The first report on the failures into the response of Katrina has been
released. Their findings are the same thing as I have said from day one. The
problem lied with in the actual chain of command. It doesn’t matter if it is an
auto accident, house fire, or a mass disaster like Katrina, if you do not have a
clear and functioning chain of command then your response is also a disaster.

The chain of command should of been set up through the federal level and not
the local/state level. The following is from the

Associated Press:

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff or a deputy should have
become the “central focal point” of the Bush administration’s response to
Hurricane Katrina, congressional investigators asserted Wednesday, saying
the lack of a clear chain of command hindered relief efforts.

The Government Accountability Office also found that the government still
lacks sufficient plans and training programs to prepare for catastrophic
disasters like the Aug. 29 storm that devastated much of the Gulf Coast
area.

The GAO report said that neither Chertoff nor any of his designated
officials served as an overall coordinator of the response to the storm,
“which serves to underscore the immaturity of and weaknesses relating to the
current national response framework.”

The GAO report, presented to a special House investigation committee,
marks the first congressional conclusions about the much-criticized federal
response to Katrina. The GAO is Congress’ investigative arm.

“We continue to believe that a single individual directly responsible to
the president must be designated to act as the central focal point to lead
and coordinate the overall federal response in the event of a major
catastrophe,” the preliminary report found.

Article continues

here.

I wonder when FEMA stopped believing in incident command. I went through a
class devoted to incident command that was held at the National Fire Academy’s
(a division of FEMA) campus years ago. They preached the importance of incident
command. Some where along the way they forget about this simple principle in
disaster response.