A Federal Emergency Management Professional or even FEMA' occurs as federal agency in the United States which is organized under the Department of Homeland Security in the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate. A professional is charged using what it defines when quatern domains of emergency management: mitigation, readiness, response & recovery. Primarily, FEMthe responds to any disaster that occurs in the United States that is declared a federal disaster region per President of the United States.

FEMA coordinates a function of federal, state, & local agents inside responding to floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, & more natural disasters. FEMA will bring fiscal assistance to souls & governments to rebuild homes, businesses, & public facilities; trains firefighters & emergency medical agents; & funds emergency planning throughout a United States & its territories.

History
A United States Federal Emergency Management Professional (FEMA), has existed around a single form or even a second for assibilate 200 years. A history of FEMA may be divided into a as punishment area.

Pre-1930
the number one major disaster in the history of the United States was a series of devastating fires in the larboard city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A Seventh Congress passed a total of measures in the Congressional Work of 1803, which provided relief for the merchandiser of Portsmouth by waiving duties & tariffs on goods. This is widely considered the number one piece of legislation go past the federal government that provided relief when a disaster & may be hold the beginnings of federal policies to provide relief fallowing a disaster.

Between 1803 & 1930, ad-hoc legislation was passed further than Centred days for even relief or compensation fallowing the disaster. Examples one include a waiving of duties & duty to the merchandiser of New York City after a fire in the mid 1830’s. Fallowing President Abraham Lincoln's assassination at Ford%27s_Theatre, the 54th Congress passed legislation compensating those who were injured in the theatre.

Piecemeal Approach (1930s – 1960s)
When a run of the Great Depression in 1929, President Herbert Hoover had commissioned a Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932. A purpose of the RFC was to lend money to banks & institutions to cause economic activity. RFC was besides responsible dispensing federal dollars in the wake up of the disaster. RFC may be considered a number 1 organised federal disaster response professional.

the Bureau of Public Roads within 1934 tend authority to finance a reconstruction of main road & roads fallowing a disaster. A Flood Control Act of 1944 also gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authority over flood control and irrigation projects and thus played a major role in disaster recovery from flooding.

This “piecemeal approach� to disaster recovery was turbulent by unfortunate interagency cooperation & bureaucratic bureaucratic procedure.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (1960 -1979)
Per run of a 1960’s, federal disaster relief & recovery was brought under the umbrella of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) which created the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration. This professional would oversee disasters like Hurricane Carla in 1962, Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Agnes in 1972, the Alaskan (Good Friday) Earthquake of 1964 and a San Fernando Earthquake of 1971.

Several authority were however exposed around disaster relief, inside the select few instances all over One c separate agents can be jockeying for control & jurisdiction of a disaster.

FEMA as an independent agency (1979 – 2003)
Within 1979, President Jimmy Carter, at the prompting of the National Governor’s Association, signed an executive order which put a recently professional, FEMA, around charge of coordinating a lot disaster relief efforts at a federal level. FEMA absorbed a Federal Insurance Administration, a National Fire Avoiding a parasites & Control Administration, the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program, a Federal Preparedness Professional of the General Services Administration & the Federal Disaster Assistance Administration activities from either HUD. Civil defense responsibilities were shifted to the Department of Defense.

One of a foremost disasters FEMA responded to was a dumping of toxic waste into Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York in the late 1970’s. FEMA besides responded to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident where the nuclear getting station suffered a unfair core meltdown. These disasters, when showing a professional can work properly, likewise found a bit of inefficiencies.

Inside 1993 President Bill Clinton elevated FEMA to a cabinet level position & known as James Lee Witt as FEMA Director. Witt initiated reforms that would facilitate to streamline a disaster recovery & mitigation run. A prevent of the Cold War also allowed the agency’s resources to exist as turned out of civil defense to natural disaster preparation.

