Wake up call?

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff says Katrina was a wake-up call for disaster planners. Oh, and don't expect any help from the federal government - you're on your own.

Hurricane Katrina was a "wake-up call" for disaster responders to have evacuation routes set and emergency plans in place before the start of this year's storm season, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday.

Chertoff, in Orlando to meet with Gulf Coast state emergency managers and attend an annual hurricane preparedness conference, also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency should not be considered the front line of defense in future disasters.

In preparing for the upcoming hurricane season, now seven weeks away, "I think some parts (of the Gulf Coast) are readier than others," Chertoff said in an interview with The Associated Press during his flight to Orlando. "I think this has been a great wake-up call."

New Orleans, in particular, remains especially vulnerable as the city struggles with providing stable housing for evacuees, Chertoff said.

Anticipating concerns that the federal government would try to run disaster response, Chertoff said FEMA would play "a supporting role" to local and state authorities. "We all have a role to play in this," he said.

So I wonder where the DHS thinks state and local governments suddenly found all these big piles of cash? Not to mention manpower and equipment, much of which is attached to state National Guards units still deployed in Iraq.

As for a "wake-up call", I guess they hit the "snooze" button after FEMA's own Hurricane Pam exercise, conducted more than a year before Katrina. I guess they slept right through a March 2005 report prepared by their own hired consultant which concluded that FEMA's "plans and procedures were nonexistent, outdated or inconsistent."

The wake-up call is for the American people, who can now see very clearly the current administration's policy of aggressive indifference towards the federal government and its role in society (and its funding), and the "trickle-down" effects of incompetence at the highest levels.