FEMA to miss June hurricane planning deadline

Blown deadlines: With Hurricane Katrina apparently nothing more than a distant memory, FEMA announced this week that it will likely not meet a 1 June deadline for its new national response plan. This is a problem, of course, because summer is hurricane season. According to FEMA, the delay is caused by what the AP described as “unexpected issues”, but no new timetable was suggested and so FEMA will instead move forward with a modified version of the plan that, as we all recall, worked so wonderfully during Katrina. “Every post-Katrina report cited the enormous flaws with the current national response plan, yet here we are six weeks until hurricane season and FEMA has once again dropped the ball,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi). “Failing to have a revised plan in place and relying solely on the previously failed one is irresponsible and unacceptable.” Representatives of federal, state, local and tribal authorities, private sector companies, and nongovernment emergency agencies have all contributed to the revised, but now delayed, plan.