Project Katrina

Yesterday I noted that Gil Jamieson will be leaving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This role in the aftermath of Katrina can not be overstated. And it was a role of abject failure. Here is the story.

A week after Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast a FEMA official in charge of streamlining the flow of disaster aid issued a directive that would have cut through the red tape and expedited a staggering 1,029 rebuilding projects and $5.3 billion in funding.

The official memo, written by Nancy Ward, outlined that once local and regional FEMA officials approved specific a project, Washington must then release the money within three business days.

But Gil Jamieson countermanded the order.

His decision meant the rebuilding of schools, roads, hospitals, firehouses, and other infrastructure was held up for months of interagency reviews that eventually ended at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Gil Jamieson, who at the time was FEMA’s head of Gulf Coast recovery said Ward’s directive would have given federal agencies too little time to review requests for funding. "There’s certainly a responsibility that we have, and I have, as a civil service official, to ensure those dollars are going to the purposes they were intended," Gil said.

However, despite Gil’s contention that added layers of review would save taxpayer millions in wasted spending, not a single rebuilding project was amended, declared ineligible, or kicked back for further scrutiny. Not a single one.

Ward, who was later promoted to FEMA’s West Coast director and led its response to the recent California wildfires, stands by the policy she issued on Sept. 6, 2005 when she was FEMA’s Louisiana-based director of recovery command.

"We knew given the enormity of Katrina that we needed to get the money out quickly," said Ward. Alas your boss didn’t see the same urgency.