Practical aspects of federalizing disaster response

There is no doubt that Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed the local and state governments of Louisiana and, to a lesser degree, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). However, as Governor Bush has pointed out, the current system has served us well in the past. Is Louisiana an aberration or must we federalize our response to disaster? It is essential to understand that, under existing law, the federal role is to '... supplement state and local resources in major disasters or emergencies.' [3]. The most significant errors during Katrina were the failure of the city to evacuate the 100,000 residents without cars and the inability of local, state, and FEMA personnel to work together. As we move into an examination of federalizing disaster response, for the sake of brevity we shall focus on these two issues, namely evacuation, and command and control of the response effort.A federal/state exercise called Hurricane Pam, conducted in July 2004, was a simulation of a category 3 storm hitting New Orleans. It clearly forecast exactly what happened in Katrina and demonstrated that the evacuation of New Orleans would take at least 72 hours [4]. Mayor Nagin declared a mandatory evacuation less than 24 hours before Katrina's landfall [5]. Additionally, no direction was given to potential evacuees regarding destination [6]. The lateness of the evacuation decree invalidated the state's disaster plan, which calls for buses to take the 100,000 residents without cars out of the city once the Governor declares a state of emergency. Governor Blanco made this declaration 66 hours before Katrina's landfall [4]. Mayor Nagin's failure was partially execution but primarily preparation. Terry Ebbert, the Director of Emergency Management for the city, said 'We always knew we did not have the means to evacuate the city.' [4]. I know Terry Ebbert personally; if he says the plan for evacuation is unworkable, then that is proof enough for me. The evacuation failed because New Orleans was not '