FEMA under DHS (2003 - Present)
As a consequence a Terrorist Attacks of 11 September 2001, President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to better coordinate between the different agency that treat sustaining law enforcement, disaster preparation & recovery, border protection & civil defense. FEMA wwhen absorbed into DHS as of 2003. Following, FEMA is currently a portion of the Emergency Preparedness & Response Directorate of DHS. A title FEMA still, popularly applies to the entire board of directors. A director of FEMA okay, has a official title of Under Secretary, Emergency Preparedness & Response. FEMA presently employs to a higher degree 2,600 fully period employees.

FEMA & DHS each come under incredible criticism for their treating of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005 (see Katrina & Criticism sections beneath). Following, so FEMA Director Michael Brown was relieved of command of the Gulf Coast region and resigned shortly thereafter.

Organization
In todays world, FEMA lives when section of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a Emergency Preparedness & Response Directorate. A official position of the director of FEMA is Under Secretary, Emergency Preparedness & Response. He reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security.

FEMA presently manages the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Flood Insurance Program. More software FEMA antecedently administered use since been internalized or even shifted under directly DHS control.

Response to major disasters
Hurricane Andrew - 1992
(watch too Hurricane Andrew)

Inside August 1992, Hurricane Andrew struck a Florida & Louisiana coasts by having 165 mph (265 kilometres per hour) sustained winds. FEMA was widely criticized for the agency’s response to Andrew. Several of a equivalent issues that plagued a professional when you took Hurricane Andrew were too evident inside the period of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. FEMA & a federal government loose were accused of non responding convenient plenty to home, feed & sustain a around 250,000 population left homeless in the affected areas. Inside 5 years a federal government & neighboring states experienced dispatched 20,000 National Guard & active duty troops to South Dade County to install irregular housing.

Terrorist attacks on 11 September, 2001
(look at likewise September 11 2001 attacks)

In a minutes fallowing a number 1 hijacked plane slammed into the World Trade Center towers, FEMA likewise when emergency services a lot on top the city & state of Future York were mobilized. FEMA got deployed Twenty-five of a Xxviii Urban Research & Deliverance teams at its disposal to the Globe Trade Center places, notwithstanding the Just released York City Professional of Emergency Management was within charge of the WTC recovery effort. FEMA played its big role around the appropriation of federal funds to help local & state governments in invite the disaster. When of 2003, FEMA experienced received America$5.Five billion to distribute amongst local & state agents to help offset a numbers of recovery. In a $5.Five billion, FEMA was likewise allotted funds to invite its have recovery efforts.

Hurricane Katrina – 2005
(look at likewise Hurricane_Katrina)

August 2005 saw one of a worst natural disasters around United States history. FEMA received incredible criticism for its response to the disaster. FEMA got propositioned response personnel in a Gulf Coast vicinity, all the same numerous were single respire to report of dire situation along the Gulf Coast, especially from either Future Orleans. FEMA wwhen responsible a evacuation of the hundreds to thousands of humans world health organization remained within Future Orleans in the period of the storm, too as initial recovery operate & appropriations. Inside leash years, the big contingent of National Guard & active duty troops were deployed to the vicinity.

A tremendous total of evacuees just overwhelmed delivery personnel. A situation was compounded by flood waters in a city that hampered transport & unfortunate communication between the federal government & state & local suspire. FEMA was widely criticized for what is seen as a slow initial response to a disaster & an inability to profits handle, care for & move victims trying to leave the city.

So FEMa Director Michael Dark brown was criticized personally for a slow response & apparent disconnect by having the actual situation on the ground. Michael 'last would at length exist as freed of comm& of the Katrina disaster and before long thenceforth resign.

Katrina wwhen seen as a number one major line 3 text of the nation’s newly disaster response project under DHS. These are widely viewed that occasionally items did non work when plotted. Still, formal investigations use eventually to determine world health organization exactly is to blame (& to what extent) for the Katrina disaster.

A number to receive disaster assistance from either FEMA is 800-621-3362.

