Craig Fugate, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), issued a statement to discuss progress since the enactment of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) five years ago.
“PKEMRA gave FEMA the authority needed to lean forward and leverage the entire emergency management team in response and recovery efforts,” Fugate wrote. “This team includes not only government, but also private, private non-profit, and citizen partners – the Whole Community. This Whole Community approach emphasizes the importance of working with all partners to successfully prevent, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”
The importance of PKEMRA to the emergency management community cannot be stressed enough. For the first time, it gave FEMA clear guidance on its mission and priorities, and provided us with the authorities and tools we needed to become a more effective and efficient agency, and a better partner to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.
Read the entire statement HERE. To read Fire Engineering‘s award winning coverage of fire department operations in response to Hurricane Katrina, CLICK HERE.
