Looking for the FEMA Guy

• Date: 01 September 2009
• Author: Ian Birdsall
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399709341399
• Subject Matter: Disputatio Sine Fine

628

Administration & Society

Volume 41 Number 5

September 2009 628-645

© 2009 SAGE Publications

10.1177/0095399709341399

http://aas.sagepub.com

hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

Looking for the FEMA Guy

Part 2

Ian Birdsall

Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg

Editor’s Note

Responses to Part one of Dr. Ian Birdsall’s “personal encounter” with

Hurricane Katrina will appear in the October issue along with responses to this

part 2. Your comments to both part 1 and this part 2 are welcome.

Editor’s Introduction

Ian Birdsall and his wife split their time between Christiansburg, Virginia,

and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast. They were forced to evacu-

ate Bay St. Louis before Hurricane Katrina and returned shortly thereafter to

find that their house had been completely washed away. They lost their house,

all the contents, a car, truck, motorcycle, and vintage MG to Hurricane

Katrina. In this article, Ian recalls some of his own experiences as well as those

of other people that reflect on some of the major issues faced by public admin-

istrators as they tried to respond to the storm and its aftermath. Ian is a gradu-

ate of the PhD program at the Center for Public Administration and Policy at

Virginia Tech. Please address correspondence to Ian Birdsall, 1271 Peachtree

Avenue East, Woodville, GA 30669; e-mail: ibirdsal@vt.edu.

Gary Wamsley

Editor

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong

man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The

credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred

by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes

short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcom-

ing; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusi-

asms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the

Birdsall / Looking for the FEMA Guy—Part 2 629

best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if

he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be one

with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt

Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910

The Man in the Arena: Implications for Public

Administration

Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster to hit the United States.

Ninety thousand (90,000) square miles were declared a disaster area—the

size of Great Britain. The towns of Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi,

were directly in Katrina’s gunsights. For the people on the Gulf Coast, this

storm is not over. They are still feeling its effects. This storm will not be

over for them for years.

Harsh criticisms have been leveled at each level of government concern-

ing almost every aspect of their performance before, during, and after

Katrina made landfall. Many of these criticisms are valid because there is no

doubt that a great deal went wrong. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Some problems were caused by the plans, some problems were caused by

the leaders, and some problems were caused by the system. However, there

was also a lot that went right. The plans that we did have helped get us the

support we received. Where would we have been if those plans were not as

good as they actually were—or if we had no plans at all? Some leaders took

extraordinary and heroic actions and although the “system” may not have

worked as well or as quickly as we thought it should, it was “the system”

and the men and women “in the arena” that provided most of what we did

have in the first days after the storm—and I’m thankful for it.

I told my story of life on the coast in the immediate aftermath of Katrina

in Part 1. Why do I want to tell my story now—and what am I trying to

accomplish with it? There are three primary reasons why I am telling my

story now. First, it has been more than 3 years since the storm. Certainly,

the headlines, and most of the stories, have moved on to other, evidently,

more newsworthy issues. Yet down on the coast, we are still dealing with

issues, every day, caused by that storm. Much of the vegetation is still dead

from the salt water. Many neighborhoods are still desolate. There are still

pockets of high unemployment. I want to bring the situation back to the