Stronger in the Broken Places: Nine Lessons for Turning Crisis into Triumph.

• Author: Runyon, Cheryl
• Position: Books

Stronger in the Broken Places: Nine Lessons for Turning Crisis into Triumph, by James Lee Witt and James Morgan. 2002. Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York. 241 pages. $25

"It's been my experience, both personally and professionally, that the hardest part of taking responsibility is deciding to do it. Of all the powerful natural forces I've confronted in my work--tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods--I put inertia right up there with them," writes James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in his new book Stronger in the Broken Places: Nine Lessons for Turning Crisis into Triumph.

The book is a collection of "lessons" about crisis management that is illustrated by different disasters that occurred during his tenure at FEMA.

Witt came to Washington, D.C., with President Bill Clinton in 1993 to be FEMA director--the first time in the history of the agency that a person with state and local emergency management experience had held the position. He previously served as Arkansas Emergency Management Agency director.

FEMA was on the verge of being abolished by Congress. But Witt turned it into a proactive, customer-focused...