Lisa Stark on ABC is now saying that the federal govt. can act only if the state requests help first, and this is one of the main reasons for the "slow" federal response.
From: This post
I've absolutely no knowledge on the twists and turns of how procedures work....
But, doesn't Secretary Chertoff implementing Incidence of National Significance make the federal govt in charge?
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4773
Excerpt:
The Department of Homeland Security has declared this an Incident of National Significance, the first ever use of this designation under the new National Response Plan. The National Response Plan, which was stood up earlier this year, gives the Department of Homeland Security the lead responsibility to coordinate federal response and recovery efforts. The plan is designed to bring together all federal resources to increase our ability to quickly get relief to those who need it most.