David Jannetty, chair of Post’s emergency management and homeland security program, was recently featured in a USA Today article about communities that invest in hazard mitigation efforts to protect themselves in the event of natural disasters. The article was part of a USA Today special edition on Homeland Security.
Jannetty weighed in on how changes at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will help with those efforts.
“FEMA over the years has become more and more of a response agency, and that was never really intended to be its mission,” he said. “The FEMA Review Council wants FEMA to be less of an operational organization and play more of a support role. Its report says disaster response, mitigation and preparedness should be executed at the local level, managed through state and tribal governments, and federally supported. That will allow FEMA to focus on creating more efficient funding mechanisms that get federal money very quickly to the local level, where it’s needed.”
Check out the full section here.