To: LLCF who wrote (47381 ) 2/26/2006 4:33:22 PM From: CalculatedRisk Read Replies (4) | Respond to Yes, if Bush wasn't in the White House there would still have been a Hurricane Katrina, but there probably would have been a competent Federal response (like with James Witt under Clinton).en.wikipedia.org When Bill Clinton was elected President he appointed Witt to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1993. During his tenure Clinton elevated FEMA to cabinet status, and Witt overturned FEMA's previously poor reputation. A 1992 interim report by the US Congress (prior to Hurricane Andrew led to further criticism of FEMA) had said that "FEMA is widely viewed as a political dumping ground, a turkey farm, if you will, where large numbers of positions exist that can be conveniently and quietly filled by political appointment..."[1] By 1996 an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial said that "FEMA has developed a sterling reputation for delivering disaster-relief services, a far cry from its abysmal standing before James Lee Witt took its helm in 1993. How did Witt turn FEMA around so quickly? Well, he is the first director of the agency to have emergency-management experience. He stopped the staffing of the agency by political patronage. He removed layers of bureaucracy. Most important, he instilled in the agency a spirit of preparedness, of service to the customer, of willingness to listen to ideas of local and state officials to make the system work better."
