Testimony before the Senate Homeland 

Security and Governmental Affairs 

Committee

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 9:30 a.m. EST 

March 8, 2006 HURRICANE KATRINA

GAO’s Preliminary 

Observations Regarding 

Preparedness, Response, 

and Recovery 

Statement of David M. Walker 

Comptroller General of the United States 

GAO-06-442T 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

March 8, 2006

HURRICANE KATRINA:

GAO's Preliminary Observations 

Regarding Preparedness, Response, and 

Recovery 

Highlights of GAO-06-442T, a testimony 

before the Senate Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs Committee 

The size and strength of Hurricane 

Katrina resulted in one of the 

largest natural disasters in our 

nation’s history. Hurricane Katrina 

raised major questions about our 

nation’s readiness and ability to 

respond to catastrophic disasters.

Hurricane Rita increased demands

on an already stressed response

and recovery effort by all levels of 

government. The two hurricanes

provided a sobering picture of the 

overwhelming strains on response 

and recovery if there are back-toback catastrophic disasters in the 

same area. GAO has a large body of

ongoing work on a range of issues 

relating to all phases of the 

preparation, response, recovery, 

and rebuilding efforts related to 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

What GAO Recommends

Today, we are making several 

recommendations to help reform 

the nation’s emergency 

preparedness, response, and 

recovery system. For example, 

these include clarifying the roles 

and responsibilities of key federal 

officials, clarifying various aspects 

of the National Response Plan, and 

strengthening planning and

response capabilities. 

Significant government and private resources were mobilized to respond to 

the hurricanes. However, these capabilities were clearly overwhelmed and 

there was widespread dissatisfaction with the results. Many of the lessons 

emerging from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are similar to those we identified 

more than a decade ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, 

which leveled much of South Florida. Four major issues have emerged from 

our preliminary work: 

• The preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina are similar to lessons 

learned from past catastrophic disasters. These include the critical 

importance of (1) clearly defining and communicating leadership roles, 

responsibilities, and lines of authority for catastrophic response in 

advance of such events, (2) clarifying the procedures for activating the 

National Response Plan and applying them to emerging catastrophic 

disasters, (3) conducting strong advance planning and robust training 

and exercise programs, and (4) strengthening response and recovery

capabilities for a catastrophic disaster.

• A risk management decision making approach is vital to develop the 

nation’s capabilities and expertise to respond to a catastrophic disaster. 

Given the likely costs, Congress should consider using such an approach 

in deciding how best to invest in specific capabilities for a catastrophic 

disaster. 

• Because of FEMA’s mission performance during Hurricane Katrina, 

concerns have been raised regarding the agency’s organizational 

placement, including whether it should be disbanded and functions 

moved to other agencies, remain within the Department of Homeland 

Security, or become an independent agency. However, other factors such 

as leadership and resources may be more important to FEMA’s future 

success than organizational placement.

• Lastly, the federal government will be a major partner in the longer-term 

rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, supporting state and local efforts. The 

federal role in rebuilding will be particularly important for transportation 

and health infrastructures and federal facilities. In addition, federal 

programs will face financial difficulties and there is uncertainty about 

catastrophic losses affecting the availability and affordability of 

insurance. Long term rebuilding raises issues concerning the need for 

consensus on what rebuilding should be done, who will pay for what, 

and what oversight is needed to ensure federal funds are spent for their 

intended purposes. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-442T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Norman J. 

Rabkin at (202) 512-8777 or

rabkinn@gao.gov. 
Page 1 GAO-06-442T 

Madame Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing to discuss our 

work stemming from the catastrophic hurricanes in the Gulf Coast last fall. 

GAO has a large body of ongoing work on a range of issues relating to all 

phases of the preparation, response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts 

related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We currently have nearly 

40 different engagements underway. Consequently, my remarks today are 

preliminary, but well grounded in the work we have done to-date as well 

as our completed work on prior disasters and catastrophes. We also 

recently provided to this committee a summary of the views of several 

groups regarding potential changes to the national emergency response 

system. In the coming months, we will provide Congress with more 

detailed findings, and a comprehensive summary of what went well and 

why, what did not go well and why, and what specific changes, if any, are 

called for in this nation’s emergency preparedness, response, and recovery 

system. In addition, based on the work reflected in our recent testimony 

before the committee on fraud and abuse related to the Individuals and 

Households Program, we plan to issue recommendations to FEMA 

intended to strengthen fraud prevention controls over the process for 

applying for disaster benefits, including validating an individual’s identity 

and damaged property address.1

Hurricane Katrina was one of the largest natural disasters in our nation’s 

history; its size and strength will have long standing effects for years to 

come. It exacted terrible human costs with the loss of significant numbers 

of lives and resulted in billions of dollars in property damage. The fact that 

Hurricane Rita followed closely on the heels of Hurricane Katrina only 

added to the destruction and suffering. It also increased demands of an 

already stressed response and recovery effort by all levels of government, 

especially in Louisiana. Moreover, the two hurricanes provided a sobering 

picture of the overwhelming strains on disaster response and recovery if 

there are back-to-back catastrophic disasters in the same area. 

Significant local, state, and federal resources were mobilized to respond to 

the Hurricane Katrina disaster, along with significant participation from 

charitable and private sector organizations. However, the capabilities of 

several federal, state, and local agencies were clearly overwhelmed, 

 1

GAO, Expedited Assistance for Victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: FEMA’s 

Control Weaknesses Exposed the Government to Significant Fraud and Abuse. 

GAO-06-403T. (Washington: D.C.: February 13, 2006). 
Page 2 GAO-06-442T 

especially in Louisiana. Therefore, there was widespread dissatisfaction 

with the level of preparedness and the collective response. As events 

unfolded in the immediate aftermath and ensuing days after Hurricane 

Katrina’s final landfall, responders at all levels of government—many 

victims themselves—encountered significant breakdowns in vital areas 

such as emergency communications as well as obtaining essential supplies 

and equipment. 

The causes of these breakdowns must be well understood and addressed 

in order to strengthen the nation’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and 

recover from major catastrophic events in the future—whether natural or 

man-made. Unfortunately, many of the lessons emerging from Hurricanes 

Katrina and Rita are similar to those we identified more than a decade ago, 

in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which leveled much of 

South Florida. The experience of Hurricane Andrew raised questions 

about whether and how national disaster response efforts had 

incorporated lessons from experiences with Hurricane Hugo in 1989. All 

critical players must do much more to learn from past mistakes and 

actually implement recommendations that address prior deficiencies in 

preparing for and responding to catastrophic disasters. However, these 

actions will not be cost-free—posing a range of challenges in determining 

the priority of various action steps and how they will be funded. 

GAO staff have visited areas most affected by Hurricanes Katrina and 

Rita—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. They have interviewed 

officials and analyzed information from the various involved federal 

agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal 

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Defense 

(DOD); state and local organizations, including state emergency 

management agencies; state adjutant generals; local officials; and 

representatives from nongovernmental agencies. I have personally toured 

southern Mississippi, southern Louisiana, and the city of New Orleans. I 

also have had discussions with many governmental and other officials, 

including the governors of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; the 

mayor of New Orleans; the principal federal official on the scene; the joint 

task force commander of active duty forces, and the federal coordinator 

for federal support for the Gulf Coast’s recovery and rebuilding. 

Additionally, we have closely followed the hearings conducted by this 

Committee, the House’s Select Committee to Investigate the Preparation 

for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, and other Congressional 

committees on Hurricane Katrina issues. We have studied the House 

Select Committee report and are carefully reviewing the recently issued 

White House report on lessons learned from the federal response to 
Page 3 GAO-06-442T 

Hurricane Katrina. Finally, we discussed our preliminary observations 

with the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. 

In addition, we have done a great deal of work on prior disasters. In 1993, 

we conducted several reviews examining the federal response to 

Hurricane Andrew. The reviews focused on the unique challenges involved 

in responding to “catastrophic disasters.”2

 These reviews defined 

“catastrophic disasters” as a subset of other disasters requiring federal 

assistance. Unlike the bulk of the disasters requiring FEMA to respond, 

catastrophic disasters can overwhelm the ability of state, local and 

voluntary agencies to adequately provide victims with essential services, 

such as food and water, within 12 to 24 hours. These prior GAO reports 

focused on improving the immediate response to catastrophic disasters, 

and we made various recommendations within this context. We 

recommended that, in a catastrophic disaster, (1) a single individual 

directly responsible and accountable to the President should be 

designated to act as the central focal point to lead and coordinate the 

overall federal response when a catastrophic disaster has happened or is 

imminent, (2) FEMA should immediately establish a disaster unit to 

independently assess damage and estimate response needs following a 

catastrophic disaster, and (3) FEMA should enhance the capacity of state 

and local governments to respond to catastrophic disasters by 

(a) continuing to give them increasing flexibility to match grant funding 

with individual response needs, (b) upgrading training and exercises for 

catastrophic disaster response, and (c) assessing each state’s 

preparedness for catastrophic disaster response. We also recommended 

that Congress should consider (1) giving FEMA and other federal agencies 

explicit authority to take actions to prepare for catastrophic disasters 

when there is warning and (2) removing statutory restrictions on DOD’s 

authority to activate Reserve units for catastrophic disaster relief. 

Unfortunately, some of these recommendations were not adopted or in 

effect when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. We continue to believe, 

for the most part, these recommendations are still viable, as we discuss 

later in this testimony. For example, current DOD strategy calls for 

reliance on the reserve components (National Guard and reserves) for 

civil support missions. Modifying statutory restrictions to allow for the use 

 2

See, for example, GAO, Disaster Management: Improving the Nation’s Response to 

Catastrophic Disasters, GAO-93-186 (Washington, D.C.: July 23, 1993) and GAO, Disaster 

Management: Recent Disasters Demonstrate the Need to Improve the Nation’s Response 

Strategy, GAO-93-46 (Washington, D.C.: May 25, 1993). 
Page 4 GAO-06-442T 

of the reserves for catastrophic disasters would provide greater access to 

Reserve units in the event they are needed for future responses. 

Other work we have conducted related to disaster preparedness and 

management has involved programs to prevent or mitigate disasters or to 

improve the capabilities and readiness of first responders. We have 

identified needed improvements in a number of areas, including 

preparedness for “all-hazards,” balancing efforts to prepare for emergency 

incidents resulting from terrorism and natural disasters or man-made 

accidents; support for training, exercises, evaluations, and disseminating 

lessons learned to first responders; and interoperable communications for 

first responders. Similarly, our work on response to disasters has 

identified a number of problems, such as the lack of clarity of various 

federal, state, and local roles in coordinating the response and medical and 

public health response capabilities. 

Today, I will cover several major areas based on our preliminary work 

related to the 2005 hurricane season. In summary: 

• Four key themes underpin many of the challenges encountered in the 

response to Hurricane Katrina and are similar to lessons learned from past 

catastrophic disasters. These include the central importance of (1) clearly 

defining and communicating leadership roles, responsibilities, and lines of 

authority for response in advance of a catastrophic disaster, (2) clarifying 

the procedures for activating the National Response Plan and applying 

them to emerging catastrophic disasters, (3) conducting strong advance 

planning and robust training and exercise programs, and (4) strengthening 

response and recovery capabilities for a catastrophic disaster. 

• It is vital to have in place a risk management decision making approach to 

develop federal capabilities and the expertise to use them to respond to a 

catastrophic disaster. Given the likely costs, Congress should consider 

using such an approach in deciding how best to invest in specific 

capabilities for a catastrophic disaster. 

• Because of FEMA’s mission performance during Hurricane Katrina, 

concerns have been raised regarding the agency’s organizational 

placement, including whether it should be disbanded and functions moved 

to other agencies, remain within the Department of Homeland Security, or 

again become an independent agency. Importantly, other factors, such as 

the experience and training of FEMA leadership and the adequacy of its 

resources may be more important to FEMA’s future success than its 

organizational placement. 
Page 5 GAO-06-442T 

• Lastly, the federal government will be a major partner in the longer-term 

rebuilding of the Gulf Coast because of the widespread damage and 

economic impact. In support of state and local efforts, the federal role in 

rebuilding will be particularly important for transportation and health care 

infrastructures and federal facilities. In addition, federal programs will 

face financial difficulties and there is uncertainty concerning the impact of 

catastrophic disasters on the availability and affordability of insurance. 

