Charting a course for disaster

A few days ago the Daily Show devoted a short segment to this chart posted on the website of America’s much-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA, it will be recalled, was slammed by bloggers and the media for its bungled disaster response to the states ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Here FEMA’s “disaster life cycle describes the process through which emergency managers prepare for emergencies and disasters, respond to them when they occur, help people and institutions recover from them, mitigate their effects, reduce the risk of loss, and prevent disasters such as fires from occurring.” The only problem is that the chart’s final arrow leads right back to… disaster. Good grief.

//Billy McCormac