Harkin staffer to be regional FEMA director

Beth Freeman, a Cedar Rapids-based staffer for Sen. Tom Harkin, (D-Iowa), has been appointed to oversee Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

She will take over Dec. 20 as director of FEMA Region VII, which is based in Kansas City. FEMA has ten regions.

Freeman has worked on disaster assistance for Harkin since 1990, and is the director of the local office in Cedar Rapids. This will be her second stint as regional FEMA director.

“I was down there once before the last five and a half months of the Clinton administration,” she said. “I'm not a total stranger to what I'm getting into.”

She cautions that having a Cedar Rapidian reporting directly to the national FEMA administrator won't result in a giant infusion of new flood relief dollars, but she says her experience with disasters – particularly recent ones – will be helpful.

“I've been through the floods of '93, various tornados, of course last year's tornado and flood,” she said. “I think it'll be good to have someone down there who understands what people are going through.”