Long term rebuilding raises issues concerning the need for consensus on 

what rebuilding should be done, where and based on what standards, who 

will pay for what, and what oversight is needed to ensure federal funds are 

spent prudently and for their intended purposes. 

There are several federal legislative and executive provisions that support 

preparation for and response to emergency situations. The Robert T. 

Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the Stafford Act)3

primarily establishes the programs and processes for the federal 

government to provide major disaster and emergency assistance to states, 

local governments, tribal nations, individuals, and qualified private 

nonprofit organizations. FEMA has responsibility for administering the 

provisions of the Stafford Act. 

Upon a governor’s request, the President can declare an “emergency” or a 

“major disaster” under the Stafford Act, which triggers specific types of 

federal relief. The Stafford Act defines an emergency as any occasion or 

instance for which, in the determination of the President, federal 

assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities 

to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to 

lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States. 

Under an emergency declaration, the federal government has authority to 

engage in various emergency response activities, debris removal, 

temporary housing assistance, and the distribution of medicine, food, and 

other consumables. The Stafford Act places a $5 million limit on federal 

emergency assistance, but the President may exceed the limit, followed by 

a report to Congress. 

The Stafford Act defines a “major disaster” as any natural catastrophe or, 

regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the United 

States, which the President determines causes damage of sufficient 

 3

42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206. 

Background 
Page 6 GAO-06-442T 

severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under the 

Stafford Act to supplement the efforts and available resources of states, 

local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating damage, 

loss, hardship, or suffering. Under a major disaster declaration, the federal 

government has the authority to engage in the same activities authorized 

under an emergency declaration, but without the $5 million ceiling. In 

addition, major disaster assistance includes a variety of assistance not 

available in the context of an emergency. For example, in a major disaster, 

the federal government may provide unemployment assistance, food 

coupons to low-income households, and repair, restoration and 

replacement of certain damaged facilities, among other things. 

For Hurricane Katrina, the President issued emergency declarations under 

the Stafford Act for Louisiana on August 27, 2005 and Mississippi and 

Alabama on August 28, 2005. The President made major disaster 

declarations for Florida on August 28, 2005, and Louisiana, Mississippi, 

and Alabama on August 29, 2005, the same day that Hurricane Katrina 

made final landfall in the affected states. 

The Homeland Security Act of 20024

 required the newly established DHS to 

develop a comprehensive National Incident Management System (NIMS) 

and a comprehensive National Response Plan (NRP). NIMS is intended to 

provide a consistent framework for incident management at all 

jurisdictional levels regardless of the cause, size, or complexity of the 

situation and to define the roles and responsibilities of federal, state, and 

local governments, and various first responder disciplines at each level 

during an emergency event. NIMS established the Incident Command 

System (ICS) as a standard incident management organization with five 

functional areas—command, operations, planning, logistics, and 

finance/administration—for management of all major incidents. It also 

prescribes interoperable communications systems and preparedness 

before an incident happens, including planning, training, and exercises. 

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 also required DHS to consolidate 

existing federal government emergency response plans into a single, 

coordinated national response plan. In December 2004, DHS issued the 

National Response Plan (NRP), intended to be an all-discipline, all-hazards 

plan establishing a single, comprehensive framework for the management 

of domestic incidents where federal involvement is necessary. It is to 

 4

Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (2002). 
Page 7 GAO-06-442T 

operate within the framework of NIMS. The NRP only applies to incidents 

of national significance, defined as an actual or potential high-impact 

event that requires a coordinated and effective response by an appropriate 

combination of federal, state, local, tribal, nongovernmental, and/or 

private-sector entities in order to save lives and minimize damage, and 

provide the basis for long-term community recovery and mitigation 

activities. The NRP does not apply to the majority of incidents occurring 

each year that are handled by local jurisdictions or agencies through 

established authorities and existing plans under the planning assumption 

that incidents are typically managed at the lowest possible geographic, 

organizational, and jurisdictional level. 

The NRP states that the Secretary of Homeland Security, as the principal 

federal official for domestic incident management, designates incidents of 

national significance, pursuant to the criteria in Homeland Security 

Presidential Directive 5 (HSPD-5). HSPD-5 requires one or more of the 

following to qualify as an incident of national significance: 

(1) a federal department or agency acting under its own authority has 

requested the assistance of the Secretary of Homeland Security, (2) the 

resources of state and local authorities are overwhelmed and federal 

assistance has been requested by the appropriate state and local 

authorities,5

 (3) more than one federal department or agency has become 

substantially involved in responding to an incident, or (4) the Secretary of 

Homeland Security has been directed to assume responsibility for 

managing a domestic incident by the President. 

The Secretary of Homeland Security provides overall coordination for 

incidents of national significance. Under the NRP, a principal federal 

official (PFO) is to be personally designated by the Secretary of Homeland 

Security for a particular incident and is to be the primary point of contact 

and provide local situational awareness for the secretary. Under the NRP, 

the PFO is to coordinate the activities of the senior federal law 

enforcement official for the incident, the federal coordinating officer 

(FCO) who manages and coordinates federal resource support activities 

related to Stafford Act disasters and emergencies, and other federal 

officials involved in incident management activities acting under their own 

authorities. The PFO does not have directive authority over these officials, 

but is to play a coordinating function under the NRP. The Stafford Act 

 5

The NRP notes that major disasters and emergencies under the Stafford Act are examples 

of this criterion. 
Page 8 GAO-06-442T 

requires that a FCO be appointed to coordinate relief for major disasters 

and emergencies declared by the President. The FCO retains this 

coordination authority notwithstanding the appointment of a PFO under 

the NRP. 

The NRP can be partially or fully implemented in anticipation of or in 

response to an incident of national significance. The NRP base plan 

includes planning assumptions, roles and responsibilities, concept of 

operations, and incident management actions. Annexes (i.e. appendixes) 

to the NRP provide more detailed information on emergency support 

functions such as transportation and communications and functional 

processes and administrative requirements such as financial management 

and international coordination. Incident annexes address contingency or 

hazard situations that require specialized application of the NRP for 

incidents of national significance. 

The Catastrophic Incident Annex of the NRP references “catastrophic 

incidents.” The NRP defines a catastrophic incident as any natural or 

manmade incident, including terrorism, resulting in extraordinary levels of 

mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, 

infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or 

government functions. A catastrophic incident could result in sustained 

national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately 

exceeds resources normally available to state, local, tribal, and privatesector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts 

governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that 

national security could be threatened. 

The Catastrophic Incident Annex describes an accelerated, proactive 

national response to catastrophic incidents. The annex establishes 

protocols to pre-identify and rapidly deploy key essential resources that 

are expected to be urgently needed or required to save lives and contain 

incidents. Expedited assistance can be provided in one or more areas, 

such as mass care, housing, human services, urban search and rescue, and 

public health and medical support. 

A draft of a more detailed and operationally specific Catastrophic Incident 

Supplement for the NRP’s Catastrophic Incident Annex had not been 

approved at the time of Hurricane Katrina, although the NRP’s 120-day 

schedule for implementing the supplement had passed. The draft 

supplement is intended to provide the operational framework for 

implementing the annex. The draft supplement, for example, includes 

operations to be carried out by local, state, and federal responders; 
Page 9 GAO-06-442T 

detailed execution schedules and implementation strategies; functional 

capability overviews (such as coverage for transportation support); and 

key responsibilities of federal departments and agencies. The draft 

supplement language says it is designed for catastrophic incidents that 

occur with little or no notice, without an opportunity for advance planning 

and positioning of resources. The Secretary of Homeland Security is to 

make a catastrophic incident designation to activate the provisions of the 

Catastrophic Incident Annex. Otherwise, the basic provisions of the NRP 

will apply to the incident. The Secretary of Homeland Security declared 

Hurricane Katrina an incident of national significance on August 30, 2005, 

but never declared it a catastrophic incident. 

I will now turn to the four major topics I identified at the beginning of my 

testimony. 

Four key themes, based on our preliminary work, underpin many of the 

challenges encountered in the response to Hurricane Katrina and reflect 

certain lessons learned from past catastrophes. These are generally 

consistent with the themes I highlighted in a statement to the House Select 

Committee.6

 They include the central importance of (1) clearly defining 

and communicating leadership roles, responsibilities, and lines of 

authority for the response at all levels in advance of a catastrophic 

disaster, (2) clarifying the procedures for activating the National Response 

Plan and applying them to emerging catastrophic disasters, (3) conducting 

strong advance planning and robust training and exercise programs to test 

these plans in advance of a real disaster, and (4) strengthening response 

and recovery capabilities for a catastrophic disaster, including those such 

as emergency communications, continuity of essential government 

services, and logistics and distribution systems underpinning citizen safety 

and security. They have been among the topics covered in this committee’s 

hearings and were also highlighted among the many factors in the House 

Select Committee report and the White House report. 

 6

GAO, Statement by Comptroller General David M. Walker on GAO’s Preliminary 

Observations Regarding Preparedness and Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 

GAO-06-365R (Washington, D.C.: February 1, 2006). 

Leadership, Planning, 

Exercises, and 

Capabilities Underpin 

Catastrophic 

Preparation, 

Response, and 

Recovery 
Page 10 GAO-06-442T 

In the event of a catastrophic disaster, the leadership roles, 

responsibilities, and lines of authority for the response at all levels must be 

clearly defined and effectively communicated in order to facilitate rapid 

and effective decision making, especially in preparing for and in the early 

hours and days after the disaster. During incidents of national significance, 

including catastrophic disasters, the overall coordination of federal 

incident management activities is executed through the Secretary of 

Homeland Security. Other federal departments and agencies are to 

cooperate with the secretary in the secretary’s domestic incident 

management role. 

There are three key roles in the management of a catastrophic disaster. 

First, the Secretary of Homeland Security provides strategic, national 

leadership. The Secretary of Homeland Security is to act as a focal point 

for natural and manmade crises and emergency planning under the 

provisions of the Homeland Security Act. In addition, HSPD-5, signed by 

the President, also names the secretary as the principal federal official for 

domestic incident management. This is consistent with our 

recommendation in 1993 that a single individual directly responsible and 

accountable to the President should be designated to act as the central 

focal point to lead and coordinate the overall federal response in the event 

of a catastrophic disaster.7

 At the time of our recommendation in 1993, 

FEMA was an independent agency. President Clinton elevated the FEMA 

director to cabinet status in 1996. Subsequent passage of the Homeland 

Security Act established the DHS secretary as the cabinet-level focal point 

for natural and manmade crises and emergency planning. We view this as 

a strategic role to coordinate federal activities and policy from a national 

standpoint and be directly responsible and accountable to the President. 

The second key role is the principal federal official (PFO) whom the 

Secretary of Homeland Security designates to be the secretary’s 

representative under the NRP structure and to coordinate the federal 

response at an operational level. The third role is that of a federal 

coordinating officer (FCO) which, under the Stafford Act, is to coordinate 

relief for major disasters and emergencies declared by the President. 

The Secretary of Homeland Security initially designated the head of FEMA 

as the PFO, who appointed separate FCOs for Alabama, Louisiana, and 

Mississippi for Hurricane Katrina. However, it appeared there were 

 7

GAO-93-46 summarizes GAO work in 1993 that contains this recommendation. 

Leadership Roles, 

Responsibilities, and Lines 

of Authority Must Be 

Clearly Defined and 

Communicated in Advance 

of Catastrophic Disasters 
Page 11 GAO-06-442T 

shifting roles and responsibilities of the players in all 3 of these roles. Our 

initial field work indicated this resulted in disjointed efforts of many 

federal agencies involved in the response, a myriad of approaches and 

processes for requesting and providing assistance, and confusion about 

who should be advised of requests and what resources would be provided 

within specific time frames. 

The House Select Committee also found difficulties with roles and 

responsibilities, including federal officials’ unfamiliarity with their roles 

and responsibilities under the NRP and NIMS. The White House has made 

numerous recommendations, including revising the NRP to address 

situations that render state and local governments incapable of an 

effective response, giving the PFO the authority to execute responsibilities 

and coordinate federal response assets, and requiring agencies to develop 

integrated operational plans, procedures, and capabilities for their support 

to the base NRP and the NRP’s emergency support functions and support 

annexes. 

