What is the role of fema?

Answer 1

FEMA mainly helps people after major natural disasters and loans them money to repair there houses like during Katrina.

FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency. The name is pretty explicit. They are supposed to be the primary agency responsible for organizing (and, planning ahead) for major emergency situations in the United States proper.

They are the umbrella organization intended to coordinate responses to any major disaster or emergency situation. They are primarily responsible for planning for such occurrences, and coordinate the response between various state, local, and other federal agencies in case of some sort of disaster. FEMA is responsible for the coordination of not just the immediate response, but also the longer-term one (up to months afterwards). They are primarily a tactical planner, and have few direct resources of their own other than communications (that it, the actual manpower and supplies generally comes from other organizations - FEMA is responsible for determining where, when, and how much the aid goes to various places).

However, they are not just responsible for natural disasters. Any larger-scale disaster or (or even attack) falls within their purvue. Here are some typical things FEMA would respond to:

1. Hurricanes or Tornados
2. Major floods
3. Dam breaks
4. Significant communicable disease contagions requiring more than just a medical response
5. Terrorist (or other) attacks where there is a significant large-scale impact
6. Ongoing, major, civil unrest (e.g. multi-week rioting)
7. Chemical, toxin, or biological spills resulting in immediate environmental threat to people

The key thing about FEMA is they are intended for large-scale problems, typically at least the size of a city or more. Smaller issues can almost always be handled by the agency immediately in charge of the type of thing that happened. FEMA is there when the entire problem becomes too big to handle by a single (or even a small group) of government agencies.