Editorial: A question of preparedness

Saturday, June 2, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

I n a speech this week, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said his city "is coming back" from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and called on President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to do more to help the city rebuild.

Nagin said the Bush administration has failed to ensure that federal aid has reached "the people who need it the most" and said Blanco should use the state's $3 billion budget surplus to help repair New Orleans.

The mayor's remarks received heavy criticism from those inside and outside of New Orleans who say Nagin hasn't done enough to help his city and has spent too much time and energy blaming federal and state officials for post-Katrina problems.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's catastrophic failure in preparing for, and its response to, Katrina's destruction has elicited congressional investigations that revealed billions in misspent or lost federal resources and resulted in agency management changes from the top on down.

FEMA had a better year in 2006, mainly because the hurricane season was not nearly as active as predicted.

But two years after Katrina, New Orleans still is struggling to make a turnaround. Only half of its pre-hurricane population has returned. Starting over in a city obliterated by a natural disaster is difficult, if not impossible.

The 2007 hurricane season officially started Friday, and weather researcher William Gray has predicted that there will be 17 major storms and nine hurricanes by the time hurricane season ends Nov. 30. The first named Atlantic storm of 2007, Andrea, actually emerged in early May.

Whether the federal government is prepared for this hurricane season remains to be seen. We hope that this year, as last, our nation does not have a reason to find out.