FEMA is beyond repair, say senators

HURRICANE Katrina turned the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into a “symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy” so far beyond repair it should be scrapped, senators said yesterday.

The push to replace the agency was the top recommendation of a Senate inquiry which concluded that top officials from New Orleans to Washington failed to adequately prepare for and respond to the storm, despite weather forecasts predicting its path through the Gulf Coast.

“The first obligation of government is to protect our people,” said Republican Susan Collins, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation.

“In Katrina, we failed at all levels of government to meet that fundamental obligation.

“We must learn from the lessons of Katrina so that next time disaster strikes, whether it’s a storm that was imminent and predicted for a long time, or a terror attack that takes us by surprise, government responds far more effectively.”

The report’s executive summary credits President George W Bush for declaring an emergency before the hurricane’s landfall, but faults him for waiting until two days after it hit to return to Washington and convene officials to coordinate the federal response.

The report, given to lawmakers yesterday, faulted New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco for failing to protect people who could not evacuate the city on their own.

It also concluded that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and then-FEMA chief Michael Brown either did not understand federal response plans or refused to follow them.

But Democrat senator Joseph Lieberman heaped blame on Mr Bush and the White House, which he said “were not sufficiently engaged when they should have been initiating an aggressive response.”