U.S. security chief criticizes FEMA’s Katrina response
WASHINGTON – FEMA’s lack of planning, not the failures of state and local officials, was to blame for much of what went wrong with the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a congressional committee Wednesday.
The assessment by the most senior administration official to face lawmakers since the hurricane struck in late August contrasted sharply with testimony offered earlier by Michael D. Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Brown had blamed what he termed the “dysfunction” of Louisiana state and local officials for hobbling the relief effort.
“From my own experience, I don’t endorse those views,” Chertoff said. He told lawmakers that he found the region’s governors and mayors to be responsive as the crisis unfolded.
Chertoff testified as Capitol Hill continued to wrestle with how to pay the massive costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, and as FEMA kept a close eye on Hurricane Wilma, which is projected to hit Florida this weekend.
Chertoff, who took up his post in February, calmly defended his record – including his decision to work from home during part of the weekend before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast – during often hostile questioning from a special House panel investigating the government’s response.
He denied Brown’s contention that FEMA was “emaciated” after it was folded into the newly created Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Brown had testified that once it was subsumed into the department, FEMA suffered budget cuts and a “brain drain” of officials.
Chertoff said that between 2001 and 2005, “FEMA’s core funding increased from $349 million (annually) to $447 million,” and its number of employees swelled from 2,057 to 2,445. “I would take issue with the idea that FEMA had been cut,” he said.
The sheer scope of the damage Katrina inflicted overwhelmed FEMA and exposed flaws in its structure and management, Chertoff said. The agency’s balky response to the hurricane stemmed from these problems, not from a lack of funding, he said.
Chertoff said he is taking steps to “retool” FEMA, citing his establishment of emergency reconnaissance teams that can immediately move into disaster areas to assess the situation and prioritize relief efforts.
The secretary denied there had been a lack of urgency at the highest levels of the federal government as Katrina approached the Gulf Coast.
The hurricane’s destructive potential “was of humongous concern to me,” Chertoff said, as he worked from home two days before Katrina hit. He added that he had focused on making sure that supplies were being pre-positioned and that Brown had the help he needed.
“If we fell down, it was largely in the area of planning,” Chertoff said.
In early September, Chertoff relieved Brown of responsibility for the affected region and sent him back to Washington. Brown resigned as FEMA’s chief days later.