The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How we Should Reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency | S4Ep15

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

On today’s episode, How we Should Reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency, I’ll examine the critical role of FEMA in disaster relief and explore strategies to improving its effectivenessHow we can improve FEMA:Thorough After-Action Report/Improvement Plans (AAR/IPs)Direct engagement with FEMA employees and the publicStreamline Local and State assistance processesEnhance pre-disaster collaboration at all levelsGodspeed y'al

Three weeks after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Rosa and her family huddled in a shattered school rationing water and fearing for their future. The island's infrastructure lay in ruins, electricity and water were scarce, and aid was slow to arrive. As weeks turned into months, the initial shock gave way to frustration and anger as the slow pace of recovery threatened to erode hope and resilience. This statement, generated by Google Gemini, represents the reality for many Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. On today's episode, don't throw the FEMA baby out with the political bathwater. I'll examine the critical role of FEMA in disaster relief and explore strategies to improve its effectiveness. But first... Please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum,

and let's get started with the People, Process, Progress podcast. In three, two, one. So the people of this episode are the general public interested in disaster preparedness and response, policymakers and government officials, and individuals and communities impacted by disasters. The process, shared strategies to improve organizational performance and incorporate feedback from employees and customers, i.e. us, the public. And the progress is to refine FEMA's role in disaster preparedness and response and improve the overall support to the American people. Welcome back to the People Process Progress Podcast, everybody. I'm your host, Kevin Pinnell. My background as it relates to today's episode is I was a local public health emergency coordinator that worked for the state level. I coordinated hospital

preparedness for the state, and then I worked for the state of Virginia in emergency management and response for a bit. So worked a lot with FEMA regulations, a lot of the training and certifications I have for incident management come or related to FEMA and was trained in disaster response recovery as well as attended the basic emergency management academy, which is like the leadership course for emergency managers. So I've seen both in the books and then in practical application how this has worked, not worked, and like many of you, especially in recent months, seen how the public perceives response, getting rid of FEMA has been talked about, which I think is disastrous. But instead, how do we improve something instead of throwing it out with the bathwater, if you will, right? So the phrase don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, for folks that haven't heard that, it's a common metaphor.

It means not to discard something valuable or useful along with something that's unwanted or discarded. So I thought it was, you know, of this as I watched the news. And I think the president actually said, you know, of getting rid of FEMA or improving it. And so I think that would be a disaster to throw out the FEMA baby instead of rapid performance improvement effort, which would be better to use all the resources and people that we have and just help make them a more high functioning team. And they do a lot of good work. And so the press, you know, depending on which channel work. And so the press, depending on which channel you're watching, the politicians, depending on which person you're listening to, makes them seem

awful, makes them seem great. But where's the middle ground? So what does FEMA do? Let's start with that. So the mission from FEMA's website is to support our citizens and first responders, to promote that as a nation, we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards. So in short, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. What does that mean? So preparedness and mitigation means FEMA has a bunch of money.

They provide a bunch of training to local and state entities and themselves, other federal agencies, to get us ready for disaster, to build things in place of a floodplain, to teach me how to make a kit, or to mitigate things, which probably has more to do with knowing where floodplains are, don't build in those areas, build this area up, basically reduce the impact. And there's so many different ways to do that. Flood just sticks out because it's a huge program. But they get us ready for disasters and they help us reduce the impact of disasters should they happen. And then response and recovery, this is the part we

probably hear much more about. This is something happens and they respond. And how that works in America is something, everything starts and ends locally, every disaster, every event. So that's something to keep in mind throughout this process. And when you watch the news, when FEMA gets a bunch of crap, everything starts and ends locally. So the first thing is, well, locally, what did they do? Did they run out of resources? Okay, state level, what did they do? Because the locality is impacted, they own it when it starts, and they'll come back and after everybody leaves, and they have to ask for help. Right? And if their infrastructure is wiped out, like we've seen in Puerto Rico, or like we saw more recently in North Carolina, that's hard to do, but that's also why they prepare

so they have sites outside of disaster zones. So did they ask for help in a timely fashion? Then at the state level, they get these requests from the localities, from a city or a county or a municipality, whatever, and they go, can we help? Do we have the resources and we can handle it at the state level? Then if the state's overwhelmed and they're not ready or whatever reason, then they say, hey, federal folks, we need to ask for help. And part of this is covered or a lot of it's covered in the Stafford Act.

