The government was eventually able to mobilize a massive relief operation to
help the storm victims in south Florida. In so doing, the federal government
provided an unprecedented amount of assistance to the Hurricane Andrew
victims. Despite these efforts, however, the public's perception of the govern-
mental effort was primarily negative ( Walden 1992). The government did not
react quickly, and it did not respond immediately to this disaster situation, even
though thousands of storm victims lacked critical life-sustaining supplies.
Local citizens were forced to take matters into their own hands because the
government did not provide effective guidance or support. Even when the
government did respond, it did not act in a coordinated or unified manner. This
created further delays in the administration of disaster assistance.

The national government is widely believed to be primarily responsible
for the apparently poor performance of the disaster-relief system. Local and
state governments were completely overwhelmed; only the federal govern-
ment had the resources and the authority to handle a disaster of this magni-
tude. But, to paraphrase the aforementioned quote from a local emergency
management director, where the hell was the cavalry? More specifically,
where was FEMA? Unfortunately, FEMA was both unable and unwilling to
respond quickly and effectively to this disaster. Once again -- just as in
South Carolina following Hugo, FEMA, not the hurricane, was considered
to be the real disaster ( Lippman 1992b). ⁴ The entire governmental response
was regarded as a complete failure.

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