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A Liquor Store in the FEMA HQ Building?

The untold story.

The last time I was at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) headquarters building was around 1997 — a long time ago. So this is not from direct observation or first-hand information.

I heard an interesting story that there used to be a liquor store on the first floor of the headquarters building. And, back around 2008/9 when Craig Fugate arrived as the new FEMA administrator, he banned drinking in the building — which seems reasonable to me. Maybe the disaster recovery payments became more accurate following that action. 

The former liquor store is evidently something that went the way of the dodo bird and has been replaced by something like a dry cleaning establishment. Since dry cleaning has not been banned, it appears to be surviving. 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.