Senate report on Katrina blasts the White House anew

WASHINGTON — A Senate inquiry into the government's Hurricane Katrina failures ripped the Bush administration anew Thursday and urged the scrapping of the nation's disaster response agency. But with a new hurricane season just weeks away, senators conceded that few if any of their proposals could become reality in time.

The bipartisan investigation into one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history singled out President Bush and the White House as appearing indifferent to the devastation until two days after the storm hit.

It said the Homeland Security Department either misunderstood federal disaster plans or refused to follow them. And it said New Orleans for years had neglected to prepare for large-scale emergencies.

"The suffering that continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed did not happen in a vacuum; instead, it continued longer that it should have because of — and was in some cases exacerbated by — the failure of government at all levels to plan, prepare for and respond aggressively to the storm," concluded the report.

It was titled "Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared," sober words for the future.

In Utah, officials with the state's Division of Emergency Services and Homeland Security had not seen the formal Senate committee proposal and could not comment on its particulars. However, spokesman Derek Jensen said they did not have any complaints about the existing organization for emergency response.

"By and large, our relationship with FEMA has been positive, and we work very closely with their regional office in Denver," Jensen said. "They were very helpful and responsive when we had flooding in southern Utah last year, and they are also very aware of the earthquake danger in the state."

Currently, the state and FEMA's regional office are working to develop a plan for earthquake response, Jensen said. That plan will help define the roles various local, state and federal agencies would play in the event of a catastrophic earthquake in Utah.

The Senate inquiry is the third major federal report on the government failures exposed by the Aug. 29 storm, which killed more than 1,300 people and which the Senate Budget Committee says has so far cost the federal government $103 billion.

The report follows similar inquiries by the House and White House and comes in an election year in which Democrats have pointed critically to the administration's Katrina response.