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Moore: FEMA response should have been quicker

September 7, 2005 - Federal officials should have done more to prepare for the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, said state Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, formerly a key player in the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"We certainly could not have stopped it, but we certainly could have responded more quickly," Moore said yesterday.

The senator was FEMA's associate director from 1994-96 under President Bill Clinton, helping local and state governments coordinate natural disaster plans.

In that time, Moore played a part in responding to the Oklahoma City bombing and floods in Mississippi and Georgia.

Federal officials must rethink major changes that have taken place at FEMA since the '90s, said Moore.

Moore recalled FEMA sending supplies and emergency responders to southern states and setting them in place before natural disasters were expected to strike in the '90s.

Yet today, Moore cited reports that state officials who asked the agency for help before Katrina struck may have waited days for a response.

"If those (reports) are accurate, somebody at the other end of the line in Washington should have been more tuned in to what was going on," Moore said.

"It was clear, I think, to anybody who could turn on a TV set that this was a big storm, approximately where it was going to hit, and only by a miracle was it going to die at sea," he said.

Part of the problem, said Moore, is that FEMA became part of the federal Homeland Security Department after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The senator said the agency seems to have lost focus on natural disasters as federal officials have concentrated on fighting and preventing terrorism. FEMA should become independent again, he said.

"FEMA's money for natural disasters has been weakened or cut in favor of supporting Homeland Security's anti-terrorism function," Moore said.

Also, under Clinton, FEMA Director James Lee Witt was a member of the president's Cabinet, said Moore. Under President George W. Bush, FEMA Director Michael Brown does not hold a Cabinet post.

"It's very helpful if the director is sort of seen as an equal by other members of the Cabinet," said Moore.

The senator said he was troubled that many National Guard troops in hard-hit Louisiana and Mississippi are on active military duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

State officials also must re-examine their emergency plans, said Moore, as there were no clear procedures to evacuate residents too poor or otherwise unable to flee the hurricane's path.
As southern municipalities rebuild, state and federal officials must work together to make new development less susceptible to natural disasters, Moore said.

The senator also called for a panel of state emergency management officials to examine how to strengthen FEMA.

Moore said state legislators must also re-examine Massachusetts' plans to prepare, pay for and deal with natural disasters here.

He said he did not want to criticize the federal government's response on partisan grounds. He noted that Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, was among the earliest critics of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

"It's not really a partisan thing," Moore said. "Disasters don't particularly favor one party to the other."

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