Consistent with the provisions of the Homeland Security Act and the 

Stafford Act, we recommend that DHS clarify and communicate the roles 

of the secretary, the PFO, and the FCO. If legislative changes are 

considered, the roles and responsibilities should be clarified accordingly. 

The NRP distinguishes between incidents that require DHS coordination, 

termed Incidents of National Significance, and the majority of incidents 

occurring each year, such as snow storms, that are handled by responsible 

jurisdictions or agencies through other established authorities and plans. 

However, the NRP is not clear regarding what triggers an incident of 

national significance. To illustrate this ambiguity, the NRP’s Planning 

Assumptions provide that “all presidentially-declared disasters and 

emergencies under the Stafford Act are considered Incidents of National 

Significance,” indicating that they do not need to be declared as such by 

the Secretary of Homeland Security. Elsewhere, the NRP suggest that the 

Secretary must formally declare an incident of national significance in 

consultation with other department and agencies, as appropriate. 

The question of how and when an event becomes an incident of national 

significance was also raised in the White House report on the federal 

response to Hurricane Katrina. According to the White House report, the 

NRP did not make clear whether the secretary must formally declare an 

incident of national significance or, alternatively, whether such an incident 

is automatically triggered when one or more of the HSPD-5 criteria 

Procedures for Activating 

the NRP and Applying It to 

Emerging Catastrophic 

Disasters Should Be 

Clarified 
Page 12 GAO-06-442T 

(discussed on page 7) are satisfied, including when the President declares 

a disaster or emergency under the Stafford Act. In addition, the White 

House report questioned whether an event becomes an incident of 

national significance simply by satisfying an HSPD-5 criterion, or whether 

additional considerations apply. The White House report observed that 

since the NRP was adopted in December 2004, many parts of the NRP had 

been used to various degrees and magnitudes for thirty declared Stafford 

Act events to coordinate Federal assistance. Yet, the Secretary of 

Homeland Security had never formally declared an Incident of National 

Significance until Tuesday, August 30, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina made 

final landfall. 

We agree that the process and operational consequences of declaring an 

incident of national significance should be further defined and clarified. 

Without such clarification of the NRP, confusion will persist regarding 

DHS’s activation of the NRP. We therefore recommend that DHS clarify 

the NRP regarding whether the Secretary of Homeland Security must 

formally declare an incident of national significance to activate the NRP, 

and, if not, whether the secretary must take any specific actions when the 

President, in effect, activates the NRP by declaring a Stafford Act 

emergency or major disaster. 

In addition, we believe that the NRP’s provisions regarding the proactive 

response of the federal government to emerging catastrophic incidents 

should be clarified. As I stated earlier, the NRP includes a Catastrophic 

Incident Annex that describes an accelerated, proactive national response 

to catastrophic incidents and establishes protocols to pre-identify and 

rapidly deploy essential resources that are expected to be urgently needed 

to save lives and contain incidents. At the time of Hurricane Katrina, a 

draft of a more detailed and operationally specific Catastrophic Incident 

Supplement to the annex had not been approved. Under the language of 

the draft supplement, the annex would only apply to no-notice or shortnotice catastrophic incidents, not incidents that may evolve or mature to 

catastrophic magnitude, which could be the case with strengthening 

hurricanes. 

Because it is possible to respond to incidents maturing to catastrophic 

magnitude in a more proactive manner than surprise catastrophic 

incidents, it does not make sense to exclude evolving catastrophic 

incidents from the scope of the annex’s coverage. The White House report 

on the federal response to Hurricane Katrina also questioned this 

exclusion. As the White House report states, “Ultimately, when a 

catastrophic incident occurs, regardless of whether the catastrophe has 

been a warned or is a surprise event, the Federal government should not 
Page 13 GAO-06-442T 

rely on the traditional layered approach and instead should proactively 

provide, or ‘push,’ its capabilities and assistance directly to those in need.” 

A proactive approach to catastrophic disasters when there is warning is 

also in keeping with recommendations we made in 1993 following 

Hurricane Andrew. At that time, from an administrative perspective, we 

recommended that FEMA improve its catastrophic disaster response 

capability by using existing authority to aggressively respond to 

catastrophic disasters, assessing the extent of the damage, and then 

advising state and local officials of identified needs and the federal 

resources available to address them. From a legislative standpoint, we 

recommended that Congress should consider giving federal agencies 

explicit authority to take actions to prepare for catastrophic disasters 

when there is warning. We continue to believe that actions such as these 

are warranted.

Madame Chairman, to increase the ability of the nation to prepare for, 

respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters such as Hurricane 

Katrina, there should be strong advance planning, both within and among 

responder organizations, as well as robust training and exercise programs 

to test these plans in advance of a real disaster. By their very nature, 

catastrophic disasters involve extraordinary levels of mass casualties, 

damage, or disruption that likely will immediately overwhelm state and 

local responders, circumstances that make sound planning for 

catastrophic events all the more crucial. Our previous work on Hurricane 

Andrew highlighted the importance of such plans to focus specifically on 

catastrophic disasters. 

Our initial review of the NRP base plan and its supporting catastrophic 

annex as well as lessons based on Hurricane Katrina suggest that planning 

must be strengthened to implement their provisions. Therefore, we 

recommend that these documents should be supported and supplemented 

by more detailed and robust operational implementation plans. Such 

operational plans should, for example, further define and leverage any 

military capabilities as might be needed in a catastrophic disaster. Prior 

catastrophic disasters and the actual experience of Hurricane Katrina 

show that DOD is likely to contribute substantial support to state and local 

authorities, including search and rescue assets, evacuation assistance, 

provision of supplies, damage assessment assets, and possibly helping to 

ensure public safety. More detailed planning would provide greater 

visibility and understanding of the types of support DOD will be expected 

to provide following a catastrophic event, including the types of assistance 

Planning, Training, and 

Exercises Can Aid 

Preparation for 

Catastrophic Disasters 
Page 14 GAO-06-442T 

and capabilities that might be provided, what might be done proactively 

and in response to specific requests, and how the efforts of the active duty 

and National Guard would be integrated. We will be making several 

recommendations to DOD to enhance its planning and response for future 

events, in the areas of identifying specific active duty and National Guard 

capabilities that would likely be available to respond to a catastrophe, and 

integrating the active duty and National Guard response including Guard 

units within and outside of the affected state. Planning also must explicitly 

consider the need for, and management of, the contractor community. 

In addition, regular training and periodic exercises provide a valuable way 

to test emergency management plans. In our previous work on Hurricanes 

Andrew and Hugo, we identified the need for the federal government to 

upgrade training and exercises for state and local governments specifically 

geared towards catastrophic disaster response. Hurricane Katrina 

demonstrated the potential benefits of applying lessons learned from 

training exercises and experiences with actual hurricanes as well as the 

dangers of ignoring them. During our initial fieldwork, we found examples 

of how an incomplete understanding of NRP and NIMS roles and 

responsibilities could lead to misunderstandings, problems, and delays. 

For example, we were told in Louisiana that in one city there did not 

appear to be clarity in roles and responsibilities, with officials not knowing 

what federal agencies were responsible for. In one example in Mississippi, 

we were told that county and city officials were not implementing NIMS 

due to a lack of understanding of its provisions. 

A November 2005 report by DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) on 

the April 2005 “Top Officials 3 Exercise” noted that the exercise 

highlighted—at all levels of government—a fundamental lack of 

understanding regarding the principles and protocols set forth in the NRP 

and NIMS, including confusion over the different roles and responsibilities 

performed by the PFO and FCO. The report recommended that DHS 

continue to train and exercise NRP and NIMS at all levels of government 

and develop operating procedures that clearly define individual and 

organizational roles and responsibilities under the NRP. We would see this 

training and exercising effort as recognizing the role of joint decision 

making and not result in a centralized, top-down process. 

The 2004 “Hurricane Pam” planning exercise illustrates the benefits and 

consequences of applying and not applying lessons learned from training 

exercises and experiences with actual hurricanes for future catastrophic 

disasters. This catastrophic hurricane exercise, sponsored by FEMA, was 

to develop a response and recovery plan for a major hurricane that floods 
Page 15 GAO-06-442T 

New Orleans and the surrounding parishes and to identify any issues that 

could not be resolved based on current capabilities. The weather scenario 

involved a slow moving category 3 hurricane sustaining 120 mph winds at 

landfall and generating a storm surge that inundated New Orleans under 

15 to 20 feet of water. In addition to widespread flooding, the exercise 

posed impacts of extensive evacuations and the resulting need to shelter 

thousands of individuals left homeless after the storm, disposing of tons of 

debris, and recreating school systems. We were told in Louisiana that the 

exercise anticipated many of the events transpiring as the result of 

Hurricane Katrina. The Hurricane Pam exercise and other planning 

activities resulted in some action, but others were incomplete. For 

example, efforts to finalize agreements with hospital and university 

officials to create temporary medical operations staging areas around the 

state did occur. Louisiana revised its contraflow evacuation plan. 

However, plans for evacuating those with special needs and post-landfall 

care and evacuation had not been finalized by the time Hurricane Katrina 

made landfall. The House Select Committee also noted that the Hurricane 

Pam exercise reflected recognition by all levels of government of the 

dangers of a category 4 or 5 hurricane striking New Orleans. 

The White House has made several recommendations regarding planning 

and exercises to improve the response to catastrophic disasters such as 

Hurricane Katrina. For example, the White House recommends that all 

federal departments and agencies should develop emergency plans and a 

response capability. Other White House recommendations are intended to 

strengthen training, exercises, and lessons learned. To illustrate, 

recommendations cover (1) strengthening Homeland Security Council 

coordination of federal emergency training, exercises, and lessons learned, 

(2) DHS conducting state and local officials’ training and exercises, and 

(3) DHS establishing a national exercise and evaluation program. The 

White House also recommended development of a comprehensive 

homeland security professional development and education program. 

We recommend that DHS provide strong oversight of federal, state, and 

local planning, training, and exercises to ensure such activities fully 

support preparedness, response, and recovery responsibilities at a 

jurisdictional and regional basis. This should also include applying lessons 

learned from actual major and catastrophic disasters. We will soon be 

starting work examining DHS’s catastrophic planning initiatives, including 

Hurricane Pam, in order to help identify more specific recommendations. 
Page 16 GAO-06-442T 

The experience with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita highlights critical 

emergency management capabilities that must be ramped up from normal 

disaster management levels. Our preliminary work suggests that while 

many organizations provided significant support in these areas during the 

response and recovery efforts, several key capabilities were not available 

when needed or with the quantity or quality needed. When catastrophic 

disaster occurs, significantly more capabilities—in terms of quantity and 

quality—are needed. Our work is beginning to identify many examples of 

where the lack of additional response or recovery capabilities, or the delay 

in getting these capabilities to where they were needed, caused extended 

suffering. 

I want to emphasize that across these capabilities, streamlining, 

simplifying, and expediting decision making should quickly replace 

“business as usual” and the unquestioned following of long-standing 

policies and operating procedures. We were told of many examples where 

quick action could not occur as agencies followed procedures that 

required extensive, time-consuming processes, delaying the delivery of 

vital supplies and other assistance. When there is a catastrophic disaster, 

temporarily suspending certain rules and regulations may be necessary in 

order to expedite relief and recovery of the affected area, even if such a 

suspension requires legislation. The key is to recognize when flexibility is 

needed to meet response and recovery needs in a catastrophic disaster. 

Continuity of essential government operations: Hurricane Katrina 

exposed difficulties in continuing essential government operations, 

particularly at the local level. In the devastated areas, local government 

infrastructure was destroyed and essential government employees, 

including many first responders, were evacuated or victimized by the 

storms. Local officials in Mississippi and Louisiana told us of cases where 

there was limited continuity of operations for public safety and service 

agencies because both structures and equipment were destroyed or too 

damaged to use. For example, one Mississippi county lost all of its public 

buildings located south of Interstate 10. We were also told criminal justice 

facilities in New Orleans and St Bernard parishes were disabled as both 

jurisdictions had to evacuate jails damaged by flood waters. 

