What to do with FEMA?

Since its creation in 1979 FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has grown in government spending to absurd levels. Each decade more and more government funding goes to FEMA, some for good reason given the floods, hurricanes, etc. each year. However, how helpful is FEMA in managing emergencies when they are called to action? Having been in three different natural disasters where the state called on the federal government to send FEMA -fire, earthquake, and floods- I can attest to the lack of support or organization that FEMA provides to the disaster victims. According to CATO's latest research, FEMA is failing in all areas. CATO noted many examples of failures that occurred after Hurricane Katrina, since that was when the most glaring of the FEMA failures began. FEMA's mis-communication of delivering water, clothes, and ice, finally determining that many trucks drove cross country (instead of driving several hours from their original location) and never delivered the needed items to the correct location. FEMA ended up throwing out these items several years later as they had been poorly stored. FEMA kept other federal agencies from providing aid in time to affected areas or causing significant delays to the victims. The Red Cross was not allowed to go into the New Orleans Superdome to deliver emergency items. FEMA kept volunteers from getting to hospitals and emergency shelters, doctors were kept out as well. CATO mentions that even corporations such as Amtrak and Walmart were not allowed to successfully offer victims its donations due to FEMA red tape. FEMA mis-managed grants from FEMA's NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) up to $1B in fraudulent claims. Claims were investigated by the GAO, the Associated Press, and New York Times. An analyst from the AP found that “people claiming to live in as many as 162,750 homes that did not exist before the storms may have improperly received as much as $1 billion in tax money.” CATO suggests that FEMA end its support of emergency's altogether, end FEMA's NFIP program by privatizing it, which would reduce their funding by 90%. State's are already starting to prepare their own stockpiles of emergency supplies given their experience, or what they have seen happen when an emergency occurs. Corporations whose headquarters are in some of these states are also stepping up to help in emergency situations, as mentioned in the research. The more prepared states are finding that they don't need FEMA's involvement. Unfortunately, FEMA is still called to support, and the money keeps coming. What I found encouraging was CATO's suggestion of what to do with FEMA after the budget cut: "flood mapping, continuity of operations, the public alert system, training programs, and technological and radiological hazards preparedness. Those activities should be moved to other agencies and FEMA closed down".