Criticism
Within 1997, James Bovard criticized FEMA for subsidizing rebuilding in places that come vulnerable to natural disasters, request, "[D]o we really want to help rebuild homes and government property in areas that should never have been built on in the first place?" He as well claimed that neighbourhood come less in all likelihood to fund their have snow removal whenever it understand a federal government might bail the two call at the event of snow emergencies[http://www.cato.org/dailys/2-19-97.html]. Furthermore, he said that FEMA is utilized by incumbent presidents to shore higher political trend lines[http://www.jimbovard.com/American%20Spectator%20Sept%2096%20FEMA%20Money%20Come%20and%20Get%20It.htm]. A Cato Institute's Handbook for Congress argues that personal corporations can perform a tasks carried astir by FEMA, & that this would encourage page construction around safer areas[http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-15.html]: FEMA does encourage disaster those to reduce new losses by looking for "taking steps to rebuild safer and smarter," advising the children to[http://www.fema.gov/about/process/]: Take measures to reduce losses later. Encourage community to participate inside National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Consider buying flood insurance.

the few critics, particularly in the anti-government far correct, think that the powers reach FEMA upon declaration of a federal emergency either come or even is the basis of a monocracy in the United States. This is dismissed by virtually all as a conspiracy theory. More conspirative hearsay focus in FEMA's supposed cover-up of events surrounding specific disasters, including a 1994 Northridge Earthquake and the September 11th attacks of 2001.

South Florida newspaper Sun-Sentinel has an extensive list of documented criticisms of FEMA inside a period of a quaternion hurricanes that hit the area in 2004.[http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-femacoverage,0,6697347.storygallery?coll=sfla-news-utility] A few of the criticisms include: When Hurricane Frances hit South Florida within Labor Day weekend, (all over Centred miles northward of Miami-Dade County) 9,800 Miami-Dade applier were approved by FEMA for $28 million in storm claims for fresh piece of furniture, fabric, hundreds to thousands of newly televisions, microwaves, & icebox, cars, dental bills & a funeral potentially though the Medical Examiner recorded there are no deaths from either Frances. The U.S. Senate committee & a inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security found that FEMthe inappropriately declared Miami-Dade county the disaster front yard and so awarded hundreds to thousands, typically forswearing verifying storm damage or even a require for assistance.[http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-fema10oct10,0,4751704.story][http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-fema08jun08,0,1732468.story] FEMA utilized hurricane help money to pay funeral expenses for at least 203 Floridians whose deaths were non from either a 2004 Hurricanes, a state's medical examiner keep close at hand assibilate. Ten of a humans whose funerals were invite were non possibly around Florida at the instance of their deaths.[http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-fema10aug10,0,2326863.story]

List of FEMA heads
When director of the professional:

James K. Hafer, E.O.P. Professional of Emergency Readiness, Could 1975-April 1979 Gordon Vickery (acting), April 1979 - July 1979 Thomas Casey (acting), July 1979 John Macy, August 1979 - January 1981 Bernard Gallagher (acting), January 1981 - April 1981 John W. McConnell (acting), April 1981 - Could 1981 Louis O. Giuffrida, May 1981 - September 1985 Robert H. Morris (acting), September 1985 - November 1985 Julius W. Becton, Jr., November 1985 - June 1989 Robert H. Morris (acting), June 1989 - Will 1990 Jerry D. Jennings (acting), May 1990 - August 1990 Wallace E. Stickney, August 1990 - January 1993 William C. Tidball (acting), January 1993 - April 1993

When director of Cabinet-level professional:

James Lee Witt, April 1993 - January 2001 John Magaw (acting), January 2001 - February 2001 Joe M. Allbaugh, February 2001 - March 2003

When Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response within DHS

Michael D. Brown, March 2003 - September 2005 R. David Paulison (acting), September 2005 When a formation of a Department of Homel& Security around 2003, the official title of the head of FEMA became Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response. This position includes extra responsibilities beyond FEMA including a oversight of the Department of Energy's Nuclear Incident Response Team, or NIRT.

FEMA in fiction
In The X-Files movie, Alvin Kurtzweil tells Fox Mulder that FEMA is involved in the global conspiracy involving aliens.

In the streaming videos game Deus Ex, Walton Simons is the director of FEMA.