Florida emergency chief Craig Fugate to lead FEMA
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – March 5, 2009 – Craig Fugate, who guided Florida’s disaster response through vicious back-to-back hurricane seasons, has been tapped to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Fugate, 49, said goodbye to staffers Wednesday afternoon at the Florida Emergency Operation Center.
In an interview early last month with the Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times’ Tallahassee bureau, Fugate said he would likely take the job if it were offered.
“When the president asks you to serve the United States, serve your country, your first answer is not to say no,” Fugate said.
Fugate, 49, a die-hard University of Florida Gator fan and career firefighter, grew up in Alachua County, Fla. He never earned a higher-education degree, but rose through the ranks through a combination of straight-talk, commonsense management and a refusal to accept the status quo.
Ever-searching for a better way to respond to disasters, Fugate is interested in harnessing local communities to keep first-responders abreast of disasters via text messages, cell phone cameras, Google Earth, blogs and message-boards like Twitter and Facebook.
Fugate’s theory: People in the community and on the ground are best equipped to handle disasters.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., hailed Fugate’s appointment.
“Craig has served as Florida’s emergency management chief for nearly eight years. In that time, he helped steer the state through wildfires and hurricanes, including four major storms in 2004,” Nelson said in a written statement. “Under his leadership, lives were saved. Recovery efforts were speedy and successful. I’m proud of his public service and believe our nation will benefit from his skills, talent and commitment.”
Fugate – whose full name is William Craig Fugate – was approached to run FEMA before, after Hurricane Katrina when FEMA director Michael Brown became a symbol of disaster-mismanagement.
But Fugate might have lost the job because of his trademark style: He said what he thought – bluntly. Fugate said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff wanted to exert too much federal control in disaster response cases. And Fugate told him that was a bad idea because it would diminish the role – and therefore the responsibilities – of the state.
Fugate said in February that he’s attracted to the FEMA post because “it’s a challenge.” But he quickly noted the downside: “The higher you are, the bigger the chances of catastrophic failure.”
Fugate gained national recognition for the state’s response to the eight hurricanes that damaged the state in 2004 and 2005.
The state learned a few lessons in that time. Now, emergency managers stage power generators near cell phone towers to get them running quickly after a storm passes. They fly C-130 cargo planes just behind a hurricane to land as soon as the heavy winds stop blowing. And they abide by what might be the most important Fugate rule of all: The Waffle House Test.
“After a hurricane, if a Waffle House is open, it means several things. There’s power and there’s water. So you keep going,” Fugate said. If a Waffle House is closed ... that’s pretty bad. Something has shut ‘em down. And if they are open and they have a limited menu, it generally means the power has been out for a while because everything in the freezer has melted.”
Copyright © 2009 The Miami Herald, Marc Caputo. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
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