The Salt Lake Tribune has an insane story about FEMA using volunteer firefighters from across the country as community relations officiers while there are still citizens in need of rescue. This is unbelievable:
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?”As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
Federal officials are unapologetic.
And then you get this kind of nonsense:
“They’ve got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified,” said a Texas firefighter. “We’re sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven’t been contacted yet.”The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.
Ok, you have over 10,000 persons still in the City, not to mention that there are fires breaking out and you have people who have come to help in the search and rescue operations in a sexual harassment seminar? Is the bureaucracy really that demented?
I was at a social gathering Sunday evening, wherein one of the attendees was a Montgomery firefighter. He mentioned that his department had been contacted looking for volunteers, I believe temas of two like the article mentions, to go to New Orleans. Now, if one wanted to volunteer there was paperwork to fill out and one had to go on one’s own time (shame on the Montgomery Fire Department for that fact).
Ok, so imagine you are a firefighter, you go through the hassle of volunteering (something that shouldn’t be a hassle) and you do it on your own dime and you end up passing out paper and sitting in seminars? (Granted, some departments may be paying their folks to go, but still).
Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters’ vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government.
“There are all of these guys with all of this training and we’re sending them out to hand out a phone number,” an Oregon firefighter said. “They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste.”
My word, this is ridiculous. Perhaps I am missing something, but none of the above makes any sense to me.
(I started this post at 6:15 this morning, but only now got to finish it, so many of you may already have read the story).
Not to be callous, but isn’t “on one’s own time” part of the definition of volunteer?
Comment by Jan — Wednesday, September 7, 2024 @ 11:13 am
I’ve seen this story all over the place now, and the quotes from the article that NOBODY excerpts are as follows:
And this:
So the fire chief in Salt Lake and Texas are among everybody else in America telling FEMA folks how to do their jobs these days. Lovely. I’m sure that’s going to help FEMA work extra hard for all these folks.
Honestly, I’m getting so fed up with the spin from everybody in this disaster (including the press) that I’m getting dizzy.
Comment by Bryan S. — Wednesday, September 7, 2024 @ 11:34 am
Jan,
True enough. My point is that it wouldn’t hurt the city to pay for some guys/gals to go.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, September 7, 2024 @ 4:07 pm
Bryan,
Point taken.
Still, given the magnitude of the disaster, it does seem rather strange that the best use of these firefighters is community relations.
And, really, sexual harassment seminars?
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, September 7, 2024 @ 4:11 pm
Steve,
I’m not saying it’s the best use of these resources. However, given the state of the operation, maybe it is the best use of these resources. FWIW, my understanding is that there are thousands of troops on the ground in N.O. right now. Perhaps there is more of a need for “boots on the ground” in Miss. and Ala.
And there is the fact that this is not the first hurricane disaster area FEMA has worked in. Perhaps they are carrying on as they usually do in such situations.
The sexual harrassment training sounds like it’s some sort of S.O.P. that everyone has to go through (judging from the “memo” Brown sent to Chertoff on Monday) before being dropped into a disaster area. I doubt that S.O.P. was developed during the Bush administration, but you know bureaucracy.
And the last part of the story about 50 of the firefighters being sent to stand behind Bush while he toured the area is definitely galling, if true. Given the amounts of speculation, wild and otherwise, over the last few days, I’d like to see some photos of those firefighters standing behind Bush, or some kind of follow-up story. Notice that that part of the story is not sourced to a specific person like the rest of the material in the story.
I REALLY don’t want to sound like a FEMA apologist, but every story that comes out paints this as the most bungling organization in the history of the federal bureaucracy, and I can’t think that the same organization that worked through four hurricanes last year with no such hue-and-cry has suddenly descended to mass chaos.
Comment by Bryan S. — Wednesday, September 7, 2024 @ 5:20 pm