The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders on April 1, 1979. The agency's primary purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States and that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. The governor of the state in which the disaster occurs must declare a state of emergency and formally request from the President that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster. The only exception to the state's gubernatorial declaration requirement occurs when an emergency or disaster takes place on federal property or to a federal asset—for example, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, or the Space Shuttle Columbia in the 2003 return-flight disaster.
Hurricane Katrina was a powerful and devastating tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. It is tied with Hurricane Harvey as being the costliest tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin. Katrina was the twelfth tropical cyclone, the fifth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was also the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States, gauged by barometric pressure.
Michael DeWayne Brown is an American attorney, and former government official who served as the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from 2003 to 2005. He joined FEMA as general counsel in 2001 and became deputy director the same year. Appointed in January 2003 by President George W. Bush to lead FEMA, Brown resigned in September 2005 following his controversial handling of Hurricane Katrina. Brown currently hosts a radio talk show on 630 KHOW in Denver, Colorado.
The disaster recovery response to Hurricane Katrina in late 2005 included U.S. federal government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the United States Coast Guard (USCG), state and local-level agencies, federal and National Guard soldiers, non-governmental organizations, charities, and private individuals. Tens of thousands of volunteers and troops responded or were deployed to the disaster; most in the affected area but also throughout the U.S. at shelters set up in at least 19 states.
Canada was one of the countries to provide the most aid and relief for Hurricane Katrina. They provided ships, supplies, volunteers, search-and-rescue teams, and more. It also accepted some evacuees to stay in Canada.
This article contains a historical timeline of the events of Hurricane Katrina on August 23–30, 2005 and its aftermath.
In September 2005, units of the Mexican Armed Forces responded to the emergency situations after Hurricane Katrina with aid and assistance, appearing as a flagged, uniformed force in the United States for the first time since World War II in the 1940s and the first operational deployment of Mexican troops to the U.S. in 159 years.
Hurricane Katrina struck the United States on August 29, 2005, causing over a thousand deaths and extreme property damage, particularly in New Orleans. The incident affected numerous areas of governance, including disaster preparedness and environmental policy.
Environmental Quality Management, Inc. (EQM) is an environmental engineering and remediation company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio that has been active in providing environmental remediation support in response to terrorist attacks, the space shuttle disaster, superfund site cleanup, hazardous chemical spills and natural disasters.
A FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force is a team of individuals specializing in urban search and rescue, disaster recovery, and emergency triage and medicine. The teams are deployed to emergency and disaster sites within six hours of notification. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) created the Task Force concept to provide support for large scale disasters in the United States. FEMA provides financial, technical and training support for the Task Forces as well as creating and verifying the standards of Task Force personnel and equipment.
Urban Search and Rescue Missouri Task Force 1 (MO-TF1) is a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Force based in Boone County, Missouri. The task force is sponsored by the Boone County Fire Protection District and is designated as the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Response Team for the state of Missouri.
The term FEMA trailer, or FEMA travel trailer, is the name commonly given by the United States government to forms of temporary manufactured housing assigned to the victims of natural disaster by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Such trailers are intended to provide intermediate term shelter, functioning longer than tents which are often used for short-term shelter immediately following a disaster. FEMA trailers serve a similar function to the "earthquake shacks" erected to provide interim housing after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Jared Evan Moskowitz is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Florida's 23rd congressional district since 2023. As a member of the Democratic Party, Moskowitz served on the Broward County Commission from 2021 to 2022 and as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management from 2019 to 2021. Before his appointment to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, he served in the Florida House of Representatives, representing the Coral Springs-Parkland area in northern Broward County from 2012 to 2019.
Servpro is a franchisor of fire and water cleanup and restoration franchises in the United States and Canada. The franchise system provides localized services and large-scale disaster recovery. It is headquartered in Gallatin, Tennessee.
William Craig Fugate is the former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As director for the Florida Emergency Management Division, he oversaw the "Big 4 of '04" and as the administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he organized recovery efforts for a record of eighty-seven disasters in 2011.
Operation Big Coon Dog was an investigation by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) into alleged corruption surrounding the use of federal and state disaster recovery funds by public officials in Buchanan County, Virginia, United States, following severe flooding in the town of Hurley in May 2002. The investigation resulted in the criminal conviction of sixteen people, including several public officials and other government employees, on charges of bribery and fraud. It has been called the largest public corruption case in western Virginia in decades and a step towards uncovering a "dark culture of corruption in Buchanan County".
The Universal Logistics Standard is a strategic framework for managing disaster response among local, state, regional and federal disaster response personnel. Its intended use is as a foundation on which local, state and federal emergency management stakeholders can build a comprehensive disaster logistics program. The Universal Logistics Standard was developed by the Regional Logistics Program under the oversight of the NY-NJ-CT-PA Regional Catastrophic Planning Team, which is funded as part of the US Department of Homeland Security's Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program to support all-hazard planning and coordination of response for catastrophic events.
Public Law 113-2, containing Division A: Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 and Division B: Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013 is a U.S. appropriations bill authorizing $60 billion for disaster relief agencies. The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), had authorized only disaster spending and emergency spending to exceed established spending caps. While emergency spending is not subject to the caps in the BCA, spending for disaster relief is calculated by taking the average of the previous ten years disaster relief spending, excluding the highest and lowest spending years.
All Hands and Hearts (AHAH) is a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The organization's current structure formed in late 2017, when two existing nonprofits, All Hands Volunteers and Happy Hearts Fund merged to become All Hands and Hearts. All Hands Volunteers was founded in September 2005 by philanthropist and businessman David Campbell to provide relief to residents in areas affected by natural disasters worldwide. Happy Hearts Fund, founded by philanthropist and supermodel, Petra Němcová, sought a similar goal, to help communities recover after a disaster event. All Hands and Hearts is based in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.
Robert J. Fenton Jr is an American governmental official who worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1996 and was appointed Regional Administrator for FEMA Region IX: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, and the Pacific Islands in July 2015. He had a leadership role in the development of the National Incident Management System and the National Response Framework.
