If that's the case, they did a supurb job with all the other disasters that have hit this country.
Personally, I think it's the way FEMA is set up. It may have to be completely dismantled and either given to another agency or replaced as a far leaner agency that is more quickly dispatched. It would probably cut out about half the FEMA employees, but it needs to be done.
FEMA is a federal agency that steps in to help when the local and state governents face a situation which they are unable to handle.
However, the fastest response will always be the local response, and in this case the local response was pitiful due to gross, and in my opinion criminal, negligence on the part of the local and state government.
Resources had to be brought in from long distances when the transportation infrastructure was in very bad shape because the local government neglected the simple procedures that every individual should know.
When you're facing a bad storm you should make sure you have lots of water and non-perishable food on hand. The city of New Orleans did not stock food and water at their hurricane shelters, and simply didn't bother gathering any while telling the citizens to go there.
Can you immagine FEMA's surprise when they heard there wasn't supplies of food and water at the superdome and convention center?
Can you immagine the logistics nightmare of getting the kind of quantities of food and drinking water to the disaster area, when the disaster area was as huge as it was, and there weren't local supplies set aside?
Can you immagine having to completely shuffle around their resources to bring in food and water when they also had to move rescuers and equipment into the area, and there wasn't likely a good source of the what they needed close at hand because all the whole area was in need.
They have been criticized for not dropping supplies, yet at the same time they were criticized for not rescuing people with helicopters fast enough.
If they used their air resources to go get food and water, they tied them up for considerable amounts of time, because considerable distance had to be traveled. At the same time, people were dieing from exposure on rooftops in flooded areas.
FEMA was left with the job of cleaning up a disaster made considerable worse by the worst example of municipal governmental incompetence in the history of this country.
I think they've done an amazing job.
I think the Mayor of New Orleans has some hard questions to answer, and likely should face criminal charges for how his negligence contributed to the deaths of thousands.