US seeks emergency agency's overhaul amid new hurricane threat

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2005

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US government proposed to overhaul its emergency response agency, blasted for its response to Hurricane Katrina, as another powerful storm threatened the US coast.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s Hurricane Katrina response was sharply criticized as sluggish. Americans were shocked by scenes of chaos in the devastated Gulf Coast city of New Orleans and images of people desperately waiting for help on the roofs of their flooded homes.

"Although FEMA pre-positioned significant numbers of personnel, assets and resources before the hurricane made landfall, we now know its capabilities were simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of this storm," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose massive department includes FEMA, told a...