3 days Ago
The 39th president of the United States has died at 100. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution confirmed the news with a post on X, stating the son of the former president said his father had died around 3:40 p.m.
ET in his Plains home. People across the country and the world are reflecting on former President Jimmy Carter and his life, which was full of achievements. He died at the age of 100 at his longtime home in Plains, Georgia .
While the 39th president will be remembered for setting a national energy policy and working on peace accords, it was his establishment of an agency aimed at responding to disasters that continues to impact many communities today. Since the country’s formation in the 1700s, local governments have faced disasters in which the needed response has been considered too great to handle. The federal government started providing aid and assistance in the early 1800s, but it wasn’t until Carter’s signing of Executive Order 12127 that an agency was solely tasked with responding to hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other disasters.
Before Carter was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1977, the country was reeling from natural disasters, with poor governmental responses that only made the catastrophes worse. In 1962, an extratropical cyclone slammed into the mid-Atlantic and became one of the most destructive storms ever to impact the states.
The year 1964 brought the most powerful earthquake to ever strike North America, with a 9.2-magnitude quake shaking the ground underneath Alaska. Over the next five years, communities along the Gulf Coast would face double disasters from major hurricanes Betsy and Camille.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks as he tours homes being built by Habitat for Humanity in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in May 2008 during rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
(Photo by James Edward Bates/Biloxi Sun Herald/Tribune News Ser All these disasters caused extensive devastation and were responsible for killing hundreds of people, but a common theme emerged – poorly coordinated responses . According to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum , the president had universal support from governors and interest groups to form an agency to combat the problem. With the political will in hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was born on April 1, 1979.
The agency was tasked with emergency management response and merged the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, Federal Preparedness Agency, Federal Disaster Assistance Administration, Federal Insurance Administration, U.S. Fire Administration and half-a-dozen other programs.
Gordon Vickery , a highly respected firefighter, who rose through the ranks to become the fire chief in Seattle, was selected as interim head of the then-2,400-person-strong agency. In the hours before the agency’s ramp-up, an accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania overshadowed the initial days of the agency and drew attention to inadequate preparedness surrounding highly volatile energy plants. Dangerous and now deadly severe weather is sweeping through the South Saturday evening, just hours after multiple tornadoes left damage in the southeastern part of Texas.
Bill Bunting, Deputy Director of the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center join LiveNOW's Austin Westfall to give the latest weather update. The event would trigger one of many expansions of powers for the newly-formed agency. Carter signed Executive Order 12148 , which directed FEMA to develop a plan to respond to nuclear emergencies.
Now, the agency, once solely tasked with emergency management responses, also gained civil defense responsibilities. These changes were far from the last for the agency with a then-$600 million budget. The position of leading FEMA appeared to become a preverbal carousel with three leaders in just two months.
Stability among government ranks took a further hit when Carter lost his reelection campaign to former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. The changing of the guard at the White House did little to stop the trend of temporary appointments, as 1981 brought three additional heads to the agency.
In addition to the change at the top, a political landslide gave the Regan administration the political power to change course on many aspects of government operations and that included FEMA. According to an agency history , developments in Cold War diplomacy contributed to more wartime hazard planning. The leader at the time, retired Army officer Louis Giuffrida, made it to be the longest-serving head of FEMA, but questionable actions and congressional investigation ultimately led to his resignation in 1985.
The agency once again fell into the pattern where it was anyone’s gig, but a disaster known as Hurricane Hugo in 1989 served as a reminder of the importance of a functioning FEMA. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper called the ongoing disaster "catastrophic," as the state manages its worst flooding in a century. Search and rescue teams from 19 states, as well as the federal government, are on the ground trying to help residents.
Cell phone service is down, and the governor's office reports more than 200 people have been rescued from flood waters so far. FEMA's Acting Director of Response and Recovery, Keith Turi, joins LiveNOW from FOX with the latest operation details. Hugo was the strongest storm to strike the U.
S. coastline in two decades and came ashore in the Carolinas as a Category 4 hurricane with estimated winds of at least 135 mph. The storm produced $11 billion in damage, and FEMA was in charge of the response.
A government history of the time period stated: "FEMA, the agency in charge of the response process, received most of the blame; FEMA, not Hurricane Hugo, was referred to as the real disaster." Again, the agency was the subject of congressional ridicule, with U.S.
Sen. Ernest Hollings calling FEMA "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I’ve ever known." The administration of President George H.
W. Bush pledged to set the course right on FEMA and searched high and low for its next head. The administration put their faith in Wallace Stickney from New England.
No one could foresee that the agency would be tasked with its largest disaster in more than two years – Hurricane Andrew . The major hurricane made landfall on Aug. 24, 1992, as a Category 4 hurricane in South Florida.
A NOAA reanalysis in 2004 upgraded the costliest hurricane ever to a Category 5. Similar to Hurricane Hugo, the response to the catastrophe was considered inadequate and had local, state and even some federal officials asking if the agency’s response made the disaster even worse. A federal investigation into the agency’s response found that plans for disasters were not adequate, local governments were overwhelmed and the movement of materials and personnel into the impact zone was too slow.
The administration of President Bill Clinton brought a slew of new faces into the federal government, including James Lee Witt. The Arkansan knew a thing or two about emergency services and was appointed as the sixth permanent administrator of FEMA. Similar to other leaders of the agency, Mother Nature did not provide a grace period for Witt, as hurricanes, massive floods and West Coast earthquakes left few areas of the country unaffected.
One of the largest disasters was the Great Flood of 1993, which impacted nearly a dozen states and caused damages of more than $15 billion across the Midwest. During the recovery, officials lauded FEMA’s response and confidence grew in Witt being the right person to lead the agency. Former U.
S. president Jimmy Carter remains in home hospice after a series of hospital stays. Thomas Whalen, an associate professor of Social Sciences at Boston University joined LiveNOW from FOX's Josh Breslow to discuss Carter's legacy.
A series of disasters, including the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, proved the agency was at the beckoning of any municipality. Not long after the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.
S. history, Clinton raised the FEMA position to cabinet-level status, underscoring the growing importance and reliability of the agency. During a 1998 interview , Witt was asked what adjustments were made that enabled outsiders to view FEMA in a more positive light versus the ridicule and scorn that had plagued it.
"We worked hard at creating a more customer-focused agency," Witt said. "A major initiative was to provide customer service training to all FEMA employees, including senior management. This was a huge undertaking.
" After Witt’s reign, the agency would go on to have many ups and downs, including what news organizations reported was a botched response to Hurricane Katrina , which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. The major storm resulted in more than 1,300 fatalities and a damage figure that topped a 2023-cost-adjusted price tag of $191 billion.
REPORT: 90% OF COUNTIES IN US EXPERIENCED AT LEAST 1 DISASTER IN PAST DECADE On significant anniversaries, FEMA leaders usually take to social media to reflect on the agency’s beginning, but on a daily basis, trainees are exposed to a message that reflects upon Carter’s role in its establishment. Located within FEMA training documents is a pledge that the commitment bestowed on the agency by Carter will never change. The passage reads: "On April 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the Executive Order that created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
From day one, FEMA has remained committed to protecting and serving the American people. That commitment to the people we serve and the belief in our survivor-centric mission will never change." In many ways, the agency continues to follow one of the first lines ever uttered by the 39th president.
During his inaugural address on that cold, 28-degree day in January, Carter boldly told the crowd of thousands: "To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others." The line was part of a 1,228-word speech that the White House Historical Association said was focused on rejecting mediocrity and restoring trust in the federal government. Read more of this story from FOX Weather.
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