Nagin and others noted that by Wednesday the Army Corps of Engineers had not yet closed the gaps in the levees around the city. They also complained about the difficulty of coordinating activities scattered among numerous agencies.
Nagin said progress was finally being made on bringing all the command centers together "so that we can get all the varying opinions in one room and start to work, you know, in synergy."
"I can see a lack of coordination," said Ghilarducci, who noted that Chertoff's announcement on Wednesday came days after the president signed emergency disaster declarations for Louisiana, freeing up emergency funds. "Three days to determine this is a big deal?" Ghilarducci is a vice president of James Lee Witt and Associates, a crisis management firm founded by the head of FEMA under President Clinton.
Critics fault the added bureaucracy of the Department of Homeland Security for the slow start, but they also cite the department's focus on terrorism. "When Homeland Security came, everything became terrorism," said Bob Freitag, a 20-year veteran of FEMA who now teaches at the University of Washington. "There's no balance."
Around the country, some local officials said the emphasis on terrorism had bitten into the time and resources they could devote to preparing for threats they considered more likely to occur. Eric Holdeman, director of the King County Office of Emergency Management in Washington state, said his staff spent the bulk of its time trying to sort through the paperwork that Homeland Security generated.
"Prior to 9/11, we were spending 75% of our time planning, training and exercising for natural hazards," mostly earthquakes, he said. "Today, that's down to 25%. The rest of the time is spent administering Homeland Security grants. If we had that type of event here, we wouldn't be nearly ready."
Under its new organization chart, Homeland Security has assigned FEMA's preparation and planning functions to a new Office of Preparedness and Response, which is slated to be bolstered by a chief medical officer and a fire division. FEMA will focus on response and recovery.
"Focusing narrowly is going to be vital," said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, who said the approach would allow for great focus. "We're talking about improving our response to acts of terror or natural disaster."
But Holdeman said that because FEMA no longer dealt with preparedness he had no reason to be in touch with the agency. "They have no relevancy for me anymore," he said.
