Experts: Focus on terrorism delays FEMA response to Katrina -KR

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON - The chaotic government response to Hurricane Katrina, which even President Bush said was "not acceptable," was the inevitable result of federal policies emphasizing protection from terrorist attacks at the expense of preparing for far more common natural disasters, state emergency officials and other experts said Friday.

As hurricane survivors died along roadsides and at shelters where they were told to take refuge, or pleaded for food and water or a ride to an overcrowded shelter, members of Congress called for hearings to find out how the response to this disaster could have failed so badly when the nation has spent unprecedented billions of dollars in the name of homeland security.

But the answer may not be much of a mystery. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, once a powerful independent agency focused solely on responding to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters that occur on average about four times a month, was placed within the huge Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
...
"There are no emergency managers at any level in the Department of Homeland Security. It's all law enforcement," said George Haddow, former FEMA deputy chief of staff. "It doesn't look like anyone's in charge to me because the system has been deconstructed."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12548203.htm

[JDPriestly]

1. Taking the fight to the terrorists, I believe that is what Bush calls it.

Now we know what he is talking about. The trucks, tanks, men and material are all over there in Iraq where they are being used to draw the attention of the terrorists so they'll do their bad deeds to our children in Iraq and not to us here. Of course, as we now know, meanwhile in the United States of America . . . a different kind of terror reigns.

[Kagemusha]

2. Too bad hurricanes wouldn't be intimidated by invading Africa.

Then Bush's methodology might help.

More seriously, I heard FEMA was having its natural disaster management basically ripped off... and a new agency would handle just natural disasters.

Problem: It doesn't exist yet.