There is a terrible irony shadowing the catastrophic events of today in the Northeast. The damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy, the subsequent casualties and the aid and rescue responses by FEMA, local and state emergency management is a not-too-subtle reminder of one of the primary roles of government: when faced with calamity, the government is there to help.
Yet, as the Eastern seaboard gets pounded with one of the biggest storms in history, and local, state and federal government are working to mitigate damage as the storm progresses, the nation is still coming to grips with making a choice next week over what exactly the role of government should be.
Is it to help those who need it the most? Or should we cut government down to a size where it could be drowned, perhaps in the 14 foot waves flooding Manhattan’s Battery Park? Maybe, at a supposed cost savings to the federal government, emergency services could be contracted out like the Iraq War in the early 2000’s. Or maybe like in the case in Tennessee, where fire fighters stood by and watched one man’s house burn down and didn’t turn the hose on to put it out because he didn’t pay his local emergency services fee.
Emergency management is not a utility. It’s not your gas, water or garbage bill. It is the direct response for when an entire region is struck by calamity. Having worked in municipal public works in three different departments, in the event there is a local disaster, emergency response is your underlying duty when you get employed by city government. My job’s ID badge says on the back: “All San Francisco employees are designated by the State and City law as ‘Disaster Service Workers’. In the event of a declaration of emergency, any employee of the city and county of San Francisco may be assigned to perform activities which promote the protection of public health and safety or the preservation of lives and property.”