FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was established in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter, a consolidation of functions performed by a number of Federal agencies.
In response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and FEMA was absorbed into the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

I did security clearance investigations on FEMA disaster workers for a number of years, and I was very impressed by the caliber of employee FEMA was able to hire for temporary jobs. I'd guess most FEMA workers stayed at a disaster site for two or three months, but some were around for 6 months. Many were retired experts from a variety of professions, particularly the building trades and building insprection, and engineering. They really enjoyed their work and were very enthusiastic about wanting to help people recover from disasters. They were creative, interesting people - and they had a lot of good stories to tell.

A parallel agency was the Disaster Branch of the Small Business Administration, which processed low-interest recovery loans for victims of disasters (FEMA workers arrived first and gave grants for short term needs, and SBA came later and handled loans for the long-term needs of recovery). I also did clearances for SBA - SBA people tended to be younger, attorneys and people who had come from the banking industry. I lived with two SBA disaster workers for about 15 months in 1992-93. One was an attorney - he spent about a year in Hawaii and Guam after Hurricane Iniki. The other had been a business specialist with Dun & Bradstreet - she spent a good amount of time in Guam. I think the FEMA people had more interesting jobs, since they were more closely involved with immediate recovery after a disaster. The SBA people did a lot of paperwork.

I retired in 1999 and quit part-time work in the summer of 2001, so I don't know what's happened to these programs since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Secruity. I don't think absorption into DHS is a bad idea, since it gives disaster relief representation on the Cabinet. However, I get the impression the entire federal bureaucracy has been in a demoralized state under the Bush Administration. Bush has poured all resources into Defense, and everything else has been on the back burner since 2002.

-Joe-