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20050905
"It's such an irony I hate to say it, but [FEMA has] less capability today than we did on September 11."
"The killer hurricane and flood that devastated the Gulf Coast last week exposed fatal weaknesses in a federal disaster response system retooled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to handle just such a cataclysmic event...
"Born out of the confused and uncertain response to 9/11, the massive new Department of Homeland Security was charged with being ready the next time, whether the disaster was wrought by nature or terrorists... But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that his department had failed to find an adequate model for addressing the 'ultra-catastrophe' that resulted when Hurricane Katrina's floodwater breached New Orleans's levees and drowned the city.
"'This is what the department was supposed to be all about,' said Clark Kent Ervin, DHS's former inspector general. 'Instead, it obviously raises very serious, troubling questions about whether the government would be prepared if this were a terrorist attack. It's a devastating indictment of this department's performance four years after 9/11.'"
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"Don't tread on me, either."
HST 1937-2005
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