Silent democratization will break up America
Blunt force trauma kills. In January, I provided you a heads up that due to escalating disasters FEMA would be scaling back.
This was confirmed on Federal News Radio, “FEMA is not a first responder,” Daniel Kaniewski, the agency’s deputy administrator, said in a speech Wednesday at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.
“We are going to be very blunt with the American public about what FEMA can and can’t do, about what the federal government can and can’t do, and I hope state and local governments take this forward as well.”
FEMA had a near-death experience from last year’s severe hurricanes and wildfires. It is now admitting that the agency can’t manage and lead emergency response efforts for every single disaster.
As a result it has a new strategic plan for the next four years.
“FEMA will continue to fund the recovery for smaller disasters, but increasingly, we will be looking for state and local governments to manage those programs,” Kaniewski said. He went on to elaborate that FEMA wants to help states reach a point where they can successfully take on some of this work on their own. It wants to foster a “culture of preparedness” and spread those messages as part of a new national campaign.
The Surge Capacity Force, which the Homeland Security Department originally piloted and expanded to other cabinet-level agencies, is one example. DHS last fall sourced employees from 15 other agencies to help with translating or registering disaster survivors for assistance.
It’s also speaking about current disaster assistance programs in a new way. They’re “federally supported, state managed and locally executed recovery programs,” Kaniewski said.
The agency instead wants to focus its attention and resources on the truly catastrophic events instead of spreading itself thin as it did in 2017.
Leading up to Y2K all computer systems in government were to obtain interoperability. Here we are in 2018 and FEMA is turning to the private sector to help them get interoperable. They have 200 systems that supposedly do not talk to each other Kaniewski said. Where did all the interoperability funding go? The are seeing a way to use it to leverage technological innovations for, int heir own words, revolutionary purposes.
The agency is also piloting a new concept for its FEMA integration teams, a group of logisticians and other experts that are designed to help state emergency management agencies better prepare for future disasters, Kaniewski said. FEMA has these FIT teams in some states now, and it eventually hopes to embed them throughout the country. These FIT's would be modeled after the DHS Fusion Centers who are owned and operated by state and local entities.
Another glaring alarm is that FEMA wants to turn over the recovery portion of the Emergency Management Cycle to the state and locals. The Federal government knows that the largest amount of money, whether it is a war or disaster, is the recovery. FEMA is not saying it will not be involved yet, but will being weaning recovery to the states. Recovery is the dirty, time consuming and expensive part of any operation.
Although FEMA is beginning to turn over recovery to the states and local communities each state, county and local entity is compromised as they all sign to on the dotted line when they receive federal funding, even for a dollar.
“They don’t have the experts,” he said. “We want to provide them the experts, build up that level of capability, so that state at some point in the future could manage a recovery program on their own and FEMA would simply be providing financial support, rather than administrative and personnel support.”
“We’re finding ourselves going back to the future,” Kaniewski said. “We need to get back to some of our roots and look at that civil defense planning that FEMA historically did, that we as a nation did, quite frankly, back during the Cold War to prepare ironically enough for threats of today and tomorrow.” Did you catch that? Going back to Civil Defense? Not a chance.
Bottom line, be prepared. Increasingly, if there is a disaster you are going to be the response, recovery, and funding it all.
Thank you for leaving your comments on this article. My platform does not allow me to directly respond to questions so I decided to do an insert here.
i am receiving some very qualified individuals that there is nothing new with FEMA operations. That FEMA is not a first--responder.
Public perception is that FEMA will save me in a disaster. FEMA has allowed this perception to stand, unchallenged for the most part. Hence the belief that FEMA is indeed a first-responder.
A quick review of FEMA's priorities over the years can clarify:
1950-1960-The age of Civil Defense
1970's-Disasters were under the Department of Housing and Urban Development until FEMA came into being in 1978. Primary directives were Response and Preparedness.
1988-Robert T. Stafford Disaster Act passed.
2003- FEMA came under Department of Homeland Security
2000-FEMA emphasis began heavily focusing on mitigation. Various tools were used especially disaster zoning.
2010-Onward-Disasters began intensifying, renewed emphasis on mitigation.
The Federal Emergency Plan:
National Contingency Plan, then National Response Plan and is now called the National Response Framework as we align ourselves with the United Nations.
What FEMA is backing out of first is the long costly recovery. This places huge financial burdens upon the states and local entities. The states and local entities are compromised, even your local fire department. When they they federal monies they must agree and implement various unconstitutional acts as mentioned above.
What I am seeing is revolutionary rhetoric previously not seen in the agency and a democratization that grants access to all in a socialistic setting. In this type of setting you cannot have disaster aide when another person can't have it. We are going to see more of this democratization throughout our country. It is a way to turn the United States into a socialist Democracy without firing a bullet. We are being fractured as a country and slipped into the global socialist hive.
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Author Information
Celeste has worked as a contractor for Homeland Security and FEMA. Her training and activation's include the infamous day of 911, flood and earthquake operations, mass casualty exercises, and numerous other operations. Celeste is FEMA certified and has completed the Professional Development Emergency Management Series.
- Train-the-Trainer
- Incident Command
- Integrated EM: Preparedness, Response, Recovery, Mitigation
- Emergency Plan Design including all Emergency Support Functions
- Principles of Emergency Management
- Developing Volunteer Resources
- Emergency Planning and Development
- Leadership and Influence, Decision Making in Crisis
- Exercise Design and Evaluation
- Public Assistance Applications
- Emergency Operations Interface
- Public Information Officer
- Flood Fight Operations
- Domestic Preparedness for Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Incident Command (ICS-NIMS)
- Multi-Hazards for Schools
- Rapid Evaluation of Structures-Earthquakes
- Weather Spotter for National Weather Service
- Logistics, Operations, Communications
- Community Emergency Response Team Leader
- Behavior Recognition
And more….
Celeste grew up in a military & governmental home with her father working for the Naval Warfare Center, and later as Assistant Director for Public Lands and Natural Resources, in both Washington State and California.
Celeste also has training and expertise in small agricultural lobbying, Integrative/Functional Medicine, asymmetrical and symmetrical warfare, and Organic Farming.