Disaster Assistance

Federal, State, and Local Responses to Natural Disasters Need Improvement Gao ID: RCED-91-43 March 6, 1991

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) performance in responding to Hurricane Hugo and the Loma Prieta earthquake in September and October 1989, focusing on state and local governments' and voluntary relief agencies' activities for California, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

GAO found that: (1) preparedness problems were linked to weaknesses in state and local programs, as well as to weaknesses in FEMA assistance and overall guidance; (2) emergency management capabilities among the five states varied by the state government's organizational structure, training and staffing levels, frequency of exercise drills, and frequency of presidentially declared disasters; (3) the extent of preparedness ranged from a high level of preparedness in one state to a relatively low level of preparedness in U.S. territories; (4) preparedness problems included inadequate planning and training for recovery, low participation by elected officials in training, inadequate or no standard operating procedures for response and recovery activities, and inadequate coordination between several federal agencies; (5) in four of the five states, relief agencies responded promptly and provided services and assistance that reflected an appropriate level of preparedness; (6) federal and state officials experienced problems in staffing and coordinating response activities, making immediate response less efficient; (7) coordination difficulties were exacerbated by organizational and communications problems, resulting in delayed assistance, hampered processing of assistance requests, and duplicated assistance efforts; (8) state and federal agencies' recovery activities were inefficient, resulting in delayed assistance and duplicate payments for certain activities; and (9) FEMA had difficulty in addressing the housing needs of low-income disaster victims in one state and one U.S. territory.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone:


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.