FEMA failure - the plot thickens

According to Knight Ridder the original FEMA delay was caused by Chertoff, the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.

"As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina," Chertoff said in the memo to the secretaries of defense, health and human services and other key federal agencies.

That suggests that Reducing FEMA from a cabinet level agency and putting it into DHS was part ot the problem.

Since 99% of all decisions in a large orgranization are based on routine and habit, bureaucracy is critical. But it has to be done in such a way that the critical non-routine decisions are directed to the right person quickly, and that person must know what to do and must have the power and authority to act. Initiating the fderal government response to a disaster is clearly one of those decisions, and the organization in this case what assembled haphazardly so that Chertoff did not know he was the critical decision-maker.

I wonder if Brown knew to demand that he act quickly? In any case, it is a good bet they never ran an exercise to expose these problems.

If this sounds arcane to you, it is. But I studied Organization Theory for about five years, and have over 20 years experience as an Army and Army Reserve commissioned officer. Large organizations are bureaucracies for good reasons, and to make them work, you have to understand them. It is NOT a job for an amateur - or for a Presidential campaign advance man.

[Thanks to Talking points memo]