Abstract

There is an alternative to the Federal role in disaster relief as specified in the Disaster Relief Act (PL 93-288 as amended). This alternative would be infinitely more effective in reducing the costs of disasters and would be much fairer to the tax payers.

As the FEMA Regional Director in Chicago during the 1993 Mississippi floods, my mitigation division director groused over the fact that many of the same people in the lines were there after the previous floods (plural). While we shouldn't tell people where to live, they shouldn't come to us for money when they get hit by a predictable disaster without the necessary insurance.

The requirements for making this alternative a reality are threefold:

a. Set actuarially correct premiums for individuals, municipalities and states based on the risk; an outline for how the Federal government can build a risk model is discussed. b. Have the Federal government serve as the "reinsurer" for losses that exceed those projected by its model; an approach is provided. c. Change the legislation and insist that the congress not bail out people who didn't get the insurance or otherwise reduce their risk by moving out of the high risk area.

The point of this approach is to force individuals, municipalities and states to stop doing dumb things and accept responsibility for their decisions. The benefits to the tax payers who are subsidizing these bad decisions would be huge.

Recommended Citation

Powers, John R. (2009) "An Alternative Approach to Disaster Relief," Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management: Vol. 6 : Iss. 1, Article 60.
DOI: 10.2202/1547-7355.1579
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/jhsem/vol6/iss1/60