WSJ: Behind Poor Katrina Response, A Long Chain of Weak Links

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Behind Poor Katrina Response, A Long Chain of Weak Links

Changing Structure of FEMA, Emphasis on Terrorism Contributed to Problems

A Shortage of Helicopters

By ROBERT BLOCK, AMY SCHATZ and GARY FIELDS in Washington and CHRISTOPER COOPER in New Orleans
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 6, 2005; Page A1

Just two weeks ago, five state emergency managers brought a tough message to a meeting in Washington with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and his top deputies.

"We told them straight out that they were weakening emergency management with potentially disastrous consequences," says Dave Liebersbach, the director of Alaska's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. The department's focus on terrorism was undermining its readiness for other catastrophes, said the visiting officials, who included emergency managers from Mississippi and Alabama.

Now that Hurricane Katrina has left the Gulf Coast flooded and New Orleans in ruins, the question ricocheting around the nation and the world is this: How could the world's biggest superpower fail so badly in protecting and rescuing its residents from a natural disaster so frequently foretold?

(snip)

But the weekend's progress hasn't erased the troubling questions left by the government's delayed understanding of the scope of the damage last week and its initial slowness in mounting rescues and bringing food and water to stricken citizens. The problems include:
- The decision to transform the Federal Emergency Management Agency from a cabinet-level agency reporting directly to the president to just one piece of a new, gargantuan Department of Homeland Security, which altered FEMA's mission and watered down its powers.
- Too few helicopters stationed in the Gulf Coast area ahead of the storm.
- A military stretched by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which left commanders near New Orleans reluctant to commit some active-duty units at nearby Fort Polk, La., because they were in the midst of preparing for an Afghan deployment this winter.
- A total breakdown of communications systems, an echo of the problems that faced New York officials dealing with the 2001 terrorist attacks and a system the government has been trying to fix for four years.
- Poor coordination among federal, state and local officials in the days immediately before and after the hurricane.
- Failure at all levels of government to take seriously many studies and reports over many years warning of the potential disaster.

(snip)

--Greg Jaffe, Yochi J. Dreazen, Dionne Searcey and Marilyn Chase contributed to this article.

Write to Robert Block at [e-mail], Amy Schatz at [e-mail] and Gary Fields at [e-mail]

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