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Editorial: FEMA's response was itself a national disaster

Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, September 4, 2005
With Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security has faced its first serious test since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
How has the department performed? Not well, by almost any account.

The agency has been slow to create a command center in New Orleans and coordinate rescue, transportation and public health efforts. As a result, people flooded out of their homes don't have food or clean water, and are being forced to survive - or die - in decrepit conditions.

Leaders, including President Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), initially were defensive. Now they are conceding this rich nation can do better.

Dealing with refugees is one of the clear duties of the Department of Homeland Security. If terrorists ever unleashed a chemical or biological attack on a major metropolitan area, there would be hundreds of thousands of displaced citizens. DHS has had four years to plan for rescuing and sheltering people. As is now obvious, it has failed in that responsibility.

After the rescue and recovery effort is well under way, Congress needs to seek out answers to numerous questions: What resources did FEMA and other agencies deploy in advance of the storm? What contingency plans were in place? Why weren't New Orleans' requests for additional flood-control funds taken seriously?

A select committee also must examine the state-level preparedness. Louisiana's transportation secretary said Thursday that there was never a contingency plan for a Category 4 hurricane that led to a levee breach in New Orleans. If true, that's incredible. Some might even call it criminal.

Accountability is important, but for now the focus must remain on saving lives and providing shelter. Tens of thousands of people depend on it.