In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

In a speech at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, the current President of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) Nancy Dragani said that the nation has a “culture of entitlement” when it comes to disaster preparedness and response. According to an article by Daniel Fowler of CQ Homeland Security, Dragani, the Executive Director of the Ohio Department of Emergency Management, said that:

…there has been a shift from personal responsibility to personal expectation, a course she suggested needs to be reversed. ”I have seen a shift from . . . ‘when the hurricane winds begin to blow, clean out your bathtub and fill it with water so you have drinking water’ to ‘when the hurricane threatens and the winds begin to blow, find out where [the Federal Emergency Management Agency's] going to deliver ice, food and water,’ ” she said. “And we can’t survive that…”We’ve become a culture of entitlement,” she said. “Within hours of an event the question is where’s FEMA, where’s my check, where’s my water, food and ice.”…

“I think we need to change that culture,” she said. “I think we need to go back to a message of personal preparedness and an expectation that to the extent possible people take the time, the energy, the money to prepare themselves and their family so that they don’t have to wait on FEMA to come in on their white charger and fix the day.”

In a subsequent post titled, “Nancy ’s Courage,” Security Debrief’s Rich Cooper wrote:  ”I find her remarks, as reported, as very commendable and even courageous…Dragani’s voice is one more that echoes the reality check about what the public expectations from FEMA and emergency management at all levels should be.” I agree. A video of the Heritage speech can be found here.