If Only FEMA Would Listen...

Are you guys stupid or are you evil geniuses trying to mess things up? (As you might imagine, being polite and gentlemanly doesn’t reach them. We’ve tried.)

My column is about household, not all about guns, but household. Sometimes the household is protected against fire disaster by having a plan and against violent crime by having a plan. It’s up to each and every household to develop it their way. My job is to spot issues that attack household.

Here’s one that would qualify for workplace safety as an extension of household under the heading of paycheck and community safety.

Had a lot of respect for FEMA over the years, but those drones got my attention last month when then Director Brown said that he didn’t anticipate such lawlessness in the wake of hurricane Katrina when we all know of such when the thin blue line of law enforcement evaporates (or takes a powder) like it did in New Orleans. What a scandal.

These officials blow it all off like it was nothing. Typically, officials do not live with our realities. Without that perspective, you're not qualified.

What does FEMA do for an encore?

Now they punish rescue workers for taking armed officers with them on rescue missions, as reported by various outlets.

Gee, FEMA, I hate to tell you this but as one of the early Paramedics in Los Angeles County, not only do I know a little something about disaster preparedness, but I also know about the police/EMS teamwork. What’s even more important is how the constituents want to run their own communities without being dictated to by feds.

Did you know that in cases of domestic violence, shootings and various hostage situations the standard protocol is for police to accompany EMS and even go in first? (That’s why they respond with EMS; so they can go in first.) Sometimes we even had to wait for police to go 10-97 before entering the location.

Again, this seems to be either something that FEMA did not know and went ahead willy-nilly in planning, or something FEMA wants to reverse or upset to the detriment of the people. There’s a lot of that going around in this whole affair. Blunders, mistakes. Still, you want to handle it.

2 for 0h, I’m really getting to dislike your heavy-handed attitude.

This is why I strongly recommend local control. The feds should sit back, write the checks (our money, anyway) and don’t give orders. Better yet, stop taking so much money and just let us keep most of it without it coming back to us by way of Washington. Better yet, ban the agency.

Re-invent yourself.

In a previous piece long before Katrina – Disaster Preparedness: Who’s Interfering With Whom? – I expressed my objections to this very kind of interference with the recovery of the community, as dopey officials freeze constituents out of the process from planning to recovery. Insults, I guess we could take them: but interfering with community recovery, we draw the line.

Go Home.

We all complain about how officials think they’re so much smarter than the rest of us, but they only wind up making things worse and not owning it. Not just liberals, conservatives, too. All you guys up there don’t have to live with our realities.

Beat it.

Now is the time for every homeowner, business owner, every household to get involved in pre-thinking the planning for the disaster that may come to your neighborhood.

Now is the time to investigate disaster planning for your region, and insist on eliminating policies that freeze you out of the process, policies that include martial law and confiscation of weapons already before any need is identified (there is no need to disarm honest citizens, ever) and make it stick.

Visiting community Internet sites is not sufficient: constituents need to eyeball the actual planning details - not summaries - and spot issues that work to the detriment of the community. You could make a day of it and have a picnic in the park afterwards.

Better yet, form a committee to visit the documents.

Standing your ground is rapidly becoming a generalized grassroots movement taking root in various issues of importance to the household, from credit reporting and personal data sharing to other intrusions that in one way or another interfere with the household, and then penalize the household for non-compliance of newer rules. Disaster preparedness is today merely one of the many interferences with the home.

Citizen involvement can always reverse these, if the involvement is strong and constant.

Because, lately, officials have really been screwing things up. Stupid or evil genius, does it really matter? The result is the same.

We'll do it without you.

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John Longenecker is author of The Battle We Fight available worldwide at all online booksellers and brick and mortar houses.