FEMA Faceoff: Truth as an Urban Legend

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FEMA Faceoff: Truth as an Urban Legend

By Dennis / August 12, 2012 / No Comments

The article you are about to read is something that I have been working on for a number of months.

Before we begin, I would like thank my longtime friend, George Ure, for his assistance and collaboration on this piece. Together our goal was to uncover the truth and debunk what we thought were the Internet myths about FEMA.

Now we are not so sure.

In recent months we have all read and seen videos of the large-scale movement of military gear, including equipment which could be used to control an unruly US civilian population. To add to that, the US Army’s forward training documents reveal that the military is contingency planning for major US in civil turmoil in 2016. That this could theoretically be caused by the hard bite of the Second Depression and people not seeing it coming is of great concern to us. That, plus the fact that the majority of the population will not be properly prepped when it all comes tumbling down.

When writing about tank movement and such on our websites, one of our readers suggested that this was “normal” movement and that the tanks and other heavy gear were likely headed for Fort Irwin (near Barstow) for war gaming and to be fitted with the latest and greatest electronics. But in the hundreds? That fails the “smell test” when we are told that Afghanistan will be winding down. Something simply is not adding up.

So, while the economic side of things is George’s bailiwick, and the prepping side is Gaye’s, we both feel that the two cannot be separated when dire times hit; and, further, that the truth about what is coming needs to be exposed for the greater good of our citizens.

Given that, what is the responsible, journalistic thing to do? Get ahead of the problem – help dispel paranoia and BS on the Net and get some tough questions answered.

Attempting to Debunk the Internet Rumor Mill

Last April, while vacationing, Gaye had the opportunity to have cocktails with a high-ranking FEMA official. During the course of the conversation, she discussed the work she was doing at the Backdoor Survival and Strategic Living websites and asked this official if he would be willing to be interviewed. He graciously and without hesitation agreed.

When Gaye returned home, she called George and the two of us put our heads together and came up with some questions that we hoped would debunk the Internet rumor mill as it relates to FEMA. You know what we are talking about: body bags, army equipment, limits on banking . . . all that troubling “stuff” that is increasingly getting play on the Internet.

Why? While quite simply, there are all kinds of grim “It’s the end of the world, it’s 2012, go hide under the bed with the cat while you can!” stories on the Internet. In fact, we’ve estimated that “world ending” stories, books, videos, speaking appearances, radio, and online advertising probably adds up to perhaps $400-million (or more) which is an interesting industry. Add to that all of the revenue from late night talk shows, the survival gear and prepping goods industries; and, to some extent, even the increases in gun and ammunition sales. None of which, by the way, has slowed down since the recent massacre in Aurora.

But the problem we all have is this: Whenever one of those stories about “Concentration camps are being built in America to house Americans!” comes along, how many “news” sources in the Mainstream Media [also known as the MSM or olde media] actually make an effort to get the flip side of the story; the response from officialdom?

Zip, zilch, nadda. So we began our quest for the truth with a FEMA faceoff.

The Journey Through the FEMA PR Abyss

It was that – in the interest of good journalism – not to mention a big pinch of reality, that we put some questions to Gaye’s contact, Damon Penn, FEMA’s Assistant Administrator for the National Continuity Programs Directorate, that part of FEMA which has the job of keeping America “together” in the event of all kinds of cataclysmic possibilities. Our goal was to set the record straight and help separate fact from fiction when it comes to our country’s efforts to keep us prepared.

But something happened along the way.

Whereas Mr. Penn did answer our questions, his efforts were stonewalled by the FEMA legal and PR departments. Here is what he said in an email to Gaye:

Your ears must be burning. I just asked about the status this morning. I answered the questions last week and they are with our legal folks. They are trying to determine if we are providing you a service we cannot/have not provided to others. Hopefully we can get past that soon. The questions are fine.

WTF? We asked direct, no BS questions and get the government-three-step?

Time went by – months actually – with a good deal of back and forth between Gaye and Mr. Penn. Finally, after three months, we receive a response from Carter Langston, Manager of the FEMA News Desk who claimed that Mr. Penn’s authority did not extend to answering our questions.

The FEMA Kiss Off

So Mr. Langston answered instead. Sort of. His answers are shown below verbatim, which, as you will see, are not answers at all. Which leads us to the next question, also below, what is FEMA trying to hide?

Here’s what we asked – in writing – and the responses from FEMA – after being PR and legally “sanitized” by the PTB.

1. Let’s start with the FEMA mission statement:

FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.

Most folks tend to think of FEMA as a huge, bureaucratic monster whose goal is to rescue our citizens from the perils of a natural disaster. As a result, lots of people got all over FEMA’s case over the handling of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

What did the agency learn from those events?

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