Emergency telecommunications: Agencies affected by a catastrophic 

disaster must first be operable, with sufficient communications to meet 

everyday internal and emergency communication requirements. Once 

operable, they then should have communications interoperability whereby 

public safety agencies (police, fire, EMS) and service agencies (public 

works, transportation, hospitals, etc.) can communicate within and across 

Emergency Management 

Capabilities Require 

Greater Emphasis for 

Catastrophic Response 

and Recovery 
Page 17 GAO-06-442T 

agencies and jurisdictions in real time. The storms significantly damaged 

or destroyed communications infrastructure affecting public safety and 

security in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. This is an area where 

military capabilities can be utilized. 

Our work on interoperable communications identified problem definition, 

performance goals and standards, and defining the roles of federal, state, 

local government and other entities as the three principal challenges to 

achieving effective interoperable communications for first responders. The 

single greatest barrier to addressing the decades-old problems of 

interoperable communications has been the lack of effective, 

collaborative, interdisciplinary, and intergovernmental planning. No one 

first-responder group or governmental agency can “fix” the 

interoperability problems that face the nation. We believe that our 2004 

recommendations to the Secretary of DHS are still appropriate: (1) work 

with the Federal Communications Commission to develop a nationwide 

database of interoperable communications frequencies and a common 

nomenclature so that first responders from different disciplines and 

jurisdictions can quickly identify shared frequencies when arriving at the 

scene of an incident; (2) establish interoperability requirements whose 

achievement can be measured; and (3) through grants, encourage states to 

establish statewide bodies that will develop a comprehensive statewide 

interoperable communications plan and condition the purchase of new 

equipment on the adoption of such a plan. 

Damage and needs assessment: Damage and needs assessment is the 

capability to immediately conduct damage assessments of infrastructure 

and to estimate services needed by disaster victims. The scope of the 

devastation and the flooding in the New Orleans area made a 

comprehensive damage assessment and estimate of services victims might 

need very difficult. Clearly, the military has significant capability through a 

range of reconnaissance aircraft and satellite imagery. However, while 

some capabilities were employed, there had been no advance planning 

among federal, state, and local responders as to how DOD would provide 

these capabilities in the event of a catastrophic disaster. 

Logistics: Logistics is the capability to identify, dispatch, mobilize, and 

demobilize and to accurately track and record available critical resources 

throughout all incident management phases. Our early work indicates that 

logistics systems were often totally overwhelmed by Hurricane Katrina. 

The result was that critical resources apparently were not available, 

properly distributed, or provided in a timely manner. In addition, 

acquisition efforts, while noteworthy given the scope of Hurricane Katrina, 
Page 18 GAO-06-442T 

indicated agencies needed additional capabilities to (1) adequately 

anticipate requirements for needed goods and services, (2) clearly 

communicate responsibilities across agencies and jurisdictions, and 

(3) deploy sufficient numbers of personnel to provide contractor 

oversight.8

Evacuation: This capability involves evacuation to areas of safe refuge in 

response to a potential or actual dangerous environment. Our early work 

indicated that some evacuations were considered successful, but others 

encountered serious challenges, including evacuating special needs 

populations. Evacuating those in hospitals and nursing homes due to 

Hurricane Katrina posed a special challenge. For example, although the 

National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) is a mechanism through which 

the federal government can provide assistance with patient evacuations, 

NDMS has agreements with hospitals only and does not address the needs 

of nursing homes.9

Search and rescue: Search and rescue is the capability to coordinate and 

conduct urban search and rescue response efforts for all hazards. Search 

and rescue also requires a seamless transition from rescue to safe shelter. 

The Coast Guard, state and local agencies, and military assets rescued 

thousands in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, particularly in 

New Orleans, those rescued may have been taken to high ground where, 

because of flooding or roadway blockage, they spent hours or days 

without shelter, food, or water. 

Mass care (housing and human services): This is the capability to 

provide immediate shelter, feeding centers, basic first aid, bulk 

distribution of needed items, and related services to persons affected by a 

large-scale incident, including special needs populations such as those 

with physical or mental disabilities that need additional attention. 

Charities and other organizations such as government agencies that 

provide human services, supported by various federal programs, helped 

meet the mass care needs of the hundreds of thousands of evacuees. 

However, because the American Red Cross does not establish shelters in 

 8

GAO, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Preliminary Observations on Contracting for 

Response and Recovery Efforts, GAO-06-246T (Washington, D.C.: November 8, 2005). 

9

For additional information, see GAO, Disaster Preparedness: Preliminary Observations 

on the Evacuation of Hospitals and Nursing Homes Due to Hurricanes, GAO-06-443R 

(Washington, D.C.: February 16, 2006). 
Page 19 GAO-06-442T 

areas that might become flooded or in structures that could be 

compromised by strong winds, some Gulf Coast areas did not have 

sufficient shelter facilities.10

Volunteer management and donations: Volunteer management and 

donations is the capability to effectively manage and deploy volunteers 

and unsolicited donations. Federal and charity organization officials we 

spoke to indicated that because of the catastrophic nature of the storms, 

volunteers and donations, in some cases, were not well integrated into 

response and recovery activities. In addition, federal agencies involved in 

managing the international assistance were not prepared to coordinate, 

receive, distribute, or account for the assistance. Agency officials involved 

in the cash and in-kind assistance told us the agencies were not prepared 

to accept international assistance for use in the United States and, 

therefore, developed ad hoc processes to address this scenario. We will be 

making several recommendations to the Departments of Homeland 

Security, Defense, and State to improve preparedness in these areas. 

Restoration of lifelines: Restoration of lifelines is the capability to 

manage clearing and restoration activities such as demolition, repair, 

reconstruction, and restoration of essential gas, electric, oil, 

communications, water, wastewater and sewer, transportation and 

transportation infrastructure, and other utilities. Because of the mass 

devastation, restoration is proceeding slowly. 

Economic assistance and services: Economic assistance and services is 

the capability to meet the demands for cash assistance, human services 

programs, educational services, and family and child welfare services. Our 

preliminary work indicated that a number of federal and state programs 

provided assistance and services to eligible individuals and families before 

the catastrophic disaster. Significant ongoing assistance after the 

catastrophic disaster has also been required. 

Secretary Chertoff has announced plans to emphasize several of these 

capabilities in the near term. For example, DHS will acquire a hardened 

set of communications capabilities, including equipment and specialized 

reconnaissance teams to improve awareness about conditions and events 

unfolding during a disaster. It was clear that DHS did not have adequate 

 10GAO, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Provision of Charitable Assistance, GAO-06-297T 

(Washington, D.C.: December 13, 2005). 
Page 20 GAO-06-442T 

situational awareness of how Hurricane Katrina-caused conditions were 

worsening and thus required additional federal response. As was noted 

during a hearing before this committee, technological advances should 

provide the capability to prevent or significantly reduce “the fog of war” 

during a catastrophe. The secretary also has announced plans for better 

logistics and debris removal capabilities. 

The House Select Committee had findings in several of these areas, such 

as medical care and evacuations, communications, emergency shelter and 

temporary housing, and logistics and contracting systems. The White 

House devoted a large number of its recommendations to capabilities. For 

example, White House recommendations cover (1) developing a National 

Emergency Communications Strategy and a modern, flexible, and 

transparent logistics system, (2) reviewing and revising the NRP to ensure 

effective integration of all federal search and rescue assets during disaster 

response, (3) strengthening public health and medical command for 

federal disaster response, and (4) assigning responsibility for coordinating 

the provision of human services during disasters to the Department of 

Health and Human Services. 

Addressing these four themes—leadership; the clarity of the NRP; advance 

planning, training, and exercises; and strengthening capabilities for 

catastrophic events—will require developing priorities and making tradeoffs, given finite resources. A risk management framework could aid 

agency and congressional decision making on these issues. 

It is vital to have in place a risk management decision making approach to 

develop federal capabilities and the expertise to use them to respond to a 

catastrophic disaster. Given the likely costs, Congress should consider 

using such an approach in deciding whether and how to invest in specific 

capabilities for a catastrophic disaster. 

Planning for a 

Catastrophic Disaster 

Calls for a Risk 

Management 

Approach 
Page 21 GAO-06-442T 

We have advocated a comprehensive risk management approach as a 

framework for decision making.11 Risk involves three elements: (1) threat, 

the probability that a specific type of event will occur; (2) the vulnerability 

of people and specific assets to that particular event; and (3) the adverse 

consequences that would result from the particular event should it occur. 

Another closely related element is criticality, that is, the relative 

importance of the assets involved, such as equipment, facilities, and 

operations. 

We define risk management as a continuous process of assessing risks, 

taking actions to reduce, where possible, the potential that an adverse 

event will occur; reducing vulnerabilities as appropriate; and putting steps 

in place to reduce the consequences of any event that does occur. Risk 

management addresses risks before mitigating actions have been applied, 

as well as risk that remains after countermeasures have been taken. A risk 

management framework links strategic goals to plans and budgets, 

assesses the value and risks of various courses of actions as a tool for 

setting priorities and allocating resources, and provides for the use of 

performance measures to assess outcomes and adjust future actions as 

needed. The goal of risk management is to integrate systematic concern 

for risk into the normal cycle of agency decision making and 

implementation. 

Risk management can be central to assessing the risk for catastrophic 

disasters. Our risk management framework calls for the management of 

risk based on careful analysis of all available risk information, 

identification of alternatives for reducing risks through preparation and 

response, selection among those alternatives, implementing choices, 

monitoring their implementation, and continually using new information 

to adjust and revise the assessments and actions as needed, all within 

available resources. As I mentioned earlier, we have identified several key 

capabilities that may be needed in the event of a catastrophic disaster such 

as emergency telecommunications, damage and needs assessment, and 

logistics. Given that resources are finite, the administration and Congress 

should consider using a risk management approach in deciding whether 

and how to invest in specific capabilities for a catastrophic disaster. 

 11A summary of GAO’s risk management framework specifically related to homeland 

security and combating terrorism can be found in GAO, Risk Management: Further 

Refinements Needed to Assess Risks and Prioritize Protective Measures at Ports and 

Other Critical Infrastructure, GAO-06-91 (Washington, D.C.: December 15, 2005). 

Risk Management Is A 

Continuous Process 

Risk Management Can Aid 

in Investment Decisions 

for a Catastrophic Disaster 
Page 22 GAO-06-442T 

Some of the changes that the government will need to prepare for 

catastrophic disasters are relatively inexpensive. Establishing more robust 

surveillance and warning mechanisms should build on existing systems, 

with communication of known information a key feature. Developing 

more detailed plans for ramping up from a “normal” disaster to a 

catastrophic disaster where warranted will impose additional costs. 

Providing the needed training to ensure the readiness of first responders 

and exercising the catastrophic disaster plans are much more costly 

endeavors, as well as increasing the quantity and quality of the federal 

government’s preparedness and response capabilities. 

A catastrophic disaster may be anticipated based on past history and the 

expectation that there will be another catastrophic disaster. Expectations, 

based on a risk management approach, would call for building basic 

capabilities and contingency planning to leverage other resources in 

anticipation of a likely event. For example, a major earthquake in a major 

metropolitan area in California has occurred in the past, is expected to 

occur at some point in the future, and is likely to cause significant loss of 

life and extensive damage to critical infrastructure. Flooding along the 

Mississippi River also has occurred and would similarly cause widespread 

destruction and disrupt the transport of goods along this major waterway. 

Man-made catastrophic disasters that involve, for example, a nuclear 

power plant or liquefied natural gas installations could cause catastrophic 

damage and deaths across a wide area. 

Developing preparedness for large-scale disasters is part of an overall 

national preparedness effort that should integrate and define what we 

need to do, where and based on what standards, how we should do it, and 

how well we should do it. DHS developed three documents to address 

these needs. The National Response Plan was designed to identify what 

needs to be done, the National Incident Management System describes 

how to manage what needs to be done in response to an emergency 

incident, and the National Preparedness Goal is designed to define how 

well we should do what needs to be done. Hurricane Katrina was the first 

major test of the NRP. 

These three documents, considered as a group, can be one basis for risk 

analyses to assess the most productive and urgent investments in 

emergency preparedness and response capabilities. The National 

Preparedness Goal, whose development was required by Homeland 

Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD-8), is particularly important. DHS 

issued an interim version of the goal in March 2005 and an expanded draft 

Specific Capabilities Can 

Be Identified 
Page 23 GAO-06-442T 

in December 2005. The December 2005 draft National Preparedness Goal 

defines both the 37 major capabilities that first responders should possess 

to prevent, respond, and recover from a wide range of major emergency 

incidents and the most critical tasks associated with these capabilities. 