You can look that up. But that's the chain of requests and the chain of how they can act. It's part of what protects us in America where the federal government can't just come in and do things. Locals have to ask for it to the state and the state has to ask for it to the federal government. And then recovery is cleaning up immediately after moving all the debris, rebuilding long term, putting infrastructure back in. So that's kind of the cycle of things we get ready and we try and reduce impact. We respond and we start to recover and rebuild. then there's long-term recovery so what are

some common criticisms and if you've watched the news lately you've seen them whether it's the fires which isn't really a fema thing um as much even though they're involved but and then hurricane helene and then really hurricanes are probably the big ones most folks have heard of snow ice disasters those counts everything counts but what are common criticisms and some of these are accurate, and some will give you that grain of salt from kind of an inside view that bureaucracy and slow response time. So that can be true for sure. But that is, that has affected greatly by how quickly the local folks asked for help, how quickly the state folks asked for help, how quickly the federal folks responded to those asks. Also, the paperwork involved in that, quote paperwork, because there's a lot of online and electronic things, is slow.

It's much better than it was a long time ago, but it's not great and it could be better. From someone that works in technology now, there are many ways that every level of government can be modernized so that it's one seamless system and like many organizations, none of those systems really talk to each other or they kind of do but not wholly and that's a mess. So bureaucracy and slow response times. The second is lack of transparency. And these are just kind of three and accountability. And this really has to do with how often the local, state, and federal folks work together. In some areas that I've seen, it's super. Everybody gets together very regularly. They practice together. They coordinate grant requests together. In other places I've been, the only time you see the other people is when something bad happens, which as we've talked

about here and as you know practically is if you've never worked with a teammate before and then all of a sudden you show up on your worst day, it's usually not going to go well and it doesn't. So the accountability too of if you've seen whether it was the shooting I talked about in New Orleans a few episodes ago or just any disaster where folks are pointing fingers, you can tell they didn't work together well before that. And then of course the big one which really prompted today's episode is political interference. So with this and every episode, this is my two cents. It's not those of people I used to work for or work for now.

And in this area in particular in politics, I do not like it when folks are appointed to positions that have zero experience in that position because the only people that that is good for is the appointee and it hurts the public, right? So often these positions like FEMA administrator or in charge of the strategic national stockpile like years ago, people are given these positions, they don't know what they're doing. And that's a problem, right? And there's a time when good leadership can take over a thing, right? And not really be the pro in that thing. But emergency management isn't one of those. And so I think the FEMA administrator should be someone that has come up through the ranks that has the experience

that that knows not perfect and all the laws, but they certainly know how to do emergency management. And then they have, you know, good consultation. So this has been a political tool by every administration of every party to just get photo ops and look like the good guy. Right. And so now we're talking about President Trump's administration where he's in, he's like, oh, we might get rid of it. We might redo it. You know, how much of that is soundbite? How much is it real? My hope is to improve it. So let's get into how I think we can make FEMA better and not throw it out with the bathwater. So the first thing is after action report and improvement plan, right? So political leaders

and agency heads should conduct one of these, and that's getting folks together. And from the most recent disasters and preparedness efforts, because remember, it's not just disaster response, it's preparedness. Did you feel prepared? Recovery? Did you recover well? Did we do a good job? It's put together a team and develop comprehensive improvement plans. And right. These improvement plans are basically we're going to say what worked, what doesn't, where we what are we not doing we should do. And then we're going to say, and here's who owns fixing those by when.

And we're going to cost them out and all that kind of stuff. Right. And they should be treated like an ongoing, never ending program so that they're not left on the virtual shelf gathering dust, which happens not just in this emergency management realm, but in a lot of projects is some folks may not even do an after action report or a retro if you're agile, but they'll ask the questions and then nobody does anything about them. And that's a problem.

And that's happened with FEMA, right? And after various disasters, and that has led to some stagnation in their growth. And of course, the politicization I've talked about before. So in addition to leaders from somewhere in the administration talking with FEMA folks and doing after action reports holistically, collectively, then we need to do a direct engagement, right? One, we need to improve FEMA's public messaging because it's not great.

It doesn't look good when they're not really engaged, when they look disconnected from the states and locals. And that depends on the different news crew you watch and all that kind of stuff. But we want to be confident, show a unified front, be there with our partners, not just when bad stuff happens, but proactive press conferences, right?

Quarterly preparedness things. Here's how we're working with this community that didn't even have a disaster yet and make it a public campaign to sell your agency better and secure the funding and make you look relevant because that's part of the problem is here is FEMA doesn't look relevant. But I would say from an administration is look to reform FEMA rather than get those frontline perspectives. Talk to FEMA employees, right? Don't just wholesale say, oh, we might just get rid of it. Address their concerns, try and improve the morale. When you have better morale on your team, you have

better performance. And when you have better performance, you have better output and better customer service. And that's FEMA's whole gig is external customer service largely. And let's create some task forces like a mix of folks to go out and talk to disaster survivors, understand their experience, gather their feedback, ensure their needs are being met.

