4/2/08 South Florida Sun-Sentinal: FEMA boss Paulison, of Davie, to leave at end of Bush’s term
FEMA boss Paulison, of Davie, to leave at end of Bush’s term
But he’ll stay for hurricane season
By Ken Kaye |South Florida Sun-Sentinel
10:16 PM EDT, April 2, 2008
ORLANDO – Don’t expect to get free ice any longer from the federal government after a hurricane, FEMA’s boss said Wednesday.
That was the first big announcement from R. David Paulison, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, during his visit to the National Hurricane Conference.
In the second, Paulison, 61, of Davie, sent reporters racing for the phones when he indicated he intends to resign soon.
That created such a media stir that FEMA and Paulison issued a swift clarification. He said he intends to step down by the time the Bush administration ends in January, which he noted is standard Washington protocol.
Although he said he might go sooner, it would not be before the 2008 hurricane season draws to a close in November.
“I wouldn’t leave during hurricane season,” Paulison said.
Before taking over FEMA, Paulison spent 30 years with the Miami-Dade County Fire Department, the last 10 as its chief. In the last six of those, he also was the county’s emergency management director.
President Bush appointed Paulison in September 2005 to replace the former embattled FEMA director, Michael Brown, who became the focal point of blame for the agency’s failures in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Those were underscored by thousands of homeless New Orleans residents begging for food, water and ice in the days and weeks after the storm left the city under water.
In the aftermath of that ordeal, Paulison set about changing the agency’s culture ó to the point that he called it “the new FEMA.” He doubled the full-time staff, to about 3,400 workers today, and also doubled its budget, to about $9 billion.
“After Katrina, FEMA was for all intents and purposes broken,” Craig Fugate, Florida’s emergency management director, said. “Dave put it back together.”
Paulison said he already has named his likely successor: Nancy Ward, a veteran FEMA regional administrator based in Oakland, Calif.
“It’s time to go back and spend time with my family,” he said. Even if President Bush’s successor asked him to stay on, he said, he would likely decline.
On Paulison’s watch, FEMA has become better prepared for the next disaster, but is not completely ready for another Hurricane Katrina-scale catastrophe, the agency’s in-house watchdog has concluded.
FEMA has made moderate improvements in its ability to deploy critical supplies, such as water, to disaster-stricken communities, the agency’s inspector general concluded in a report to be released at a Senate Homeland Security hearing today. But FEMA has more work to do, including development of plans to house disaster victims and improving training for its employees, the inspector general said.
FEMA has been dogged by criticism since Katrina, most recently for putting hurricane victims in trailers with toxic levels of formaldehyde and for staging a fake news conference.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., on Wednesday said he was pleased with the inspector general’s findings. Lieberman chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.
“I especially appreciate FEMA’s new attitude, which is: If it is legal and it will help somebody ó do it!” Lieberman said in a statement released in Washington.
As for providing free ice to areas of Florida or other states hit by a hurricane, Paulison said in Orlando, “I just don’t think that’s one of FEMA’s jobs. We’re going to focus on the basic needs of people, and that’s food and water.”
Floridians shouldn’t count on the state providing much ice either, as it is low on the critical needs list, behind medical supplies, water, food, shelter and emergency fuel, said Fugate, the state’s emergency management director.
Fugate said if stores such as Wal-Mart or Publix are open after a storm, residents likely would have to go there for bags of ice, and pay for them.
“We’re still buying ice, but we’re buying a lot less of it,” he said. “Ice is not going to be our priority.”
Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project, a government watchdog group based in Connecticut, immediately objected, saying residents sorely need ice if they are left powerless.
As a former site manager for a Red Cross service center in Gulfport, Miss., he said ice was particularly in demand after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Ken Kaye can be reached at kkaye@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7911.