Chapter Chapter 4
Section Offers of Charitable Assistance
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Offers of Charitable Assistance
FEMA could neither efficiently accept nor manage the deluge of charitable donations.188 Private sector companies also encountered problems when attempting to donate their goods and services to FEMA for Hurricane Katrina response efforts.
Other countries made generous offers of assistance that the Federal government had difficulty integrating into the ongoing response operations. Absent an implementation plan for the management of foreign material assistance, valuable resources often went unused, which frustrated many donor countries. Inadequate planning delayed the overall process of accepting and receiving disaster aid from abroad. For example, after Switzerland had loaded relief supplies onto an aircraft, FEMA requested that the country send only the portion FEMA required to meet response needs. As the generous contribution of supplies could not be unloaded quickly and repackaged into the smaller quantities in a timely manner, the U.S. Embassy in Bern and the Government of Switzerland cancelled the entire flight.189 A German company offered the use of a $3 million integrated satellite and cellular telephone system capable of handling 5,000 calls at once, only to wait five days for a written deployment order from USNORTHCOM.
Lessons Learned:
The Department of State, in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, should review and revise policies, plans, and procedures for the management of foreign disaster assistance. In addition, this review should clarify responsibilities and procedures for handling inquiries
The same was true of foreign financial assistance. There was no means of accepting, allocating and disbursing funds that would also ensure transparency and acknowledgement of donors. The Federal government eventually developed a process to accept financial gifts from foreign countries,190 but because there was no pre-established plan, implementation was a slow and often frustrating process. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) sent liaisons to FEMA field locations on September 2 to coordinate the delivery of foreign disaster relief.191 However, it took several days for the international aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, to become operational.192 Before this staging area was established, foreign aid could not be efficiently unloaded and distributed. The Federal government’s inability to utilize its own resources, or those offered to it, caused great concern for the American public.
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