Post-Katrina … but Still No Plan

More than two years after the federal government’s failed response to Hurricane Katrina, three Senators say the Homeland Security Department still does not have a satisfactory emergency response plan in place.

In a six-page letter sent late Monday to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Senators Joe Lieberman, (I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee; Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking member of that committee; and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), chair of a disaster recovery subcommittee, expressed disappointment in the department’s draft “National Response Framework (NRF).”

Although the letter praises the department for the improvement in the NRF for using less jargon and fewer acronyms and being more user-friendly than an earlier version, they assert:  “…we still do not have sufficient operational plans for governing the response to disasters. … The continuing lack of such plans is a serious gap in our homeland security.  The draft NRF emphasizes how far away we are from accomplishing this admittedly complex and ongoing, but critically important, task.”

The senators are particularly disturbed at the somewhat cavalier way in which the department apparently dismisses the new role their committee created for the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its Katrina debacle.  Lieberman and Collins take particular pride of authorship in the restructuring of FEMA which they thought they’d accomplished in last year’s Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006.  Their letter points out with dismay that their changes are being ignored:

The draft NRF, however, fails to recognize this expanded and elevated role of FEMA and its Administrator.  In the Roles and Responsibilities chapter, the draft Framework fails to even refer to either FEMA or its Administrator.  Rather, as drafted, the NRF suggests that the Department has delegated key leadership and coordination responsibilities to individuals or entities other than FEMA or its Administrator.  [emphasis in original]

Translation:  what part of CHANGE do you people not understand?

-- Beverley Lumpkin