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Comment by mbrumlow | Hacker News Reader

I am not trying to start anything here, but serious question.

A lot of government agencies were listed in the the call. Are these agencies not in fact working for the white house / the US people?

I guess I really don't understand why the white house has to be on the phone for any of these events. To me we have arms of the government to do different things. FEMA in fact is the branch of government designated to handle these type of situations.

Also given that so many government agencies were already in place and lined up what was the white house going to do more? Send its office aids to help?

I guess what I want, and am hoping I can get a decent answer from this group vs the twitter group is What does everybody expect the white house to do that they are already not doing? It seems like all major government agencies under its command have preemptively and continue to provide help.

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Honestly? Nothing more than the White House is already doing. This criticism of the response is pure politics. If someone can find evidence that this response quality is any different than any other administration’s response quality, then I’d love to see it. And remember FEMA is working three storm responses right now, not just this one.

I do find it fascinating that badly led cities such as New Orleans during Katrina and San Juan now always resort to complaining about the highest level of government rather than their own incompetence; it’s a pattern.

Remember, FEMA is simultaneously working three storm responses and other than that political hack mayor of San Juan, there has been mostly praise for the overall responses in all three storms.

> FEMA in fact is the branch of government designated to handle these type of situations.

"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" (via Wiki). For FEMA to be called in, "local and state authorities" have to have already failed.

As much as people hate the annoying orange - leaving aside the hole he's digging himself onto on twitter, which I don't really care about compared to the relief effort - FEMA and the USG is not supposed to be the first line of defense. Cries of "you're killing us" are politically popular because of trump, but the reality is that the mayor (et al) are/were supposed to have better distribution plans than being on foot doing what they can (again, popular though that image is politically, organizing many feet on the ground is the job of the mayor, not being 1 pair and blaming the USG).

The local mayors/authorities/government was and is responsible for its people, so if they want to make populist "blood on your hands" statements they should look in the mirror. "[FEMA]'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" (via Wiki) - so to lay this at the feet of FEMA, local and state authorities have to have already failed. Considering the situation on the ground seems to be mostly arising from lack of coordination not resources, that sounds accurate.

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