Practical aspects of federalizing disaster response

On 25 September 2005, the US President, responding to growing criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina, said ‘... is there a natural disaster – of a certain size – that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort? That’s going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about.’ [1]. Five days later his brother wrote, ‘As the Governor of a state that has been hit by seven hurricanes and two tropical storms in the past thirteen months, I can say with certainty that federalizing emergency response to catastrophic events would be a disaster as bad as Hurricane Katrina ... Before Congress considers a larger, direct federal role, it needs to hold communities and states accountable for properly preparing for the inevitable storms to come.’ [2].