The WashPost blog featured an interview with outgoing HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. See: Shaun Donovan on confronting hurricanes, homelessness and big banks. Only one question dealt with post-disaster recovery, and it is quoted it here:
How did your work on the Hurricane Sandy task force inform the administration’s disaster relief policies?
It’s important to look back to Hurricane Katrina, and the fact that when we took office, even though it was three and a half years later, it was fresh in the nation’s mind. One of my first trips there was with (then-U.S. Homeland Security Secretary) Janet Napolitano, and many of the neighborhoods looked like the storm had happened the day before. The president asked me to do a review with Janet on national recovery, which led to the National Disaster Recovery Framework that we use today to handle long-term recovery from these major disasters.
I am not sure why but I I find it fascinating that in order to get some serious federal attention to recovery, the President had to tell the Sec. of DHS and the Sec. of HUD to deal with it.
What has baffled me for many years is that FEMA had been in existence for about 35 years and not managed to come up with a recovery framework. The National Disaster Recovery Framework was issued in late 2012.
See comments from readers below…..