"Their house is burning and they're spending their time picking out window curtains"

That’s Craig Fugate, then and now the director of emergency preparedness for the state of Florida. What’s he talking about? The post-Katrina reorganization of FEMA, DHS and the National Response Plan.

I found this line in Christopher Cooper and Robert Block’s book Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security, an excellent account of the top-level decision-making in Katrina. About which more shortly. Fugate is clearly first-rate.

The Rules, according to Fugate:

  1. Meet the needs of the disaster victim
  2. Take care of the responders
  3. See rule 1.

And he has a website – “DisastersRUs” – check out his Emergency Management 101.