Interior Offered Extensive Katrina Aid

By Joby Warrick
The Washington Post

Monday 30 January 2006

FEMA ignored proposals or didn't use resources effectively, department says.

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.

"Although we attempted to provide these assets we were unable to efficiently integrate and deploy these resources," Interior officials said in written response to questions by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Acting in the "immediate aftermath" of the hurricane, Interior officials provided FEMA with a comprehensive list of assets that were "immediately available for humanitarian and emergency assistance," according to the memo, dated Nov. 7, 2005. Those assets included more than 300 boats, 11 aircraft, 119 pieces of heavy equipment, 300 dump trucks and other vehicles for clearing debris, as well as Interior-owned campgrounds and other land that could be used as staging areas or emergency shelters.

Also offered were rescue crews from the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, teams specially trained for urban search-and-rescue missions using flat-bottom boats.

"Clearly these assets and skills were precisely relevant to the post-Katrina environment," the memo said. Yet, the rescue teams and boats were not considered in the federal government's planning for hurricane disasters, the memo states.

Ultimately, many Fish and Wildlife teams did travel to the Gulf and assisted in the rescues of more than 4,500 people - but they were "never formally tasked" for that assignment by FEMA, the document states.

The Interior Department's criticisms echo those expressed by other government agencies that have publicly faulted FEMA's hurricane response. In October, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta criticized FEMA for moving slowly in requesting buses to evacuate flood victims from central New Orleans. The order for buses was issued in the early hours of Aug. 31, nearly two days after Katrina made landfall.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled hearings this week to explore some of the more notorious shortcomings in the federal government's response, including the communications breakdowns and the bungled effort to evacuate tens of thousands of New Orleans residents who were stranded in the city after the storm.

Bush administration officials have acknowledged mistakes were made and have pledged major changes to the emergency response system.

"We are participating in a very comprehensive after-action review," said Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA. "We want to be our own toughest critics."



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Interior Dept. Report Describes FEMA's Scant Use of Its Help
By Eric Lipton
The New York Times

Monday 30 January 2006

Washington - As Hurricane Katrina passed across the Gulf Coast last August, the federal Interior Department offered hundreds of trucks and flat-bottomed boats, thousands of law enforcement officers and even 11 aircraft to help with the rescue effort. But much of the equipment and personnel were not used as part of the federal response, or at least not used effectively, according to an account prepared by department officials.

"Clearly these assets and skills were precisely relevant in the post-Katrina environment," said the department's assessment, prepared at the request of a Senate committee investigating the government's flawed reaction to the storm. The report focused on the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Interior Department, the document says, has a staff of 4,400 law enforcement officers, "many of whom work in harsh environments and are trained in search and rescue, emergency medical services and evacuation," and many of them were in the Gulf Coast area. Yet the report says they were not called to help by FEMA until late September.

The Interior Department was not the only government agency to offer assistance that was not used, or at least not used effectively. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, said in September that Amtrak had offered, before the storm, to carry residents out, but that its train had left nearly empty. New Mexico offered National Guard troops, but for days officials waited for formal approval to use them.

But the internal documents note that the Interior Department is formally a part of the January 2005 Southern Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Plan, prepared by FEMA, and was supposed to play a support role in the "need for rescue and sheltering of thousands of victims," according to the plan.

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said that the department realized that mistakes were made and that it, along with FEMA, was studying what went wrong.

"We are going to be our own toughest critics," Mr. Knocke said.

Even without an official federal assignment, some Interior Department boats and security squads took part in rescue efforts, but it occurred on an ad hoc basis, ultimately helping about 4,500 people, the department said.

The examination of the Interior Department's role also says that some agency employees may have used government resources to repair their own homes, or the homes of friends or relatives, after the storm.

Monday's scheduled hearing, on the search and rescue efforts, is the first of two weeks of hearings by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which hopes to wrap up its investigation by mid-March.