Scrap FEMA and begin again, Bush is advised

The White House rejected calls by a Senate committee on Apr. 27 to close down the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government body lambasted for its woeful response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The push to scrap the agency came after a scathing report by a bipartisan Senate investigation into the disaster, which said that Katrina had exposed flaws in FEMA "too substantial to mend." The call to replace the beleaguered agency was the top recommendation of the Senate inquiry, which also heaped blame on President Bush for his slow response to Katrina. The report was issued during Bush's eleventh visit to the Gulf Coast region since the hurricane, a trip aimed at highlighting rebuilding efforts. Visiting New Orleans, Bush passed badly damaged houses, boarded up from top to bottom and awaiting rehabilitation. He later donned work gloves and a carpenter's apron to pound nails into a house frame. "We pray that there is no hurricane this coming year, but we're working together to make sure the response will be as efficient as possible," the president said. The Senate report faults Bush for waiting until two days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast to return to Washington to begin coordinating a federal response. The inquiry, titled "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared," also blamed Ray Nagin, the New Orleans Mayor, and Kathleen Blanco, the Governor of Louisiana, for failing to protect the sick and elderly and others who could not evacuate the city on their own. But its main conclusion–to shut down FEMA and replace it with an agency better able to respond to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina–looked set to face stiff opposition from the White House and reignite a controversy that has had a significant impact on Bush's approval ratings Frances Fragos Townsend, Bush's Homeland Security adviser, said that the White House would work with Congress on the issue but signaled its opposition to shutting down FEMA. "As we're headed to this hurricane season, now is not really time to really look at moving organizational boxes," she said aboard Air Force One, as Bush traveled to the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast. She added: "Yes, there's a better way to organize it... we look forward to working with the committee. I think we all share the same common goal, and that is having a strong, capable FEMA that is better able to serve the American people when they're in greatest need." Susan Collins, the Republican chairwoman of the Senate committee, said: "The first obligation of government is to protect our people. In Katrina we failed at all levels of government to meet that fundamental obligation." The panel issued 86 recommendations for change that, when taken together, indicate the US is still woefully unprepared for a storm of Katrina's intensity with the start of the hurricane season little more than a month away.