FEMA Replaces the Red Cross: Is Martial Law Back in Play?

After FEMA’s shameful performance in the wake of Katrina, one would have thought that nobody in their right mind would assign them the key disaster-relief role, but that’s exactly what just happened.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will replace the American Red Cross as the agency in charge of coordinating the provision of shelter, food and first aid to victims in disasters under an agreement disclosed by a Senate panel yesterday.

The change in the government’s emergency plans, formalized in letters between FEMA and Red Cross leaders Feb. 21, follows criticism of the way they cooperated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and a new law that bolsters FEMA’s role in providing emergency housing, human services, case management and financial help.

That graf is a doozy. FEMA and the Red Cross were both criticized for not co-operating? Maybe my memory is deficient, but I don’t remember the Red Cross being criticized at all while FEMA screwed up everything it touched. And it continues to. So, what? Now they’re being rewarded for being prime fuckups?

The FEMA takeover will be administrative and will not affect the Red Cross’s traditional direct relief operations, which include opening shelters, providing food and raising money, which totaled more than $2 billion after Katrina, spokeswoman Laura Howe said.

Oh, great. The authors of the biggest administrative clusterfuck since Elphinstone got thrown out of Kabul has just been given the responsibility for administering disaster relief.