storms, we want to create a workforce that is more readily available in those areas to respond to disasters,” said Carissa Berkeley, supervisor, human resource specialists, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

New FEMA Administrator has been confirmed, as of June 19th.

Excerpts from the FEMA press release, April 28, 2017: Nomination of William B. “Brock” Long as FEMA Administrator & Appointment of Tom Dinanno as FEMA Assistant Administrator for Grant Programs.

Today, President Donald J. Trump announced his intention to nominate Brock Long as the Administrator of FEMA and appointed Tom Dinanno as the next FEMA Assistant Administrator for Grant Programs. As the FEMA Administrator, Brock will oversee approximately 5,000 full-time employees and a surge capacity of approximately 10,000 people charged with helping U.S. citizens and first responders build, sustain and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from and mitigate all hazards. Brock has more than 16 years of experience assisting and supporting local, state, and federal governments with building robust emergency management and public health preparedness programs.

From 2011 to 2017, Brock worked as Executive Vice President at Hagerty Consulting, where he provided strategic direction and leadership to the firm’s full complement of emergency management programs and professionals. From 2007 to 2011, Brock served as Director of Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency (EMA) under Governor Bob Riley. As Director, he served as the State Coordinating Officer for 14 disasters, including eight presidential-declared events.

Updates : April 29, Forbes magazine featured this article about Mr. Long.