These critical tasks are appropriately considered in risk analysis. An 

inability to effectively perform these tasks would, by definition, have a 

detrimental impact on effective prevention, response, and recovery 

capabilities. 

To identify the needed capabilities, DHS used 15 National Planning 

Scenarios developed by the President’s Homeland Security Council that 

included 12 terrorist attacks and 3 natural disasters—an earthquake, a 

hurricane, and a pandemic influenza outbreak. According to DHS, the 

planning scenarios are intended to illustrate the scope and magnitude of 

large-scale, catastrophic emergency events for which the nation needs to 

be prepared. Because no single jurisdiction or agency would be expected 

to perform every preparedness task or have every capability to the same 

degree, possession of critical capabilities could involve enhancing and 

maintaining local resources, ensuring access to regional and federal 

resources, or some combination of the two. Risk factors include 

population and population density, the presence of critical infrastructure 

and key resources, and location in high terrorist threat or high risk natural 

disaster areas. The National Preparedness Goal includes seven national 

priorities, including implementing the NIMS and NRP and expanding 

regional collaboration. Those seven priorities are incorporated into DHS’s 

fiscal year 2006 homeland security grant guidance. The guidance also adds 

an eighth priority that emphasizes emergency operations and catastrophic 

planning.

In earlier work on the National Preparedness Goal, we observed that if 

properly planned and executed, the goal and its related products, such as 

program implementation plans and requirements, may help guide the 

development of realistic budget and resource plans for an all-hazards 

national preparedness program.12 However, questions remain regarding 

what should be expected in terms of basic capabilities for most disasters 

compared to the expanded capabilities and mutual aid needed from other 

jurisdictions to meet the demands of a catastrophic disaster. 

 12GAO, Homeland Security: DHS’ Efforts to Enhance First Responders’ All-Hazards 

Capabilities Continue to Evolve, GAO-05-652 (Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2005). 
Page 24 GAO-06-442T 

HSPD-8 called for strengthening preparedness capabilities of federal, state, 

and local entities. However, guidance on implementing the National 

Preparedness Goal appears to have been targeted at state and urban area 

jurisdictions. It does not appear that similar attention has been paid to 

guidance for federal agencies and their progress in supporting the National 

Preparedness Goal’s expectations. Consequently, we recommend that 

DHS should take the lead in strengthening guidance for federal agencies 

and monitoring their efforts to meet the National Preparedness Goal’s 

provisions for federal agencies. 

Our recommendation is consistent with those of the White House. The 

White House has recommended that future preparedness of the federal, 

state, and local authorities should be based on the risk, capabilities, and 

needs structure of the National Preparedness Goal. More specifically, the 

White House recommends that the National Preparedness Goal and its 

target capabilities list should be used, for example, in (1) defining required 

capabilities and what levels of those capabilities are needed, including 

those within the purview of the federal government, (2) developing mutual 

aid agreements and compacts informed by the National Preparedness 

Goal’s requirements, and (3) developing strategies to meet required levels 

of capabilities that prioritize investments on the basis of risk. We have 

work underway to assess if the provisions of the National Preparedness 

Goal will aid catastrophic disaster preparedness and NRP implementation. 

In our work on the National Preparedness Goal, we also observed that 

DHS’s assessment and reporting implementation plan, intended to 

accurately identify the status of capabilities at the state, regional, and local 

levels, is vital for establishing a baseline and providing an ongoing 

feedback loop upon which decisions at multiple levels of government 

about preparedness needs will rest. Assessment of catastrophic disaster 

planning and capability needs will be a critical piece. 

In the conference report to the Department of Homeland Security Fiscal 

Year 2006 Appropriations Act, the conferees directed DHS to report on the 

status of catastrophic planning, including mass evacuation planning in all 

50 states and the 75 largest urban areas.13 In addition, the Safe, 

Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for 

Users required the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of 

 13H. R. Rep. No. 109-241, at 68 (2006). 

A Focus on Assessing 

Planning and Capabilities 

Will Be Critical 
Page 25 GAO-06-442T 

Homeland Security to jointly review and assess federal and state 

evacuation plans for catastrophic hurricanes impacting the Gulf Coast 

Region.14

In response, DHS launched a nationwide review of state, territorial, and 

urban area emergency and evacuation plans. In the first phase of the 

review, each state and territory and urban area was to certify the status of 

its emergency operations plans and identify when plans were last updated 

and exercised. According to the DHS report on the first phase’s results, 56 

states and territories and 72 urban areas responded. Fewer than half of 

those reporting might have adequate planning for a catastrophic disaster. 

Of those jurisdictions reporting that their base plan was consistent with 

federal guidance and voluntary standards, 42 percent of the states and 

territories and 36 percent of urban areas were confident that their plan 

was adequate to manage a catastrophe.15 In a second phase of the review, 

peer review teams are to validate the self-assessments, determine 

requirements for planning assistance, collect best practices, and 

recommend corrective actions. DHS plans to complete these peer reviews 

by the end of April 2006 and report to the President and Congress before 

June 1, 2006. The White House has recommended DHS establish a program 

to measure and assess the effectiveness of preparedness capabilities on an 

annual basis and recommend appropriate adjustments to the National 

Preparedness Goal, capabilities, and yearly priorities for homeland 

security grants. We are currently examining evacuation planning and 

assistance, including the federal role in the emergency evacuation of 

transportation-disadvantaged populations—including the elderly, disabled, 

and low income individuals—and preparedness for the evacuation of 

hospitals and nursing homes. 

Similar to DHS’s overall national preparedness planning, no single state or 

area should be expected to have the same capability to prepare for a 

catastrophic disaster. The stand-up and sustaining of capabilities should 

be based on a risk assessment that would call for examining what 

vulnerabilities from a potential catastrophic disaster require attention and 

how they should be addressed within available resources and with 

contingency planning. Periodic assessments should determine if plans 

 14Pub. L. No. 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144, 1934 (2005). 

15Department of Homeland Security, Nationwide Plan Review Phase 1 Report 

(Washington, D.C.: February 10, 2006). 
Page 26 GAO-06-442T 

remain viable, actual capabilities match planned capabilities, and if 

contingency planning still is appropriate. 

I would suggest that before the Congress and the Administration embark 

on implementing the more expensive aspects of preparing for a 

catastrophic disaster, policymakers should discuss in a timely fashion and 

reach consensus on the following issues: 

• What is known about the likelihood of a catastrophic disaster occurrence 

in specific areas of the nation? For example, what are the odds that more 

category 4 and 5 hurricanes will strike specific areas of the Gulf and East 

Coasts? How likely is it that California or other earthquake-prone areas 

will experience “the big one?” What are the chances that a nuclear plant 

will suffer an incident that results in massive radiation exposure? 

• How vulnerable are the areas that would be affected by these catastrophic 

disasters and what would be the consequences, in terms of human life, 

economic impact, and other generally accepted measures? 

• What are the costs and potential benefits of actions governments can take 

to mitigate the occurrence and consequences of these disasters? For 

example, in the case of catastrophic hurricanes, what are the costs and 

benefits of greater and more precise early warnings, better resourced and 

exercised evacuation plans, more pre-positioned equipment such as 

generators and water, more designated shelters and medical care 

resources, enhanced health care operations, and better mutual aid 

planning and specific agreements? 

• Finally, based on all of the above, what are the most prudent courses of 

action for various levels of government and their partners, such as private 

industry and nongovernmental organizations, in preparing for and 

responding to catastrophic disasters? 

These are not easily answered questions. However, given the enormous 

potential costs and the increasing demands on federal discretionary 

funding, these are some of the questions that policymakers should 

explicitly discuss, reach consensus, and periodically reassess as events 

and considerations change. If federal funds will be used to increase first 

responders’ capabilities for catastrophic disasters, we suggest that the 

Congress require the use of risk management principles to assess state and 

urban area investments in capabilities to respond to a catastrophic 

disaster. 
Page 27 GAO-06-442T 

Because of FEMA’s mission performance during Hurricane Katrina, 

concerns have been raised regarding the agency’s organizational 

placement, including whether it should be disbanded and functions moved 

to other agencies, remain within the Department of Homeland Security, or 

again become an independent agency. Importantly, other factors, such as 

the experience of and training provided to FEMA leadership and adequacy 

of resources may be more important to FEMA’s future success than its 

organizational placement. 

Organizational changes, such as separating FEMA from DHS, are often 

viewed as a quick fix to address performance issues. Based on our 

institutional knowledge regarding organizational performance factors, 

organizational changes alone may not adequately address underlying 

systemic conditions that result in an organization’s performance problem. 

Conditions underlying FEMA’s performance during Hurricane Katrina 

could involve the experience and training of DHS or FEMA leadership; the 

clarity of FEMA’s mission and related responsibilities and authorities to 

achieve mission performance expectations; the adequacy of its human, 

financial, and technological resources; and the effectiveness of planning, 

exercises, and related partnerships. 

These factors have been highlighted, for example, by the House Select 

Committee which noted (1) senior officials were ill prepared due to their 

lack of experience and knowledge of the required roles and 

responsibilities prescribed by the NRP, (2) DHS and FEMA lacked 

adequately trained and experienced staff for the Katrina response, 

observing that FEMA had lost, since 2002, a number of its top disaster 

specialists, senior leaders, and experienced personnel, described as 

“FEMA brain drain,” and that even before Hurricane Katrina, FEMA 

suffered from a lack of sufficiently trained procurement professionals, and 

(3) FEMA’s logistics systems were unable to support large-scale logistical 

challenges. In addition, White House recommendations covered areas 

such as DHS expertise and experience, development of a national crisis 

communications system, and development of DHS regions that are fully 

staffed, trained, and equipped to manage and coordinate all preparedness 

activities and any emergency that may require a substantial federal 

response. 

Factors such as the experience and training of leadership and the 

adequacy of resources can lead to performance difficulties pointed out in 

the House Select Committee, the White House report, and in testimony 

before this committee. These difficulties would not, we believe, be fixed 

Organizational 

Placement Has Been 

Raised as a Key 

FEMA Performance 

Factor 

Factors Other Than 

Organizational Placement 

May Impact FEMA’s 

Performance 
Page 28 GAO-06-442T 

by simply moving FEMA to an independent status. Indeed, we know that 

many of lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina were acted on for 

Hurricane Rita, with a much better response effort, indicating that 

organizational change is not the primary key to success. Such factors, we 

believe, should be more carefully assessed and action taken where 

appropriate to strengthen any weaknesses in FEMA’s leadership and 

resources.

However, if an organizational change remains under consideration, our 

past work could be helpful. Before the formation of DHS, I testified before 

the House Select Committee on Homeland Security that reorganizations of 

government agencies frequently encounter start-up problems and 

unanticipated consequences and are unlikely to fully overcome obstacles 

and challenges, and may require additional modifications in the future.16 I 

also presented specific criteria to evaluate whether individual agencies or 

programs should be included or excluded from the proposed department. 

Those criteria included, for example, mission relevancy, similar goals and 

objectives, leveraging the effectiveness of other agencies and programs or 

the new department as a whole, and gains in efficiency and effectiveness 

through eliminating duplications and overlaps. I also stated that Congress 

should consider not only the mission and roles that agencies fulfill today, 

but the mission and role that they should fulfill in the coming years. 

Some of these criteria are appropriate today for discussing FEMA’s future, 

and I would suggest that they might be useful if a change in FEMA’s 

organizational placement is under consideration. For example, Congress 

might consider whether or how moving FEMA out of DHS would impact 

DHS’s mission, as stated in the Homeland Security Act of 2002, of acting as 

a focal point for natural and manmade crises and emergency planning. 

DHS’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate—primarily 

FEMA—was to help ensure the effectiveness of emergency response 

providers to terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. 

Removing FEMA from DHS might impact the ability of the department and 

its remaining components and FEMA itself in fully addressing the close 

links between preparedness, prevention, response, and recovery for all 

hazards. 

 16GAO, Homeland Security: Critical Design and Implementation Issues, GAO-02-957T 

(Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2002). 

