Introduction
Since organization and federal arms do not have emotions, their priorities can be determined by how they budget their funds and how they react to situations. Before 2001, the greatest threat to the safety of Americans in the continental USA was extreme weather (Paton & Johnson, 2017) . Even in the overseas territories such as the State of Hawaii, the last time they had a major man-made threat was when it was still a kingdom, back in 1941 during the Pearl Harbor sneak attack. As an independent entity designed to protect Americans from disasters that overwhelm local authorities, FEMA, focuses on natural disasters. The US, unfortunately, has no limitation on the kind of natural disasters due to extreme weather conditions which include famines and fires in the west coast and also hurricanes and storm in the Eastern Seaboard and areas neighboring the gulf. The 11 th day of September 2001 changed all that through the AL Qaeda led terror attack. Thousands of American lives were lost and by all fair assessment, it could have been worse (Paton & Johnson, 2017) . Worse still, a terror organization claimed responsibility in a bid to further embarrass the US government and psychologically torment its people. This forever changed the world in general and particularly the USA and also changed the priorities, structure, and way of doing things at FEMA as this research paper will reveal.
Background of FEMA before 2001
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was established by an executive order in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter to cater for disaster threats that would rise above the capacity of local authorities (PBS, 2005) . The federal government had always intervened but in limited ways when emergencies ensued. This intervention had diminished after the Great Depression due to the limitation of funds. This lasted until 1973 when the federal emergency response was placed under the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Through Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 effected in 1979 through executive order, FEMA was formed. Under Executive Order 12148, several government agencies were placed under FEMA and this agency helped formulate its core objectives and priorities. These agencies included the General Services Administration (GSA), the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration (NFPCA), Federal Insurance Administration (FIA), Federal Disaster Assistance Administration (FDAA) and the National Weather Service Community Preparedness Program. These agencies had been picked from different departments, both civilian and military (PBS, 2005) . By then, emergency preparedness was still focused on possible man-made attacks as the nation was at the height of the Cold War.
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In the 1980s, the Cold War was to gradually peter away as the capacity of the Soviet Union to survive diminished. The end of the Cold War released a lot of funds and attention which was now focused on the available threats mainly natural disasters, changed drastically (Sylves, 2014) . FEMA was strengthened and also highly funded. Congress would make a huge budgetary allocation to FEMA through annual allocations and also special allocations in the case of a natural disaster. According to Golden (2013), in the 1990s, FEMA would get a lot of funds from the federal government for disaster mitigation that it could not sometimes account for billions of dollars. More laws and executive orders including the Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 were passed to expand the mandate of FEMA in disaster mitigation and preparedness. This trend continued until the turn of the century.
During this time, FEMA’s priorities were mainly preparedness, response, and rescue during natural disasters. Another key focus was mitigation of economic damage be natural disasters through proviso of loans at benign terms to individuals who had been affected by natural disasters (Paton & Johnson, 2017) . Further, the efforts of FEMA as and when called upon to act by state governments during natural disasters would be swift and efficient drawing praise even from survivors of the natural disaster and other calamities. As per Golden (2013), there may have been issues relating to either corruption or overzealousness at FEMA when it came to disaster mitigation but never lethargy, inefficiency or indifference.
The Transformational Factor
At the beginning of 2001, George W Bush took over as president with part of his agenda being reduction of government spending and by extension, taxation. Among his initial targets was FEMA whose budgetary allocations were reduced greatly. The zenith of FEMA allocation under its old mandate was to be the $3.6 billion allocated for the 2001 fiscal year under the Clinton administration (Sylves, 2014) . This money would be allocated to FEMA as an independent organization with its administration allowed to determine how and when to disband these funds in an effort to mitigate on different disasters in the USA. This was the last funds FEMA ever independently disbursed. The initial plan under the Bush administration had been to reduce the FEMA budget, but this decision was soon to be taken out of his hands. Further, FEMA was never going to be the same again.
As indicated above, in September 2001 the worst attack on the US since the Civil War took place when hijacked planes were intentionally flown into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC. Thousands of Americans died, including several foreigners from across the globe (Sylves, 2014) . Suddenly, a human enemy once again took precedence over natural disasters. Instead of planning for hurricanes, storms, droughts, and floods, the Bush administration was focused on terrorism-related activities such as bomb attacks and use of normal transport apparatus as missiles. These changes in approach were to be visited upon FEMA, thus changing its priorities.
Elimination of Independence
The first change that had a direct effect on the priorities of FEMA was the establishment of the United States Department of Homeland Security. FEMA was then placed under the auspices of the aforesaid department, which even had a new cabinet position of the US Secretary of Homeland Security. Placing FEMA directly under the control of the executive meant that the priorities of FEMA would not be controlled and subordinate to the priorities of the executive. Under the Bush administrations, the priorities of the executive were the war on terror and this is precisely what the priorities of FEMA would become. Focus on weather and natural disasters was immediately considered as secondary. FEMA would primarily be a member of the government’s effort to fight terror but would spare what it can, when it could for other emergencies (Sylves, 2014) .
