Fema, Frankenstorm | featured news

On the day federal money for superstorm Sandy victims' hotel stays were scheduled to run out, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it would continue paying hotel bills another two weeks, easing the anxiety of thousands of displaced New York and New Jersey residents.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, having learned Hurricane Katrina’s harsh lessons, is winning praise from disaster specialists and elected officials for its rapid response to Hurricane Sandy, but weeks into battling the devastation, the agency is confronting another challenge: the reality of its own limitations.

Following Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, FEMA became a national punching bag, ridiculed for its slow and cumbersome response to the disaster along the Gulf Coast. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy this week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its administrator W. Craig Fugate are garnering more positive reviews from public officials in northeastern states hit by the superstorm, as well as from disaster-management experts.

The U.S. federal agency in charge of disaster relief, under intense pressure to show the Obama administration can quickly respond to the devastation caused by the massive storm Sandy, said it has plenty of cash to deliver timely aid to the millions of people struggling to recover.

Last year, during one of the GOP presidential debates, Romney seemed to indicate that he wanted to cut or even privatize the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At the time, his comments barely made a ripple. Now, with FEMA leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Sandy, the question of what Romney would do with the agency if he were to become president suddenly seems a lot more salient. And suddenly Romney doesn’t want to talk about it, presumably because the prospect of gutting the budget for first responders or pushing them into the private sector wouldn’t be very popular when they are breaking their backs to help people after the hurricane.