Michael Loewinger

These big disasters overwhelmed towns and counties and states.

The big ones often do.

But when they asked for help, the federal government was too disorganized to act quickly or efficiently.

Supplying extra ambulances, delivering food and water to survivors, fixing roads and power plants.

Each piece of the emergency management process could come from a different office or department.

A hundred agencies might play a role.

Navigating this patchwork of services and jurisdictions was a major pain in the ass for local leaders, especially during a crisis when lives are on the line and every second counts.

Like in 1972, when another big storm hit.

Trump says FEMA should return its responsibilities to the states, which is odd because states often bring in FEMA when they're unable to respond on their own.

And anyway, it was the states that asked for FEMA in the first place.

In 1978, the National Governors Association drew up plans for a streamlined one-stop shop for federal emergency response and delivered it to a sympathetic White House.

In 1979, Jimmy Carter signed an executive order giving life to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA was a federal Frankenstein with a dual mission, Cold War civil defense and disaster relief.

I wish I could illustrate this moment by playing you like a triumphant speech from President Carter or some colorful news footage.

But either that stuff never existed or no one thought it was important enough to archive.

Even the earliest employees at FEMA were confused about how to talk about it.

We had a new director there and there was a message that went out to us that said,

that if we're referring to the agency publicly, we should say either Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA, because the word FEMA he thought sounded too much like a laxative.

This is Leo Bosner, a retired FEMA official, who's taught me a lot about the earliest days of the agency.

He was working as a flood insurance specialist with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in one of the offices that was folded into FEMA.