FEMA 'more prepared' than before Katrina
The US disaster response agency won kudos after tornados hit, but '07 hurricane season may prove to be a more rigorous test.
By Zoe Tillman | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitorfrom the June 1, 2007 edition
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Washington - Faced with predictions of an "above normal" hurricane season, lawmakers, disaster preparedness experts, and residents in hurricane-prone regions are asking the same question: Is FEMA ready?
There will be no definite answer until the next big hurricane hits a metropolitan area. Still, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and outside experts alike are touting changes in the agency as proof of its progress since hurricanes Katrina and Rita overwhelmed the Gulf Coast in 2005. Among the improvements they cite:
• FEMA has placed a greater priority on preordering and stockpiling more food, water, and generators in vulnerable areas, as well as on developing detailed plans for distribution and other emergency-response efforts.
• More-experienced administrators, including new FEMA director R. David Paulison, are filling top jobs that were either unoccupied prior to Katrina or filled by officials later accused of being unqualified.
• FEMA is seeking to restore a manageable federal-state-local balance in disaster response. It is urging state and local first-responders to be ready to shoulder much of the relief effort – including executing new evacuation plans for residents unable to get themselves out of harm's way.
"The outlook is good," says Stephen Leatherman, director of the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University in Miami. FEMA is "more prepared than [it was] before Katrina, for sure."
Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast that as many as five major hurricanes – Category 3 strength or higher – could hit the Atlantic region (including the Gulf Coast) during the 2007 hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. Similar predictions for last year failed to materialize because of El Niño and other factors, but there is no guarantee that this hurricane season will be as quiet.
Aware of the intense public scrutiny facing the agency, Mr. Paulison has spent the last month reassuring lawmakers and the public that he oversees a "new FEMA," one that is stronger and more nimble.
Feedback has been mixed. When Paulison testified May 15 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, members praised FEMA for its responses to other natural disasters this year, including the snowstorms that struck the Northeast and the tornados that devastated towns in the Midwest.
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