Don’t Make Disasters More Disastrous — Cut Government Some Slack

A FEMA worker conducts search and rescue near Swannanoah, NC. (Photo Mario Tama, Getty Images)

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for government workers trying to help western North Carolina recover from its worst flood ever.

Shortly after the storm hit, rumors began flying around the Internet.

Government was doing too much:

Depending on what you read and where, you might think that the government had created the hurricane, or maybe just steered it, using (take your pick) either microwaves, ray guns or soundwaves. Or was raiding donation centers, or refusing to let aid planes land, or had seized the entire town of Chimney Rock to use for lithium mining.

Or maybe government wasn’t doing enough:

I kept reading that government workers were refusing to give people money or were sitting around with their trucks and backhoes and choppers in sheds. Oh, and they were refusing to send food and water, allegedly because they didn’t like the party affiliation of some of those affected by the storm.

I have a pretty good understanding of politics, and I know if you are a political strategist, you look for ways to transform every item in the news cycle into something that helps your candidate. But even though NONE of those claims is true, government workers have had to waste significant time proving they aren’t true — time they could have been spending helping people. “I’ve been doing disaster work for nearly 20 years, and I cannot think of another acute disaster where there has been this much misinformation,” Samantha Montano, an assistant professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy told The New York Times . “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Rutherford County Sheriff Aaron Ellenburg, who had to respond to claims he was bulldozing bodies under dirt to hide the death toll. “I’m sick and tired of this crap.”

Amen. Enough.

Can’t we create some sort of crime scene tape around disaster zones and say, no, this is too important — we don’t do politics here?

And while we’re at it, can we acknowledge that government is actually indispensable when it comes to recovering from a disaster? Here’s just some of what people who work for the government, at the federal, state and local level, are doing in western North Carolina right now, and this is just one disaster area inside a series of current disasters (figures as of 10/9/24):

Federal action:

·      More than 3000 soldiers and airmen from Fort Liberty and 12 different National Guards have been flying 40 different helicopters to airlift food and operating 1200 different vehicles to provide ground support.  They’ve distributed nearly 10 million liters of water and an average of 20,000 hot meals to displaced people every day;

·      The President has authorized $100 million for road repair;

·      Another 3400 other federal workers from 45 different agencies have helped with a variety of other response needs;

·      Experts from the US Corps of Engineers have been called in to assess water and dam safety;

·      FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) workers have installed new fiber optic cable to help get communications systems working again, have registered 134,000 people for emergency assistance and have given out (so far) $60 million in emergency checks.

State and local government action:

·      More than1300 people from 35 different state and local agencies have performed 118 search and rescue operations that have assisted, evacuated or rescued 6586 people, some of them staying in the 17 shelters that have been opened;

·      The North Carolina governor worked with United Way to set up a centralized North Carolina disaster relief fund (nc.gov/donate); worked with NC Community Foundation to set up a central long-term disaster recovery fund;

·      More than 2100 state transportation workers and contractors are on the ground, bringing in 1100 trucks, graders and backhoes to repair 4700 areas of road damage;

·      The state opened a hotline to enable people to get help with mental health challenges experienced as a result of the flooding, and temporarily waived guidelines to permit certified health care workers from other states and recently-retired health care providers to offer hands-on assistance to flood victims;

Volunteers from NC State collect relief supplies for Western North Carolina (Photo UNC System)

·      The state’s public universities (which are subsidized with public funding) have sent emergency personnel to get universities back into operation. In addition, NC A&T State sent emergency management and law enforcement personnel to assist UNC Asheville in recovering from the disaster; East Carolina University has sent dining trucks; NC State University has organized volunteers and sent supplies. UNC-Chapel Hill has sent environmental safety teams. And Appalachian State University’s dining hall has managed to re-open - in the past two weeks it has served more than 70,000 meals to students, staff, rescue workers and community members.

Who else is going to be able to do all those things on zero notice?

Let’s be clear: government’s response to disasters is never perfect. In part that is the nature of any response in emergency: you often have to choose prompt over perfect.

And FEMA’s work in the past has sometimes been abysmal — think Hurricane Katrina, when the agency actually made some survivors’ lives worse — but they’ve made significant changes since then.

Government tends to pile on more paperwork than anyone likes, in part because it has to account to taxpayers for its spending. And sometimes the decisions it makes before disasters about where and how houses are built make the disasters even worse.

But the response to the storm in my home state appears to be pretty remarkable – an example of people from government doing what only governments can:

1.        Drop everything, show up: private sector companies can’t afford to keep personnel available for disasters that may or may not happen. But we pay government to do that, so that as soon as a disaster happens, trained experts can be on the way: experts in weather, search and rescue, flood, fire, building, rebuilding, road construction, water restoration, emergency care, counseling and more.

2.        Herd cats: Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes don’t respect town or county or state lines. They hit public and private land. They tear up phone lines, cell towers, dams and roads. Responding to all those challenges requires careful prioritization and coordination of public, private and nonprofit sectors. Government has an authority the other sectors don’t, at a time when tough decisions need to be made.

3. Stick around: Volunteers have time limits. Nonprofits have resource limits. For profit companies may get called away to other emergencies. Government workers are typically able to stay as long as needed, leaving their families for months at a time, to ensure they fully complete the task.

The scope of the disaster means recovery will require people able to commit not days or weeks but months of years. Government workers can do that (Photos uncredited, Facebook).

The success of any area’s recovery – whether from Helene, Milton, or whatever disaster comes next – depends on the bravery and generosity of those directly impacted; the collective efforts of power and water and fire and cell phone companies and nonprofits; and the generosity of those who volunteer their time or donate money.

But just for a moment, let’s reserve some of our gratitude for the men and women who work in our federal, state and local government. Their skill and commitment make disasters a little less disastrous. And it’s one of the reasons we have government.

Notes:

Unique amount of disinformation: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-misinformation.html

Impact of disinformation on disaster response: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212420924006113

State of NC and federal government response information: https://www.ncdps.gov/news/press-releases/2024/10/09/unprecedented-response-hurricane-helene-continues-state-local-and-federal-resources-work-help-those

Overall Helene disaster air from FEMA: https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20241009/federal-assistance-hurricane-helene-exceeds-344-million-fema-expands-dual

NC Department of Insurance setting up Disaster Assistance Centers: https://www.ncdoi.gov/hurricane-helene-response-and-recovery

NC legislative zoning strategy: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/03/climate/north-carolina-homes-helene-building-codes.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb