As seen in today’s Washington Post:
Hundreds of federal search-and-rescue workers and large numbers of boats, aircraft and bulldozers were offered to FEMA in the hours immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit, but the aid proposals were either ignored or not effectively used, newly released documents show.
The Interior Department, which made the offers, also proposed dispatching as many as 400 of its law enforcement officers to provide security in Gulf Coast cities ravaged by flooding and looting. But nearly a month would pass before the Federal Emergency Management Agency put the officers to work, according to an Interior document obtained by The Washington Post.
Sounds like FEMA really dropped the ball….which is no surprise. However, what really troubles me is that it seems (at least from the outside) that this review is taking an awfully long time. We’re only four months away from the official start of the 2006 hurricane season; if anything is going to change before then, plans need to start being drawn up now.