As Tropical Storm Isaac is upgraded to Hurricane Isaac, the national media’s focus is on comparing the potential impact of Hurricane Isaac to Hurricane Katrina. Given that Hurricane Isaac appears headed to New Orleans and may hit land exactly seven years after Hurricane Katrina did, this focus is natural. With …
President Obama has used his executive power in many ways to expand the role of government. But there’s one area that stands out: Obama’s frequent and repeated use of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to issue emergency and disaster declarations. Heritage’s Matt Mayer reports that Obama “eviscerated the record books …
Listening to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) or reading The New York Times yesterday gave the impression that disaster relief victims were suffering from a lack of government aid. “Without additional funding,” Reid warned, “thousands of people who have lost literally everything they owned will be forced to go without …
The United States is ready for the next Hurricane Katrina according to Admiral Thad Allen, the former director of the FEMA response effort in New Orleans. In an article put out by Bloomberg, Allen was quoted saying “there is nothing right now that inhibits an effective response.” However others seem …
Disaster management is over-federalized. This chart from a recent Heritage Backgrounder, The Local Role in Disaster Response: Lessons from Katrina and the California Wildfires, makes it abundantly clear. With the exception of the Johnson and Reagan administrations, the number of federal disaster declarations has steadily and dramatically grown. By the end …
