FEMA says it's applying Hurricane Katrina lessons to Gustav

WASHINGTON — Three years after disgracing itself with a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency acknowledged Monday, as it mobilized against the force of Gustav, that it had learned some lessons.

Nearly 2 million Gulf Coast residents were evacuated to shelters by plane, train and bus hours before Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana. Helicopters sat on the fringes to start search-and-rescue efforts as soon as the skies cleared. Crates of food, water and blankets were at the ready -- all in stark contrast to the too-little-too-late response to Katrina that left thousands stranded, about 1,800 dead and 90,000 square miles devastated.

"All those who needed to be evacuated were evacuated . . . in one way, shape or form," FEMA Deputy Director Harvey E. Johnson Jr. announced at a Washington news conference, where comparisons to the 2005 drowning of New Orleans seemed aimed at repairing FEMA's damaged reputation. "I think we've seen a very well-prepared nation for Hurricane Gustav."

"We would not be pounding our chest at this point," said Maj. Gen. John T. Riley of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of many agencies working under FEMA to coordinate the response.

Three patients died this weekend during an effort to move 9,000 sick and infirm people by air and ambulance, most of them from nursing homes.

"If you recall in Katrina, we had scores of deaths in hospital patients. While we accept no deaths, we feel this is something within our margin of error," said W. Craig Vanderwagen, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services. He said an investigation would be conducted.

Though the top priorities were getting residents to shelter and helping them there, government officials also seemed intent on erasing impressions of bureaucratic callousness. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff headed to the region, mingling at bus and train terminals with rescue workers and residents and showing his concern.