Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The purpose of FEMA (begun by Presidential Order on March 30, 1979) [2] is to coordinate the response to a disaster which has occurred in the United States and which overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities. The governor of the state in which the disaster occurred must declare a state of emergency and formally request from the President that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster. The only exception is when an emergency or disaster occurs on federal property or to a federal asset, for example, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the 1995 bombing, or the Space Shuttle Columbia in the 2003 return-flight disaster.
| FEMA | |
 New FEMA seal | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | March 30, 1979 |
| Employees | 6,651 (2008 Budget)[1] |
| Annual budget | $8.02 billion (2008)[1] |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | Department of Homeland Security |
| Website | www.fema.gov |
References
change- ↑ 1.0 1.1 FEMA's FY 2008 Budget Request March 9, 2007
- ↑ "FEMA - Disaster of an Agency" (editorial), Lynn Woolley, September 2005, webpage: NewsMax-2827 Archived 2009-06-28 at Archive-It: states "Jimmy Carter created "FEMA by executive order on March 30, 1979."
Other websites
change- DHS organization Archived 2009-05-31 at the Wayback Machine
- FEMA Field Operations Guide Archived 2007-06-15 at the Wayback Machine Including descriptions of markings on evacuated and searched buildings
- FEMA website
- A History of FEMA
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