President Bush tours Texas operations set up for Hurricane Gustav
The president and his administration seek to demonstrate that they have learned from mistakes in responding to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
WASHINGTON — President Bush, seeking to demonstrate that his administration had learned from its botched handling of Hurricane Katrina three years ago, toured the Texas Emergency Operations Center in Austin today before heading to San Antonio to greet first responders preparing to distribute goods and supplies to those displaced by Hurricane Gustav.
"This storm has yet to pass; it's a serious event," the president warned. He added that coordination among federal, state and local officials this time -- seen as one of the primary failures of the government's response to Katrina -- is "a lot better."
As Gustav headed for the Louisiana coast, Bush canceled plans to address the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., tonight and flew to Texas to demonstrate a "hands-on" approach to coordinating government's response to natural disasters. Three years ago, Bush initially remained on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, while residents of New Orleans clung to rooftops appealing for rescue and federal relief officials were unable to provide adequate food or proper sanitation to residents stranded at the Superdome.
After he flew to New Orleans, Bush told Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Brown later resigned from his post, amid harsh criticism by several congressional investigations for his handling of the disaster. And Bush's popularity ratings plummeted.
Today the White House was eager to showcase how much has changed. FEMA Director R. David Paulison briefed reporters aboard Air Force One, acknowledging how many reforms were needed after Katrina exposed the lapses in federal preparedness.
Citing "unprecedented cooperation" now between federal agencies such as the Pentagon and private groups such as the Red Cross, Paulison said a new FEMA operations center in Washington allowed officials to share information "so we don't end up with what happened in Katrina, with different agencies doing things and others not knowing what's happening."
The second change in government strategy, Paulison said, is philosophical: "During Katrina you noticed that buses didn't come in until after the storm hit landfall; urban search-and-rescue teams didn't come until after landfall; ambulances didn't come until after landfall," he said. This time, he added, "all of these things are put in place ahead of the storm."
