U.S. Emergency Czar Makes Timely Visit to Los Angeles

The nation’s disaster czar came to Los Angeles to talk about one catastrophe on Tuesday but found himself caught smack in the middle of another.

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was supposed to be talking to students at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills about recovery efforts from last January’s earthquake. But the subject quickly turned to the drenching rain.

“Are any of you flooded out today?” the soft-spoken Witt asked the assembled students. When they just laughed, the FEMA director responded in an understated tone: “It is wet out there.”

Witt quipped with students that he tends to attract natural disasters. When he was selected to be a judge--an administrative post that included overseeing local disaster relief--in his native Arkansas, it snowed every week for nearly two months. When he became the director of the Arkansas Office of Emergency Services, one of the worst tornadoes in the state’s history struck. And when he took over the top job at FEMA, a 500-year flood hit the Midwest.

“You better hope I never get elected President,” Witt joked.

Witt said he was in constant contact with the White House on the flooding conditions in California and that federal disaster teams already were working with the state.

“It’s really hard right now to get a real good feel for it because rain’s still falling,” Witt said. “As the weather clears, we’ll know better. We’ll know something more in the next couple days.”

Statewide damage estimates would not be prepared for at least a day or two, he said, adding that once Gov. Pete Wilson formally requests federal disaster assistance, Congress probably will be asked to approve it.