Organization
During the debate of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, some called for FEMA to remain as an independent agency. Later, following the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, critics called for FEMA to be removed from the Department of Homeland Security. Today FEMA exists as a major agency of the Department of Homeland Security. The Administrator for Federal Emergency Management reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security.In March 2003, FEMA joined 22 other federal agencies, programs and offices in becoming the Department of Homeland Security. The new department, headed by Secretary Tom Ridge, brought a coordinated approach to national security from emergencies and disasters - both natural and man-made.
FEMA manages the National Flood Insurance Program. Other programs FEMA previously administered have since been internalized or shifted under direct DHS control.
FEMA is also home to the National Continuity Programs Directorate (formerly the Office of National Security Coordination). ONSC was responsible for developing, exercising, and validating agency wide continuity of operations and continuity of government plans as well as overseeing and maintaining continuity readiness including the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. ONSC also coordinated the continuity efforts of other Federal Executive Agencies.
FEMA began administering the Center for Domestic Preparedness in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Famous quotes containing the word organization:
“One of the many reasons for the bewildering and tragic character of human existence is the fact that social organization is at once necessary and fatal. Men are forever creating such organizations for their own convenience and forever finding themselves the victims of their home-made monsters.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”
—Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
“Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)