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> This comes out of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of coordinating our disaster relief. When I read this, I remembered that the FEMA administrator at
by jackgavigan 11y ago
> This comes out of the guy who is supposed to be in charge of coordinating our disaster relief.
When I read this, I remembered that the FEMA administrator at the time of Hurricane Katrina was a political appointee with zero relevant experience, so I went looking to see if Fugate is any different. Boy, is he!
Fugate has spent his entire career in this space, starting as a volunteer firefighter in high school, then working as a paramedic before spending ten years as emergency manager at the county level, then deputy director and director at the state level (in Florida). He turned down the FEMA administrator job in 2005 (when the aforementioned political appointee resigned in the aftermath of Katrina).
His reaction to being nominated by Obama for the role was to tweet "Pigs do fly" - https://twitter.com/disastersrus/status/1279506490 https://twitter.com/disastersrus/status/1279506490
He supports the use of technology, including social media as a communications tool in the aftermath of disasters - http://www.dhs.gov/news/2011/05/04/written-statement-craig-fugate-administrator-federal-emergency-management-agency http://www.dhs.gov/news/2011/05/04/written-statement-craig-f... - and crowdsourcing of disaster reporting via smartphone apps - http://www.fema.gov/disaster-reporter http://www.fema.gov/disaster-reporter
He is a licensed ham radio operator and he used to run a website (domain registered in 2000; now inactive) with links, information and advice on how to prepare for disasters - http://www.disastersrus.org/bio.htm http://www.disastersrus.org/bio.htm
This guy is awesome. If he says it's about numbers, I believe him.
- whiddershins 11y agoThere was a great essay a few days ago by that FEMA director, who apparently was not at all unqualified for his role. http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-fema-director-michael-brown-stop-blaming-me-for-hurricane-katrina/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/ex-fema-director-michael-brow...
- jackgavigan 11y agoTo be fair, I'm sure he did the best he could. The responsibility lies with the guy who appointed him into that role.
- dbarlett 11y agoHe also coined the Waffle House Index [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoI didn't realize they actually planned for it [1]. That's actually pretty awesome. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House#Disaster_recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House#Disaster_recovery
- hga 11y agoYeah, as mentioned in the various Wikipedia articles 4 companies that do a lot of business in and around Tornado Alley are prepared for it. The others are Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart. The latter is the one I know the most about, it's based in the north-west most county in Arkansas, 3 counties due south of Joplin, MO, where we enjoyed an EF-5 tornado in 2011, and they have serious plans which they get to put into operation all too often. Not as quickly and directly as Waffle House, but with all their logistics resources its easy to surge food, water, etc. as soon as the roads are open. Ah, the Joplin Home Depot was in the zone of total destruction, but our Lowes was untouched, and the company surged many, many employees to it, it was really busy in the days and months afterwards.
- dsfyu404ed 11y agoI find it amusing that Walmart is probably in a better position than most governments when it comes to the ability to deal with the humanitarian crisis following a natural disaster...
- mbubb 11y agoGood point. In NYC companies like IKEA in Red Hook had local impact following Sandy. I was told in the late 90s, anecdotally, that in South Korea which has a festering humanitarian disaster 50 miles from its capital, the large conglomerates each have a role in the emergency planning. For example: LG provides potable water; Samsung, Quonset huts; Hyundai..., etc