By Dimitri Vassilaros
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
Copyright 2006 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
There is at least one government agency that deserves recognition for its very unbureaucrat-like work during Hurricane Katrina. Hint: It’s not the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Admittedly, that’s not much of a hint. Not a hint at all, actually, given FEMA’s absolutely abysmal performance before, during and after the Category 3 hurricane that almost made New Orleans the Cajun Atlantis.
So of course, FEMA now is trying to get that agency, the Federal Communications Commission, under its control during emergencies.
The FEMA follies included not delivering on promised water, food, buses, troops, diesel fuel, rescue boats and other needs. Firefighters who responded to a nationwide call for help were held in Atlanta for days by FEMA for training on community relations and sexual harassment. Trucks full of supplies were not unloaded. Travel trailers and mobile homes were not enough or were too many or came too late.
Free credit cards, anyone?
Or as The Washington Post described it, “As the headquarters staff came in, there was a strange sense of inaction, as if ‘nobody’s turning the key to start the engine,’ said one team leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. For his group, Friday was a day to sit around wondering, ‘Why aren’t we treating this as a bigger emergency? Why aren’t we doing anything?’”
Why indeed.
There was an incredible irony in the news coverage. While the media rightly focused on FEMA’s disgraceful performance -- although the equally culpable state and local officials got off easy -- there was almost no mention of the astonishingly good work by the FCC, the agency overseeing the electronic media.
“The FCC performed in exemplary fashion in its response,” said Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, the gold standard of radio industry publications. Mr. Taylor shared his observations with the Trib via e-mail. “They really showed what a responsive federal agency can do in terms of offering sensible support to an infrastructure that badly needed help (like expedited permission to stay on extra hours).
“They literally had staff in there seven days a week and (this is particularly impressive to me) they called (emphasis original) every radio (and I guess TV) station along the Gulf Coast, reaching out to see what the situation was.”
The FCC also regulates phone companies and other industries in addition to radio and TV.
Almost immediately after Hurricane Katrina subsided, the commission notified all communications providers of expedited treatment for requests of special temporary authority (STA), according to the written statement of FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin before a House subcommittee in 2005.
The FCC granted more than 90 STA requests and more than 100 temporary frequency authorizations for emergency workers to provide wireless and broadcast service in the affected areas and shelters. The requests usually were granted within four hours, all within 24.
The agency also waived many rules to enable telephone companies to re-route traffic, disconnect and reconnect lines and switch long-distance providers so that consumers’ phone calls could get through.
If FEMA wins this bureaucratic turf fight making the FCC answerable to the geniuses who redefine miscommunication, it would be an unspeakable Category 5 disaster.