I think we're well prepared for earthquakes here in Cali, as prepared as we can be, its not like NOLA which should be abandoned anyways

Having had massive cranes pulling fallen trees out of my yard, no power for what must have been 9 or 10 days, and a neighborhood impassable to emergency responders, I would encourage some thoughtful debate as to whether or not the states should be completely empowered and given access to resources while making FEMA just go away. I almost wonder if hurricane response should be in the hands of the many local fire departments and local NG units. Until you've been in a hurricane (and I assume Bush never had been) the scale of devastation is hard to grasp.

I fully agree. My area was minimally affected by Katrina, but devastated by Ivan in 2004. We got the majority of our overall assistance from NG, local FD, cops (local and volunteers who drove in) and Salvation Army. As you noted already, in MS, AL and FL, we tend to understand that the government has said "Be prepared to fend for yourself for at least 3 days." We do so. We help our neighbors. We don't shoot at the helicopters. We don't start whining that it has been 12 hours since the hurricane hit, and we are without power and it is the President's fault.

OK, I will stop. :mad:

I too agree that FEMA is useless and that those people did turn into savages when the Hurricane hit, no matter how you view it, I think it's a bad event in history

so why don't you tell us this since you think all government agencies and the president are useless, who SHOULD they be going to?

I think the local govenments should have the power to direct funds and deal with issues, they know the area, work in and most likely live in it, who would be better to deal with it then them?

Where are these funds coming from? I see a lot of "I thinks" but no solid evidence or support for your ideas. How about backing up some of these premises.

The money the government gives to FEMA should be given to local governments, i'm saying eliminate FEMA

so who's going to decide who to give what to? and how much? and when something is going to be declared an emergency?

FEMA was simply mismanaged. The head of FEMA had absolutely no qualifications to be at the job he was at. He was a friend of the President and should have been appointed as ambassador to Barbados or some similar position. Instead, they put him in charge of FEMA, and he had no idea what to do when the time came.

He has since been replaced and hopefully the agency is more compentant now. But the solution to the problem of FEMA failing is not to get rid of FEMA. The solution is to fix FEMA.