Certain Criteria Could Be 

Used if a Change in 

FEMA’s Organizational 

Placement is Considered 
Page 29 GAO-06-442T 

The dispersion of responsibility for all hazards preparedness and response 

across more than one federal agency was a problem we identified during 

the formation of DHS.17 FEMA was established in 1979 to consolidate 

federal emergency preparedness mitigation, and response in a single 

federal agency. Its responsibilities were to include, among other things, 

the coordination of civil defense and civil emergency planning and the 

coordination of federal disaster relief. FEMA responded to a wide range of 

disasters, including floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, hazardous material 

accidents, nuclear accidents, and biological, chemical, and nuclear 

attacks.18 However, when Congress created DHS, it separated FEMA’s 

responsibilities for preparedness and response activities into two 

directorates. Responsibility for preparedness for terrorism disasters was 

placed in the department’s Border and Transportation Security 

Directorate, which included FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness. 

Other types of FEMA disaster preparedness and response efforts were 

transferred to the department’s Emergency Preparedness and Response 

Directorate. In January 2003, we observed that this organizational 

arrangement would challenge FEMA in ensuring the effective coordination 

of preparedness and response efforts and enhancing the provision and 

management of disaster assistance for efficient and effective response.19

A division of responsibility remains under the recent DHS reorganization 

resulting from Secretary Chertoff’s Second Stage Review (2SR), with 

preparedness efforts—including planning, training, exercising, and 

funding—consolidated into a Preparedness Directorate. FEMA reports 

directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security for response and recovery 

missions. Secretary Chertoff has explained the reorganization would focus 

FEMA on its historic mission of response and recovery. 

If FEMA were to become independent of DHS, then a comprehensive 

approach to preparedness, response, and recovery may become even more 

difficult to maintain. The lack of a single department or agency with 

responsibility for preparedness, response, and recovery also could 

jeopardize clear federal leadership and assistance for state and local 

governments. These entities would have two primary points of contact, 

 17GAO, Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of Homeland 

Security, GAO-03-102 (Washington, D.C.: January 2003).

18GAO-93-186. 

19GAO-03-113. 
Page 30 GAO-06-442T 

two points of guidance and regulation, two points of funding 

opportunities, and two points of assistance and oversight. 

Nongovernmental and private sector partners in all hazards preparedness 

would be similarly affected. 

Other organizational changes are also being considered. The White House 

report on lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina recommended keeping 

FEMA within DHS, but allows for other organizational changes, such as 

creating new positions and offices within DHS and transferring the 

National Disaster Medical System from DHS to the Department of Health 

and Human Services. 

Lastly, I believe we should bear in mind that the Department of Homeland 

Security is only three years old this month. In my testimony on the 

formation of DHS in 2002, I stated that often it has taken many years for 

the consolidated functions in new departments to effectively build on their 

combined strengths. 

Madame Chairman, the federal government will be a major partner in the 

longer-term rebuilding of the Gulf Coast because of the widespread 

damage and economic impact. In support of state and local efforts, the 

federal role in rebuilding will be particularly important for transportation 

and health infrastructures and federal facilities. In addition, federal 

programs will face financial difficulties and there is uncertainty 

concerning the impact of catastrophic disasters on the availability and 

affordability of insurance. Long term rebuilding raises issues concerning 

the need for consensus on what rebuilding should be done, where and 

based on what standards, who will pay for what, and what oversight is 

needed to ensure federal funds are spent for their intended purposes. 

Hurricane Katrina destroyed considerable numbers of residential 

structures; consumer durable goods, such as motor vehicles, household 

furnishings, and appliances; and business structures and equipment, 

particularly in the energy and petrochemical industries. Hurricane Rita 

appears to have had a smaller impact on residential structures and 

consumer durable goods, and its damage to the energy industry may be as 

great as or greater than Hurricane Katrina’s. 

Some federal agencies have developed programs to initially identify and 

assess the recovery needs of the region. For example, the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centers for Disease 

Long Term Rebuilding 

Efforts Raise Issues 

for Congressional 

Consideration 

The Hurricanes’ 

Destruction Resulted in 

Widespread Adverse 

Economic Disruptions 
Page 31 GAO-06-442T 

Control and Prevention (CDC), created the Environmental Health Needs 

Assessment and Habitability Taskforce. This taskforce was charged with 

identifying the overarching environmental health issues faced by New 

Orleans to re-inhabit the city. According to the taskforce, the most striking 

feature of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophic disaster in New Orleans is 

the array of key environmental health and infrastructure factors affected 

all at once. All key environmental health and related services are being 

reestablished, and this work needs to be done in a very coordinated and 

well-planned way. Full restoration of drinking water systems and 

wastewater treatment systems will be delayed by the many disruptions in 

the distribution and collection systems and by the need for upgrade and 

repairs in older systems. The task force also noted timeline for debris 

treatment, disposal, containment, and transport, as well as for the testing 

of potentially contaminated soil, will also slow or accelerate the rate at 

which New Orleans can be re-inhabited. 

The task force found that restoration of the city’s housing infrastructure is 

its most complex issue. Housing is likely the most critical issue in reinhabiting the city because of factors such as the large percentage of city 

housing that was flooded and may not be viable, as well as the large 

proportion of the city population that is displaced with some residents a 

significant distance away from New Orleans or not intending to return, 

according to the task force. EPA and other federal partners are continuing 

to assess and address environmental and health issues that will impact the 

recovery and rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. 

The ongoing progress of recovery and rebuilding is being studied by 

several organizations. For example, the Brookings Institute created an 

index of economic and social indicators measuring the impact of 

rebuilding efforts in Orleans Parish, the New Orleans metropolitan area, 

Louisiana, and Mississippi. Brookings’ February 1, 2006 report noted that 

over five months since Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans 

lacks enough essential services to support all of its returning residents and 

the area continues to lose workers. More specifically, the report observed 

that only 32 percent of the city’s hospitals are open. Only 15 percent of the 

city’s schools have reopened and some of those are reporting difficulty 

accommodating demand. Nearly 750,000 households remain displaced. 

Mortgage delinquency rates rose between the second and third quarters of 

2005. In the state of Louisiana, nearly 1 in 4 mortgages is 30 days or more 

past due. Currently, the New Orleans metro area lost 42,000 people in its 

labor force between November and December, while the state of Louisiana 

lost over 100,000 people. Although the state of Louisiana created over 

11,000 jobs between November and December, it lost over 100,000 people 
Page 32 GAO-06-442T 

in its labor force. Mississippi lost 2,000 jobs and about 2,000 of its labor 

force. According to the Brookings’ analysis, the slow pace of recovery 

strongly suggests that the city and state will be unable to restore essential 

services on their own, and require direct federal assistance to do so. 

In Louisiana and Mississippi, several efforts are underway to develop longterm rebuilding strategies in these states. In Louisiana, the governor and 

the mayor of New Orleans have charged different groups with guiding 

various aspects of the rebuilding efforts. Under the mayor, the Bring New 

Orleans Back Commission is intended to help New Orleans develop a 

“Master Plan” to include recommendations for rebuilding the city. The 

commission has issued several final reports, including those on urban 

planning, education, health and social services, and infrastructure. At the 

state level, the Louisiana Recovery Authority is the planning and 

coordinating body created by the Governor to assist in implementing the 

state’s vision for the recovery of Louisiana. Working in collaboration with 

local, state and federal agencies, the authority serves to address short-term 

recovery needs and guide the long-term planning process. 

In Mississippi, the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding and 

Renewal was formed to develop a strategy for rebuilding the affected 

areas of Mississippi. Developed as an advisory body, the commission is 

intended to solicit the input of local leaders and facilitate decision making 

in their regions. In early January the commission released a report with 

numerous recommendations intended to guide Mississippi’s post-Katrina 

rebuilding. The report recommends, for example, that local governments 

immediately adopt revised flood maps and begin assessing and revising 

their flood zone management ordinances and building requirements. In 

addition, the report suggests ways communities can tap into federal, state, 

and private funding sources to accomplish some of the report’s goals. 

On November 1, 2005, the President issued Executive Order 13390, which 

directed the creation of a central figure in the administration’s efforts to 

support the Gulf Coast recovery and rebuilding phases.20 Specifically, the 

President directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish within 

the department the position of Coordinator of Federal Support for the 

 20U.S. President (G.W. Bush), “Establishment of a Coordinator of Federal Support for the 

Recovery and Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast Region,” E.O. 13390, Federal Register, vol. 70, 

Nov. 4, 2005, p. 67327-67328. 

Rebuilding Strategies Are 

Underway 
Page 33 GAO-06-442T 

Recovery and Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region. The federal 

coordinator, Donald Powell, is responsible for developing principles and 

goals and leading the development and monitoring of the implementation 

of specific federal support. The coordinator also serves as the focal point 

for managing information flow, requests for actions, and discussions with 

the Congress, state and local governments, the private sector, and 

community leaders. 

Madame Chairman, we need to make sure that rebuilding in the Gulf Coast 

should not replace that which was built in the past to 20th century 

standards, but be built for the future and to 21st century standards. State 

and local officials will have the lead on determining the future needs of the 

Gulf Coast. However, the federal government should be a willing partner 

in the rebuilding strategies so we build better than before and in 

anticipation of future catastrophic events. 

Now, I would like to turn to more specifically discuss rebuilding 

transportation and health infrastructures and federal facilities. 

Transportation infrastructure destruction will have a considerable impact 

on federal programs. The hurricanes destroyed significant amounts of the 

region’s transportation infrastructure. The largest transportation capital 

costs will be associated with reconstruction of highways and bridges—

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma resulted in about $2.7 billion in 

needed repairs to roads on the federal-aid highway system. Hurricane 

Katrina resulted in the bulk of this cost, with about $2.1 billion in highway 

damage. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida suffered the vast majority of 

the highway damage. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) officials 

said that because many roads have been submerged, determination of the 

full extent of highway damage will depend on the results of testing. 

FHWA works with the states to develop these estimates, and funding for 

repair and reconstruction comes through FHWA’s Emergency Relief 

Program. Under this program, states are reimbursed the cost of repairs 

and reconstruction of the existing highway facilities, and improvements 

are generally not allowed. However, bringing a facility up to current 

highway design standards is allowed. Only roads on the federal-aid 

highway system are eligible for funding. A large backlog of funding 

requests to this program existed prior to the hurricanes, about 

$650 million pre-Katrina, resulting in a total state demand for emergency 

funds of about $2.85 billion. In its fiscal year 2006 Defense Appropriations 

Act, Congress appropriated $2.75 billion to the FHWA Emergency Relief 

Program. These funds are available for both the 2005 hurricanes and other 

Transportation 

Infrastructure Was 

Significantly Damaged and 

Poses Major Cost and 

Funding Concerns 
Page 34 GAO-06-442T 

emergency projects. We plan to review the FHWA Emergency Relief 

Program and related surface transportation financing issues that have 

arisen as a result of the hurricanes. 

Transit systems in the region sustained considerable damage, especially in 

New Orleans, where most of the transit fleet was lost. This included three 

bus garages, an operations and maintenance facility, much of the trolley 

system, and a majority of the city’s bus fleet. In addition, the population of 

Baton Rouge roughly doubled in a matter of days, which presented an 

unprecedented transit problem for that city. While no transit program 

comparable to the FHWA Emergency Relief Program exists, FEMA 

provided $47 million under a mission assignment to help provide basic 

transit services within and between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. 

Ports in the region also suffered significant damage. The Port of New 

Orleans estimated reconstruction and relocation needs of $435 million to 

cover damages sustained from Hurricane Katrina, assuming $75 million 

would be funded by insurance claims or FEMA reimbursements. The 

remaining $360 million is unfunded. The Port of Gulfport was also hard hit, 

and while it is still developing estimates, according to the port director, 

reconstruction will likely total between $300 million and $400 million. Part 

of these costs will be covered by insurance and revenues from resumed 

port operations. According to officials from other ports in the region, they 

also sustained damage, though not of this magnitude. For example, the 

Port of Mobile sustained $28 million in damages, while other Louisiana 

ports, such as Port Fourchon and the Port of South Louisiana, estimate 

damages of $7 million and $2 million respectively. We have initiated a 

review of how ports mitigate their vulnerability to natural disasters, what 

lessons have been learned, and what the potential federal role may be in 

mitigating port vulnerability. 

