Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Former FEMA Director Speaks To Chamber Crowd

James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), will be taking his show on the road  literally.

Witt, the featured speaker at the Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce Banquet, said he will be taking what he did at FEMA worldwide, to help other governments put together programs to help their citizenry in times of disaster.

Witt, who made FEMA what it is today, worked to reform the agency and speed up the process so people could get the help they needed faster and begin the rebuilding process.

He opened, though, by talking about problems in Washington, D.C. The problem, he said, is those people don't know what catfish is.

Their idea is to roll it in flour, broil it and call it fried, then pour something over it. Anyone looking for hush puppies, he said, can forget about it, because they don't know how to make them there.

Were someone to serve catfish in D.C. the way it's done in the South, he said, they could retire in five years.

When the ice storm hit at Christmas, Witt and his wife, Lea Ellen, were at home in rural Yell County.

As Witt put it, they live at the end of the line in Wildcat Holler for all utilities and services. "It took a while for us to get the power back on."

While they didn't have electricity or city water, they did have a fire place and well. In addition, the phone still worked.

Witt, while struggling with weather problems at home, got a call from former President Bill Clinton, asking how bad it was in Arkansas. "I told him it was pretty bad and we needed to do something. We got an emergency declared and the process started.

"It was an incredible ice storm." He said the storm brought out a variety of wildlife to his front yard, where the animals were fed corn the Witts had. According to Witt, there were deer, turkey, squirrel and other critters, none of which are around when he goes hunting.

For the last eight years, every time Witt and his wife have tried to take a vacation a disaster has occurred. He was also on call 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week during this time.

He told of one hunting trip to the Colorado wilds with a son, when he was called in because of a disaster. They had to hike a full day to get to the nearest phone, as the wildlife officers were on horseback.

He and his son were so far back in the mountains the cell phone and pager he carries everywhere didn't work, and forest rangers had to ride in on horses.

In 1999, he said, 105,000 people died from natural disasters around the world, with $100 billion in losses. Insurance companies picked up $30 billion of these losses.

"If we don't do something now," he said, "by the end of the 21st century the number of lives loss and damage due to disasters will be even greater. We're trying to save lives and protect nations.

After leaving office as FEMA director, he formed J.L. Witt and Associates in Washington, D.C.

The idea behind the association, he said, is to continue the same type of work he did at FEMA on a global level.

Witt has been involved with every type of natural disaster except volcanoes. "I've seen the pain people go through from losing their loved ones and their life's work.

When the Mississippi River flooded in 1993, Witt had just reorganized FEMA. The flooding affected 500 counties in nine states.

The idea, Witt said, was to see what could be done to prevent such a thing from happening again.

What happened, eventually, was the U.S. Government purchased 4,000 pieces of property in Missouri, literally moving entire towns away from the flood plane.

Since then, he said, the government has bought 25,000 pieces of property, moving people to safer areas.

Everyone is affected by disasters, particularly businesses. Witt said a community will lose 20 to 30 percent of its small businesses, as they won't be able to reopen after a disaster.

This means towns lose their tax base, school districts lose students and the area's economy takes a beating.With eight years experience of dealing with disasters under his belt, Witt has gone global. He is now working in India and El Salvador, trying to develop some type of disaster prevention program on the national and local levels.

Word of these efforts has spread, with people now seeking Witt and his group out. The association has worked in California, Viet Nam, Tokyo, North Korea, South Korea and China.

"The world is getting smaller and the economic losses suffered in countries we trade with are felt here," he said. "All we do in prevention helps all of us."

Witt recently closed a book deal with the Henry Holt Co. The book should be out before Christmas this year.

With FEMA, in 1997, Witt helped get Project Impact started. In this program, federal money goes to communities, with communities using it to put plans they have in action. There are currently 250 Project Impact communities in the U.S.

Witt said the $25 million put up helps gives community leaders the responsibility to make their towns more livable and safer.

"I've seen several places where one person with vision and a goal for them self and their community has been successful."

According to Witt, a person would never get financially rich in public service, but would be wealthy in other ways.

"I wouldn't take anything for the time I've served or the opportunity President Clinton gave us. We got support from both parties and were always honest with everyone.

"Public service is a hard thing to do at times. If you don't care about people, you don't need to be in this business.

"If you're not part of planting the trees of the future," he continued, "then you don't deserve to stand in the shade of the trees of the past."