See this from Bloomberg News: "Emergency Experts Contemplate What FEMA Should Do Next." Most of the "issues" talked about in the piece have to do with the flood program at FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). Flooding is the No. 1 hazard for the nation when speaking to the widespread nature of the hazard and the repeat events we keep seeing. Climate change impacts are only going to exacerbate flooding issues that include coastal, riverine and surface water flooding.
The staffing at FEMA is called out, and it is hard to deliver programs if you are short on staff. Amazon hired 400,000 people in the last year. I figure they should not have an issue with adding staff if they work at it.
As is true across the board for the incoming Biden administration, they are "going back to the well" for expertise. Thus, Craig Fugate is mentioned as someone who is being consulted on what "fixes" are needed at FEMA. To start with, reversing some of the flood policies would be an easy fix, along with factoring climate change into everything done at FEMA.
No, I don't expect that Craig will be one of the Obama staff members who will want to come back into his old position. People are trying to handicap who the front runners for FEMA administrator are, but I've only heard one name mentioned — three times so far. More on that also at a later date.
Claire Rubin shared the link above.