So this direct engagement is going to be better messaging and a whole communication campaign on what we're doing even before disasters. We're going to talk to FEMA employees and we're going to get their perspective and include that to make it better, improve their morale, improve their output. And we're going to talk to FEMA employees and we're going to get their perspective and include that to make it better, improve their morale, improve their output. And we're going to talk to folks that we provided service to, these disaster survivors or families of folks that didn't survive and figure out how could we have come in sooner, better,

more efficiently, anything like that. And then the third thing to me, so we've done AAR, IP or after action report improvement plans. We're going to do direct engagement in a few different fashions. We're going to streamline processes, right? So we're going to look at the federal assistance request workflows and reduce delays where we can, right? There's a reason that there are these gates between local, state, and federal, right? And it has to do with how America is set up and all that kind of stuff. But again, like I mentioned earlier, modernize it as much as possible with technology. We have great, cool mobile technology where i can use a phone and go take

pictures of disaster and send that in that's very helpful but how can i efficiently in an app that works good traditionally federal government's not super duper with app development is optimized how that works for folks and if you tell folks in an area that has no power, no internet, no infrastructure to go to a website, that's a ridiculous message. So you have to be ready with some old school, which I'm sure they have and they had, but effective hard copies, pens, paper, that kind of stuff. But also help people facilitate them through the program and optimize their process. So just look at what's working in the workflow, what's not. Let's cut out these inefficiencies. So we're not getting rid optimize the process. So just look at what's working in the workflow, what's not, let's cut out these inefficiencies. So we're not getting rid of the process, we're making it better. And then how can we enhance collaboration, right? So leaders need to insist and tie this to money,

which seems to be the big stick that works both for everybody, local, state, and federal, that you have to collaborate, right? You have to be working together regularly, you have to meet quarterly, semi annually, whatever the right mix of that is, to talk about these grants to talk about preparedness and mitigation. And are you ready for response? And who has training in that? Because that varies greatly across this country. I mean, in some areas, people are emergency managers, and it's one of 10 hats they wear. And in other areas, that's their whole job. And it's a high level hats they wear and in other areas that's their whole job and it's a high level position in a locality but that shouldn't be it either right so the collaboration can be enhanced by also further professionalizing emergency management

which has been a problem for decades but all disasters starting and locally should be the mantra but it shouldn't rule out fema's and efficient support to state and locals that need help. So how I think we can improve is we're going to conduct an after-action report and make an improvement plan. That's going to include direct engagement with FEMA employees, with the public, and we're going to proactively communicate what we're doing ahead of time, let alone during response. We're going to streamline the processes for local staff, for stuff from the state, for the state to ask stuff from FEMA. And FEMA can be involved in all of that because they can help you check the right boxes to get stuff faster. And then we're going to enhance our collaboration well ahead of disasters and certainly when disasters happen. I've seen folks of many different patches and coats and organizations on the same big issue where our whole job is to help the public we came to help.

And they hardly talk to each other or they break apart or my plan and your plan. There should be one plan, right? There should be one purpose, one process focused on the people. See what I did there? So the call to action is check more than one news source first, right? Because a lot of the political grandstanding, the pictures, the photo ops, again, by every one of every party that they've done throughout history, often is to tell one narrative. So check a left-leaning news source, a right-leaning news source in the middle, wherever you can find that, FEMA itself, whoever. Go to the FEMA website, right, FEMA.gov, and look up history.

It's pretty interesting to see where they came from. It used to be civil defense, right? We were looking out for planes flying over and nuclear duck and cover stuff, and it grew from there, and you can learn more history of that. For yourselves, for each of us, the best thing we can do to help improve our national preparedness is for us to be prepared. That's to make a kit with food, shelf-stable food, water, go to FEMA personal preparedness, or just Google that, have a plan, which means if this happens, it's like the old fire drill,

but do that for a flood or a hurricane, just walk it out. Where are we going to go? Who are we going to talk to and stay informed? I mentioned more than one news source, have a radio that still works. And when the internet's down, that's what you got. Go to your or call your local emergency management office, right? And find out how you can get involved, right? There's plenty of volunteer programs or just learn more about what they do. You don't have to get involved. If you can't, or you're not able, you don't have the time, but it's really good to know what, what is my local emergency management going to do in tough times when I need help. Be sure to visit the pupil process, progress.com website for previous episodes, articles, subscribe on Apple, Spotify, share, leave a review. That'd be great. If you could

visit the Penel 5 Fitness Club YouTube channel. So that's what I started out on YouTube, rebranded it. And now we're back to the original. It promotes fitness 15 seconds at a time. We get cold in the plunge. And I share some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu after action reports of my own from class to help folks that have been training for a while or just getting into it, learn a bit about that.

And until next time, keep your hope alive and let it ignite the change that you want to see. Create actionable plans to guide you and take action to transform you and those around you for the better. Godspeed, y'all.