A number of railroads suffered damage from Hurricane Katrina. The large 

railroads have nearly completed repairs to their systems, while a number 

of smaller short lines are in the process of repairing lines. These costs are 

currently borne by the railroads themselves, and the Department of 

Transportation does not have estimates of the damages. However, a 

financial statement from the CSX railroad estimated damages from 

Hurricane Katrina to that railroad’s assets at over $40 million. 

Numerous airports in the region were affected by the hurricanes. The 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) estimates that about $100 million 

will be needed from the Airport Improvement Program to pay for damage. 
Page 35 GAO-06-442T 

In addition, FAA estimated that its facilities sustained about $41 million in 

damage, for a total of $141 million. 

The health care infrastructure in the New Orleans area, including 

emergency, hospital and clinic facilities, was significantly damaged by 

Hurricane Katrina. The city is struggling to restore some capacity to meet 

the immediate needs of the population currently there. Moreover, 

numerous decisions that will need to be made on how to rebuild the health 

care system. The decisions are complicated by several factors, including 

the need to improve efficiency by moving away from New Orleans 

hospital-centric system and uncertainty about how many people will 

return to New Orleans and where they will settle. 

The damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina on the New Orleans health 

system was severe. In particular, the Medical Center of Louisiana at New 

Orleans (MCLNO), which included Charity and University Hospitals, was 

forced to close its doors. MCLNO operated the only Level I trauma unit 

along the Gulf Coast. With its closure, the closest Level I trauma units are 

in Shreveport, Louisiana, Houston, Texas, and Birmingham, Alabama.21 In 

addition, MCLNO provided more than 25,000 inpatient admissions, over 

300,000 clinic visits and 135,000 emergency visits in fiscal year 2004. It was 

the primary safety net hospital for many local residents, and about half of 

its patients were uninsured and about one-third were covered by Medicaid. 

Under the Stafford Act, Charity Hospital is eligible for federal funds to 

repair Hurricane Katrina related damage. These funds, administered under 

FEMA’s Public Assistance Program, would be available to defray a portion 

of the cost to rebuild or repair Charity Hospital. FEMA and Louisiana State 

University, which owns Charity Hospital, have prepared estimates of the 

cost to repair the hospital that differ considerably in their assumptions and 

conclusions, and no decision has been made as to whether to rebuild or 

repair the facility. 

Other health services in New Orleans were also severely damaged, 

including hospitals, emergency services, and safety net clinics. 

• Hospitals: The number of staffed hospital beds in the City of New 

Orleans was about 80 percent less in February 2006 than before 

Hurricane Katrina, according to figures submitted daily by 

 21MCLNO announced plans to re-establish Level I trauma unit in the New Orleans area 

working in conjunction with another facility. 

Health Care Infrastructure 

Was Significantly Damaged 
Page 36 GAO-06-442T 

hospitals to an internet database about their bed capacity.22 Of the 

nine acute care hospitals in the city prior to Katrina, only 3 had reopened at a capacity of approximately 456 staffed beds as of 

February 22, 2006. 

• Emergency Care: Increasing demand has been reported at the 

open emergency departments and has led to slow unloading of 

patients from ambulances and to patients being housed in the 

emergency department because beds were not available. For 

example, according to data reported by hospitals on February 22, 

2006, wait times for emergency medical services (EMS) vehicles to 

offload stable patients into emergency departments varied from no 

wait to as long as 2 hours at two facilities, and 38 patients had been 

admitted and were housed in the emergency department. 

• Safety Net Clinics: More than three-fourths of the safety net 

clinics in the New Orleans area were closed, and many of those 

that were open had limited capacity, according to data gathered by 

officials at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals 

(DHH). For example, prior to Katrina, 90 clinics were in operation, 

including 70 various clinics run by MCLNO, with the remainder 

federally qualified health centers, mental health or addictive 

disorder clinics, or other specialty clinics. Post-hurricane, 

19 clinics were operating according to DHH figures, generally 

operating at less than 50 percent of pre-Katrina capacity. 

In addition to the severe damage sustained by health facilities, maintaining 

and attracting the workforce is also a serious issue for local officials. An 

estimated 3,200 physicians lived in the metropolitan area before Hurricane 

Katrina, with 2,664 of those physicians residing in New Orleans itself, 

according to DHH figures. We were unable to obtain an estimate of how 

many physicians are currently in New Orleans. Hospital officials said they 

faced a shortage of support staff, such as food service or janitorial 

workers, who were unable to return due to a lack of housing or were being 

offered higher wages at hotels and restaurants. 

As the city struggles to restore the health system in New Orleans, longterm decisions on how to rebuild it are affected by questions about 

whether the health system should be rebuilt to its pre-Katrina 

 22The internet database is called “GNOEMS” and was developed by the Greater New 

Orleans Healthcare Taskforce with the assistance of the U.S. Public Health Service. 
Page 37 GAO-06-442T 

configuration and uncertainties about the returning population. Some 

health policy researchers have noted that the pre-Katrina health system in 

New Orleans needed improvement. Some local officials have also 

suggested that the health care situation prior to the hurricane was less 

than ideal and the city has a chance to rebuild a better system. Also, 

uncertainty about how quickly the population would return to New 

Orleans, as well as who would return and where people will settle, poses 

difficult challenges for local officials to plan the restoration of health 

services, such as how much capacity will be required and where to locate 

services. 

Over the long term, building a new health care system will be vital to 

attract people back to New Orleans and ensure its recovery. State, local 

and federal governments all have important roles to play in the recovery 

process. At the state and local levels, commissions to plan for the future 

health care system have been established, and one has completed its work. 

The Bring New Orleans Back Commission issued recommendations 

shifting the focus, to the degree possible, toward ambulatory care, 

wellness and preventive medicine, health promotion and chronic disease 

prevention and away from institutional care; maintaining a university 

teaching hospital in New Orleans; and building capacity for electronic 

medical records. The commission also noted the difficulty of doing 

effective planning without reliable information on the population and what 

segments of the population will return. The Louisiana Recovery Authority 

included one task force dedicated to health care issues. The NRP also 

gives the Department of Health and Human Services a support role under 

long-term community recovery and mitigation to enable community 

recovery from the long-term consequences of a large-scale incident. We 

will be following HHS’ efforts to fulfill this role in the coming months. 

Several federal agencies had their facilities damaged or destroyed by the 

hurricanes and may face significant costs to repair or replace them, 

although these costs are relatively small in relation to those I just 

discussed. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimated damage to 

its medical centers in New Orleans and Biloxi at $170 million and 

$50.7 million respectively. VA’s Gulfport hospital complex suffered 

catastrophic damage and will not be rebuilt since VA had already planned 

to close it. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration estimated 

the cost of facility repair at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and 

Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans at $84 million and $69 million 

respectively. The General Services Administration estimated the cost of 

repairing its owned and leased facilities and leasing alternative space at 

$60 million. The U.S. Postal Service estimated the cost of facility repair 

Federal Facilities Were 

Damaged or Destroyed 
Page 38 GAO-06-442T 

from Hurricane Katrina at $57 million. The Department of Interior 

estimated damage to facilities, which includes damages to buildings, 

phone systems, electrical systems, and information technology systems 

among other things, at about $41 million. In addition, there was damage to 

military bases and to shipyard repair facilities. 

The federal flood insurance program faces major financial difficulties 

challenges as the Gulf Coast recovers. The program is essentially 

bankrupt. FEMA officials estimate that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will 

result in flood insurance claims of about $23 billion, far surpassing the 

total amount of claims paid in the entire history of the National Flood 

Insurance Program (NFIP) through 2004. 

These storms have presented, among other challenges for the NFIP, the 

need to adjust a record number of claims, many for properties that were 

inaccessible for weeks after the flooding occurred, and the need to borrow 

funds from the U.S. Treasury to pay the settlements due to policyholders. 

Almost 87,000 loss claims totaling over $8 billion were paid for Hurricane 

Katrina claims in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana through 

November 30, 2005. By comparison, in 2004, the previous record year, the 

NFIP paid about $1.95 billion in claims on flood events, including 

Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne that caused major damage 

in Florida and other East Coast and Gulf Coast states. Though numbers 

are not finalized, a FEMA official said that by the end of December, 2005, 

more than 70 percent of claims for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma 

had been paid totaling more than $11 billion. 

The amount paid per claim for flood damage in Hurricane Katrina ranged 

from a high of $130,281 in Mississippi to a low of $17,727 per claim in 

Florida. In Louisiana, where more than three fourths of the claims were 

filed, the average amount paid per claim was $92,549. A FEMA official 

noted that claims for total losses were paid quickly, so the average amount 

paid per claim may be less when all claims are settled. The average 

amount paid per claim for damage from Hurricane Rita was $52,185 in 

Louisiana and $24,489 in Texas. 

The magnitude and severity of the flood losses from Hurricanes Katrina 

and Rita overwhelmed the ability of the NFIP to absorb the costs of paying 

claims, providing an illustration of the extent to which the federal 

government is exposed to claims coverage in catastrophic loss years. As of 

March 1, 2006, FEMA’s authority to borrow from the U.S. Treasury was 

increased from $1.5 billion prior to the 2004 hurricane season to 

Federal Flood Insurance 

Program Faces Record 

Claims and Financial 

Difficulties 
Page 39 GAO-06-442T 

$18.5 billion through fiscal year 2008. While no determinations have been 

made about whether the NFIP will repay any of the debt, it is unlikely that 

the program could generate sufficient revenues to cover the enormous 

losses. 

Until the 2004 hurricane season, FEMA had exercised its borrowing 

authority three times in the last decade when losses exceeded available 

fund balances. In each instance, FEMA repaid the funds with interest. 

According to FEMA officials, as of August 31, 2005, FEMA had outstanding 

borrowing of $225 million with cash on hand totaling $289 million. FEMA 

had substantially repaid the borrowing it had undertaken to pay losses 

incurred for the 2004 hurricane season that, until Hurricane Katrina 

struck, was the worst hurricane season on record for the NFIP. FEMA’s 

current debt with the U.S. Treasury is almost entirely for payment from 

flood events that occurred in 2005. We currently have work underway 

examining the challenges facing the NFIP and options for improving the 

program. 

Flood maps are the foundation of the NFIP. They identify the areas at risk 

of flooding, and accurate, updated flood maps are a critical component for 

devastated communities in Mississippi and Louisiana, in particular, for 

making decisions about where and how to rebuild. Thus, new maps for 

these areas need to be expedited and completed as soon as possible. 

As of January 2006, FEMA had not yet fully implemented provisions of the 

Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2004, including establishing a regulatory 

appeals process for claimants and establishing minimum education and 

training requirements for insurance agents who sell NFIP policies. These 

reforms should also be completed expeditiously, and we have 

recommended that FEMA develop documented plans with milestones for 

implementing the reforms required by the 2004 legislation.

We have initiated work to identify and assess the factors that have affected 

the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) ability to respond to disaster 

victims through its disaster loan program in a timely manner. As the 

primary federal lender to disaster victims, including individual 

homeowners, renters, and businesses, SBA’s ability to process and 

disburse loans in a timely manner is critical to the recovery of the Gulf 

Coast region. As of February 25, 2006, SBA had mailed out more than 1.6 

million loan applications, received over 337,800 completed applications, 

processed more than 230,900 applications, and disbursed about $426.8 

million in disaster loan funds. Although SBA’s current goal is to process 

The Small Business 

Administration’s Disaster 

Loan Program Also Faces 

Financial Concerns 
Page 40 GAO-06-442T 

loan applications within seven to 21 days, as of February 25, 2006, SBA 

faced a backlog of about 103,300 applications in loan processing pending a 

final decision, and the average age of these applications is about 94 days. 

At the average rate SBA processed loans during the past month, it will take 

the agency 51 days to process its current backlog. However, this figure will 

be further affected by the number of new loan applications that are being 

received daily. SBA also faces a backlog of more than 37,100 loan 

applications that have been approved but have not been closed or fully 

disbursed. As a result, disaster victims in the Gulf Region have not been 

receiving timely assistance in recovering from this disaster and rebuilding 

their lives. 

