WASHINGTON – The 18 people staffing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Map Assistance Center in Tallahassee, Fla., were the first line of defense to answer people’s questions about their risks of flooding and need for insurance.
To handle the complicated, technical aspects of flood hazard maps, FEMA had a policy that these “Tier 1” call center employees were to have majored in relevant fields such as geology or environmental sciences, according to a draft of a confidential assessment of the program obtained by The Washington Post.
But none had such a background, the February 2005 assessment found.
Instead, the assessment said, the job was left primarily to college students, many from Florida State University, studying fields such as fashion merchandising and music education. Their previous jobs included work as lifeguards, and as cashiers for Winn Dixie stores and at McDonald’s, Tropical Smoothie and Mr. Taco.
The assessment points to what it says were deficiencies in FEMA’s ability to provide information to homeowners before disasters.
It found the staff in the call center, restructured last year and run by FEMA contractor Michael Baker Corp., might have provided some misinformation.
Of the 129,000 calls and e-mails to the center last year, 25 percent to 30 percent of the responses might have included “significant errors,” and “such problems in many cases could lead to significant financial loss to the customer, including but not limited to wrongful denial of insurance coverage at the time of the loss,” according to the assessment. The assessment was prepared by consultant Nexus Integration Services at FEMA’s request.
FEMA denies that could have happened. No information given out by the call center employees “could result in ‘wrongful denial of flood insurance,’” Michael Buckley, acting deputy director of FEMA’s mitigation division, said in an e-mail.
The draft assessment “was never finalized because of concerns that its findings were not substantiated,” Buckley wrote. He did not provide specifics about those concerns.
Michael Baker Corp. referred all questions to FEMA.
John Magnotti, the call center manager, acknowledged in an e-mail that during the first few months of operation last fall some staff members “did have performance issues, resulting in some misinformation being provided to callers.”
But since the assessment, Tier 1 employees were combined with more knowledgeable Tier 2 staff, “making subject matter expertise more readily available,” Buckley wrote. Management now monitors 15 calls per employee per month, he said.
The call center “is now operating extremely well,” Magnotti wrote.
Robert James, who prepared the draft assessment, defended its findings. It was never finalized, he said, because “Baker basically wanted me to rip the guts out of the document.”
“The problems within FEMA are very broad, and they are systemic,” James said. “People weren’t reviewing things, people weren’t asking questions on how work was being accomplished, people weren’t being held accountable.”
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