Giles Slade: FEMA Doing a Heckuva Job in California

The country's largest agricultural producer, California's Central Valley is a 400 mile long, 18-county inland fruit and vegetable patch that is now suffering more than any other American farming center during the current recession. A collapse in the state's once booming housing market and low demand for standard products like milk and almonds are joined to a severe drought -- now in its third year -- that is driving up joblessness and food prices while crippling farms, towns and local workers.

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Officials at FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) rejected California's request for a state of emergency saying the state had ample resources to manage the emergency despite the state's budgetary shortfall of several billion dollars and the costly state of emergency California declared to manage its unprecedented summer wildfires. Governor Schwarzenegger last week appealed this denial, and FEMA officials are now reviewing their decision, but the matter is becoming urgent. A month ago, Mr. Schwarzenegger allotted about $4 million for an extra five weeks' worth of food shipments. That money will run out at the end of September.

Californians now wonder if FEMA will respond in a positive and timely way or if the Central Valley will join New Orleans as another victim of a Federal Agency famous for dragging its heels while many Americans of color suffer.

FEMA doesn't seem to know it, but this has been an especially bad summer for California, wildfires and the crippled economy are driving out-migration. Migrants from the Central Valley are now traveling across America and Canada to find work. In my forthcoming book, North American Ark, I describe how the economic and environmental collapse of California will begin a cycle of human migration that will continue across North America for generations.

The beginnings of the crisis are assembling themselves now in California's Central Valley. And just as it did in New Orleans, FEMA is doing what it can to turn a regional crisis into a national disaster.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/giles-slade/fema-in-california_b_287050.html