Based on our preliminary analysis of SBA’s disaster loan origination 

process, we have identified several factors that have affected SBA’s ability 

to provide a timely response to Gulf Coast disaster victims. First, the 

volume of loan applications SBA mailed out and received has far exceeded 

any previous disaster. Compared with the Florida hurricanes of 2004 or 

the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast in 

2005 resulted in roughly 2 to 3 times as many loan applications issued.23

Second, although SBA’s new disaster loan processing system provides 

opportunities to streamline the loan origination process, it has 

experienced numerous outages and slow response times in accessing 

information. However, we have not yet determined the duration and 

impact of these outages on processing. SBA officials have attributed many 

of these problems to a combination of hardware and telecommunications 

capacity limitations as well as the level of service SBA has received from 

its contractors. Third, SBA’s planning efforts to address a disaster of this 

magnitude appear to have been inadequate. Although SBA’s disaster 

planning efforts focused primarily on responding to a disaster the size of 

the Northridge earthquake, SBA officials said that it initially lacked the 

critical resources such as office space, staff, phones, computers, and other 

resources to process loans for this disaster. SBA has participated in 

disaster simulations only on a limited basis and it is unclear whether 

previous disaster simulations of category 4 hurricanes hitting the New 

Orleans area were considered. 

 23In comparison, SBA issued loan applications for the Northridge earthquake and the 

Florida hurricanes of 2004, totaling about 570,000 and 870,000, respectively. For those two 

disasters, SBA received loan applications totaling about 250,000 for Northridge and about 

180,000 for the Florida hurricanes. 
Page 41 GAO-06-442T 

We are also assessing other factors that have affected SBA’s ability to 

provide timely loans to the disaster victims in the Gulf region including 

workforce transformation, exercising its regulatory authority to streamline 

program requirements and delivery to meet the needs of disaster victims, 

coordination with state and local government agencies, SBA’s efforts to 

publicize the benefits offered by the disaster loan program, and the limits 

that exist on the use of disaster loan funds. 

The magnitude and severity of Hurricane Katrina and other recent 

catastrophes also impacted the insurance industry’s willingness and ability 

to provide insurance protection for catastrophic disasters. A crucial aspect 

of being able to successfully provide such coverage is the ability to obtain 

what the industry refers to as credible “vulnerability assessments” or risk 

assessments. To be useful, a risk assessment must be able to estimate both 

the likely “frequency” and “severity” of catastrophic events— two key 

characteristics that insurance companies need to assess the probability 

and financial significance of a loss. In addition, based on credible 

information, insurers must be able to estimate both their “probable 

maximum loss (PML),” an estimate of the maximum dollar value that can 

be lost under realistic conditions, and their “maximum foreseeable loss 

(MFL),” an estimate of the maximum dollar loss under a worst-case 

scenario. Risk assessments can be used to provide a basis for making loss 

projections for catastrophes such as hurricanes or earthquakes, although 

the projections may not be accurate. Insurance companies use these 

estimates to determine the amount of coverage and the price at which to 

offer coverage within a geographic area. Potential losses are acceptable if 

the probability that they may occur is understood and companies can set 

prices that fully reflect the consequences of a specific risk. When 

projections fail to anticipate an event, such as an earthquake, or 

underestimate the severity of an event, such as Hurricane Katrina, 

insurance companies may become insolvent, as happened in the aftermath 

of Hurricane Andrew, or may choose to reduce the amount of coverage 

offered in a given area, as happened for wind losses in Florida and for 

earthquakes in California. 

While the practice of risk assessment has become more sophisticated in 

recent years, the ability of such assessments to estimate losses remains 

inexact, particularly for many potential catastrophes. These assessments 

are typically undertaken by risk modeling companies that assist clients, 

such as insurance companies, with predicting and managing the financial 

impact of catastrophes and weather. In addition, as demonstrated by 

Hurricane Katrina, estimating the amount of losses that insurers could pay 

Uncertainty About 

Catastrophic Disasters 

Affects the Availability and 

Affordability of Insurance 
Page 42 GAO-06-442T 

for an event is also contingent on unforeseen circumstances, such as the 

unusual magnitude and consequences of the Hurricane Katrina storm 

surge. In addition, as a result of Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of thousands 

of buildings may have suffered damage from both the hurricane’s winds 

and the storm surge. Because determining which factor caused the 

damage to a given structure is difficult and sometimes contentious, 

estimates of the amount that private insurers ultimately will pay to cover 

the costs of Hurricane Katrina are still very preliminary. 

Because catastrophic disasters are likely to occur in the future, and 

because forecasting their probability and severity is an inexact science, 

state insurance regulators have recommended that the federal government 

provide a final layer of insurance protection in the event of a “megacatastrophe.” The National Association of Insurance Commissioners 

(NAIC) is considering a broad national plan that would create a 

mechanism to handle disasters, especially those larger than Hurricane 

Katrina. The plan proposes a public-private partnership that would reward 

hazard mitigation and spread catastrophic risk broadly among individual 

insureds, insurers, reinsurers, state reinsurance funds, and the federal 

government, according to NAIC. The federal government could provide a 

top layer of protection by acting as a reinsurer of last resort or, 

alternatively, by providing financial capacity to a multi-state risk pooling 

mechanism that could borrow from the federal government should 

catastrophic losses exceed the pool’s accumulated funds. This plan is 

similar in scope to the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), which 

Congress enacted to create a program of shared public and private 

compensation for insured losses attributable to acts of terrorism. Under 

the NAIC plan, however, taxpayers would presumably not have to pay for 

losses. Furthermore, the NAIC plan asserts that if state and federal 

governments insured the top layers of catastrophe risk, private insurers 

would continue to insure the initial layer of risk that they might otherwise 

not insure. 

However, some in the insurance industry oppose additional government 

involvement and others have set forth alternative proposals. Some 

insurance company representatives believe that the private market for 

catastrophic coverage for natural events continues to exist and that 

insurance costs should be based upon free market principles. Still others 

have proposed that insurance companies be permitted to set aside 

additional catastrophic disaster reserves on a pre-tax basis. Supporters of 

tax-deductible reserves argue that the tax-free status would give insurers a 

financial incentive to increase their reserves and expand insurers’ capacity 

to cover catastrophic risks and avoid insolvency. 
Page 43 GAO-06-442T 

We anticipate undertaking work that would examine the merits of 

involving federal and state governments in alternative methods of insuring 

against catastrophic disasters—for example, by acting in a reinsurance 

capacity. We will continue to monitor legislation and proposals aimed at 

the long-term restoration of the Gulf Coast, such as the recently passed 

Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, which contains a variety of tax-related 

incentives designed to encourage rehabilitation in the region. 

As we move forward, long-term rebuilding in the Gulf Coast raises issues 

concerning the need for consensus on what rebuilding should be done, 

where and based on what standards, who will pay for what, and what 

oversight is needed to ensure federal funds are spent for their intended 

purposes. Over 20 years ago, we issued a report describing the U.S. 

government’s involvement and experience in four large-scale assistance 

programs (Conrail, Lockheed, New York City, and Chrysler) and suggested 

guidelines for future programs in helping other failing firms or 

municipalities.24 That report described four conditions that we suggested 

the Congress could use as a framework of ideas about how to structure 

future financial assistance programs and what program requirements to 

include to achieve Congressional goals and objectives while minimizing 

the risk of financial loss to the government. Congress might consider such 

guidelines as it considers federal assistance to the Gulf Coast for 

restoration: 

• The scope of the problem should be identified, such as if the problem 

reflects broader industry-wide or regional economic conditions. For the 

Gulf Coast, this would involve financial and economic analyses, perhaps 

utilizing current studies of prior conditions and the ongoing progress of 

recovery and rebuilding. 

• The effect of the problem on the national interest should be clearly 

established, for example, whether the problem presents potentially large 

economy-wide or regional consequences. For example, in the Gulf Coast, 

Congress might consider the costs of municipal and corporate collapse 

and the challenges associated with providing assistance. 

• The legislative goals and objectives associated with the response should 

be clear, concise, and consistent. For example, in the Gulf Coast, goals and 

 24See GAO, Guidelines for Rescuing Large Failing Firms and Municipalities, GAO-84-34 

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29, 1984). 

The Federal Role and 

Involvement Will Raise 

Ongoing Issues 
Page 44 GAO-06-442T 

objectives for rebuilding should be clearly stated, working with the state 

and local groups already tasked with recovery planning and with the 

Administration’s Coordinator of Federal Support for the Recovery and 

Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region. 

• Lastly, the government’s financial interest should be protected. In the Gulf 

Coast, controls might be put in place so there is review of the most 

important financial and operating plans. 

Madame Chairman and members of the committee, the past several weeks 

have provided significant insights into the Hurricane Katrina catastrophic 

disaster with the release of the House Select Committee report, the White 

House report on the federal response, and the testimony provided to this 

committee. Secretary Chertoff has announced immediate actions in 

preparation for the upcoming hurricane season and plans to work with the 

White House and the Homeland Security Council to assess and address the 

White House recommendations. Findings, lessons learned, and 

observations all paint a complex mosaic of challenges the federal, state, 

and local governments face in preparing for, responding to, and recovering 

from catastrophic disasters. This committee’s report as well as GAO’s 

work will add to the understanding of what happened and what needs to 

be done. 

Moving forward, the challenge will be to determine if the 

recommendations and initial and longer-term actions will truly close the 

gap in needed preparedness or add to the problem through additional 

bureaucracy, complex processes, and inflexible policies. Also, the key 

question remains if the revised policies and procedures, even if sound, will 

be effectively implemented. Will they join those past recommendations 

that were not implemented, resulted in actions that were not sustained, or 

proved to be inadequate? We look forward to working with this committee 

and others to focus our work on these key issues. 

This concludes my statement. I would be pleased to respond to any 

questions that you or other members of the committee may have at this 

time. 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 

Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. For further 

information about this testimony, please contact Norman Rabkin at 

(202)-512-8777 or at rabkinn@gao.gov. 

Concluding 

Observations 

GAO Contacts 
Page 45 GAO-06-442T 

Emergency Preparedness and Response: Some Issues and Challenges 

Associated with Major Emergency Incidents. GAO-06-467T. Washington: 

D.C.: February 23, 2006. 

Disaster Preparedness: Preliminary Observations on the Evacuation of 

Hospitals and Nursing Homes Due to Hurricanes. GAO-06-443R. 

Washington: D.C.: February 16, 2006. 

Investigation: Military Meals, Ready-To-Eat Sold on eBay. GAO-06-410R. 

Washington: D.C.: February 13, 2006. 

Expedited Assistance for Victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: 

FEMA’s Control Weaknesses Exposed the Government to Significant 

Fraud and Abuse. GAO-06-403T. Washington: D.C.: February 13, 2006. 

Statement by Comptroller General David M. Walker on GAO’s 

Preliminary Observations Regarding Preparedness and Response to 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. GAO-06-365R. Washington, D.C.: February 

1, 2006. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Challenges for the National 

Flood Insurance Program. GAO-06-335T. Washington, D.C.: January 25, 

2006. 

Hurricane Protection: Statutory and Regulatory Framework for Levee 

Maintenance and Emergency Response for the Lake Pontchartrain 

Project. GAO-06-322T. Washington, D.C.: December 15, 2005. 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Provision of Charitable Assistance. GAO06-297T. Washington, D.C.: December 13, 2005. 

Army Corps of Engineers: History of the Lake Pontchartrain and 

Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project. GAO-06-244T. Washington, D.C.: 

November 9, 2005. 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Preliminary Observations on Contracting 

for Response and Recovery Efforts. GAO-06-246T. Washington, D.C.: 

November 8, 2005. 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Contracting for Response and Recovery 

Efforts. GAO-06-235T. Washington, D.C.: November 2, 2005. 

Appendix I: Recent GAO Products 

Concerning Hurricanes Katrina and Rita 
Page 46 GAO-06-442T 

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Oversight and Management of 

the National Flood Insurance Program. GAO-06-183T. Washington, D.C.: 

October 20, 2005. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Challenges Facing the National 

Flood Insurance Program. GAO-06-174T. Washington, D.C.: October 18, 

2005. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Improvements Needed to 

Enhance Oversight and Management of the National Flood Insurance 

Program. GAO-06-119. Washington, D.C.: October 18, 2005. 

Army Corps of Engineers: Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane 

Projection Project. GAO-05-1050T. Washington, D.C.: September 28, 2005. 

Hurricane Katrina: Providing Oversight of the Nation’s Preparedness, 

Response, and Recovery Activities. GAO-05-1053T. Washington, D.C.: 

September 28, 2005. 

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