"When Hurricane Sandy happened in our sophomore year, did you ever think it would become your job?"

A friend asked me that when I started my latest job which is, as you may have guessed, tying up the loose ends of Hurricane Sandy recovery. I've now worked in two different jobs doing some aspect of storm recovery, and almost across the board, it's incredibly complicated. So with the recent flooding in Louisiana, I thought this would be a good time to talk about disaster recovery, and what happens when it becomes political.

When you talk about flooding and disasters, FEMA is the first thing that springs to mind, and with good reason. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is often the first on the ground when a disaster hits, and that disaster can be anything from a hurricane, to flooding, to tornado, to a terrorist attack, to an Ebola scare, all natural disasters FEMA has been involved in in the last fifteen years.