Financial Priorities
The budget for FEMA was not reduced as has erstwhile been envisaged. Instead, the budget was almost doubled. Within the first year of FEMA being under the Department of Homeland Security, its budget was upgraded to US$ 6.6 billion (Bea, 2002) . The larger budget came with precise instructions on how the money would be spent. Not much was to be spent on natural disasters as FEMA would have aspired based on its research about the needs of the country. Instead, the preparedness of emergency response as and when terror attacks take place was considered critical after the Twin Tower attack on 9/11 (Bea, 2002) . The bulk of the FEMA funds was thus spent in equipping and training firefighters and first responders on how to respond to terror attacks. Therefore, the bulk of FEMA funds did go to grants but not to needy individuals across America who had been ravaged by natural calamities. Instead, the grants went to police departments, firefighting agencies, ambulance services and paramedic group (Bea, 2002) . A bulk of what remained from these grants would go to the recurrent expenditures of FEMA. For example, as at 2003, FEMA had 2,400 employees and salaries and benefits alone were massive.
Change of Responsibility
The Bush administration did not forget that FEMA needed to take care of needy Americans. This responsibility was taken away from FEMA through the transfer of any Emergency Food and Shelter Funds to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Instead, FEMA’s First Responder Unit inherited from the Department of Justice all the funds and responsibilities related to first response in America (Chung, 2016) . A tangible priority transformation had, therefore, taken place at FEMA. First, its work with disaster victims after the act is taken away from them. FEMA is placed in a governmental department that is more synonymous with security issues as opposed to disaster preparedness and management. Finally, FEMA took over responsibilities of the Department of Justice which had the control of law enforcement apparatus (Chung, 2016) . The priorities of FEMA also changed through these changes so that it was not really a friend of the people when they are in need but rather a protector of the people against dangers, more so those coming from the enemies of the USA. From then on, if the nation was to get an attack from Al Qaeda or any other foreign enemy, FEMA would be ready and capable of spearheading a powerful reaction to this enemy. As the other sections of the Department of Homeland Security sought to ensure that attacks would not happen on US soil, FEMA sought to ensure that if the efforts failed and an attack did take place, the damage would be mitigated (Chung, 2016) .
Impact of the FEMA Change of Priority
It was not until 2005 that America would realize just how much the priorities of FEMA had changed and exactly what it meant for Americans as they faced threats of disaster. The Department of Homeland Security succeeded so well that FEMA’s abilities as a first responder to terror attacks would not be needed. One and a half decades since the change of FEMA priorities, these services are yet to be needed on a massive scale. In case disaster could occur and lead to thousands of Americans dying with billions of damage to infrastructure and private property, it would involve the former priorities of FEMA, natural disaster management. Hurricane Katrina hit the US Gulf Coast with devastating effects and vast parts of the coast, including major cities such as New Orleans, were flooded (Edwards, 2015) . FEMA failed so catastrophically that many Americans that could have been saved perished. The situation became worse and some doctors in New Orleans elected to euthanize non-fatal patients when chances of rescue began to look dim. FEMA’s new priorities never got a chance to be tested, but the abandonment of its old priorities was paid for with American lives (Chung, 2016) .
Conclusion
Research has put more focus on how September, 11 th , 2001 changed the world in general and particularly the USA. Many new laws were enacted, organizations formed and priorities transformed. FEMA is a prime example of these changes. The end of the Cold War and spread of peace in the world enabled FEMA to focus on the many natural disasters that America faces almost every single year. Unfortunately, 9/11 happened and the Bush administration elected to put the entire American focus and priorities upon it. This change of priorities was a big success because Americans have been safer from terrorists on American soil. However, natural disasters continued to ravage the nation as FEMA moved its priorities away from natural disaster preparedness and mitigation, and focusing on security threats. When natural disaster finally struck, America was left vulnerable.
References
Bea, K, (2002). Federal Emergency Management Agency funding for Homeland Security and other activities. A CRS Report for Congress. Retrieved October 28, 2017 form https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=62
Chung, J. (2016, September 28). Counter-terrorism and emergency management: Keeping a proper balance . Retrieved October 28, 2017, from https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/counter-terrorism-and-emergency-management-keeping-a-proper-balance/
Edwards, C. (2015, August 27). Hurricane Katrina: Remembering the federal failures . Retrieved October 28, 2017, from https://www.cato.org/blog/hurricane-katrina-remembering-federal-failures
Golden, P. C. (2013). An analysis of the allocation of FEMA public assistance funds along the US Gulf Coast following hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. LSU Master's Theses. 3565.
Paton, D., & Johnston, D. (2017). Disaster resilience: an integrated approach . Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas Publisher
PBS. (2005). A short history of FEMA. The Public Broadcasting Service . http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/storm/etc/femahist.html
Sylves, R. (2014). Disaster policy and politics: Emergency management and homeland security . Washington, D.C.: CQ Press
