Where Most Needed

Literally too late for the beginning of the hurricane season on June 1, the GAO has issued a report noting some problems with the coordination of mass care between the American Red Cross and FEMA ("Coordination between FEMA and the Red Cross Should Be Improved for the 2006 Hurricane Season," GAO-06-712 PDF 565Kb).

The usual suspects of the New York Times (Stephanie Strom) and Washingon Post (Jacqueline Salmon), and Sen. Charles Grassley weighed in on the report's recommendation that the FEMA and the Red Cross should work together to resolve their differences.  None of them mentioned what the difference was:  FEMA does not want the Red Cross to participate directly in its daily policy meetings during disasters.  The agency wants the Red Cross to feed information to a coordinator at FEMA.  The media could shed light on the  bureaucratic infighting and the Senator could show more leadership in pointing to a solution. 

And neither the media or the Senator commented on the big problem with the GAO report itself:  the study was commissioned in October, 2005.  If the point was to develop a better coordinated plan for the 2006 hurricane season, why did the investigation take six months to research and then two more months to produce a report?   

A preliminary report was issued in December, 2005.  Then, the report notes, "To gain a better understanding of how FEMA and the Red Cross worked together following the Gulf Coast hurricanes, we visited Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas in January and March of 2006."  After completing all the field investigation in March, it took until June to issue the report.  Comments from FEMA and the Red Cross are attached to the report, both dated May 24. 

And this is not even the final report:  GAO expects to release yet another report later this year.  Such long delays in issuing findings are of course common in audits, but in this case there is some practical urgency.

There are other findings:  FEMA does not have a system for tracking the requests it receives from the Red Cross for mass care supplies.  And the Red Cross rotates people too quickly through the supply requesting function for them to develop any expertise in this activity.  The Red Cross comments indicate that they are addressing the staffing issue with more training and hiring of a class of "reservists" specializing in processing of these requests for support.  (Previously volunteers have held these positions.)  FEMA did not supply a response.