Editorial | The Katrina Report Failures, from top to bottom

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, February, 2006

Download a copy of Failure of Initiative, a House committee's well-written, 362-page report on the embarrassingly bad emergency response to Hurricane Katrina. But don't read it just before bedtime.

The details of the mistakes made by every major player in this sad saga are just as likely to cause nightmares now as Katrina did six months ago when it struck the Gulf Coast and drowned New Orleans.

Those players come from federal, state and local levels of government, and from the private sector. But Washington's failure was the most disturbing of all.

When a catastrophe of biblical proportions overwhelms state and local capacities, only the federal government has the resources to provide leadership.

As Senate hearings last week also made clear, Homeland...