The US GAO has prepared a report into how the country responds to major disasters and what improvements can be made. ‘Catastrophic Disasters: Enhanced Leadership, Capabilities, and Accountability Controls Will Improve the Effectiveness of the Nation's Preparedness, Response, and Recovery System’ includes six recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland Security with which the Department of Homeland Security has expressed general agreement. The report also includes a matter for congressional consideration.

GAO states that: “The purpose of this report is to summarize what went well and why, what did not go well and why, [with last year’s Gulf Coast hurricane response] and what changes are needed to improve the nation's readiness to respond to a catastrophic disaster; and to identify selected issues associated with the Gulf Coast's recovery. This report is based on GAO's prior work on catastrophic disasters, including Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the over 30 GAO reports completed to date on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, ongoing GAO work, and other Hurricane Katrina reviews and lessons learned.”

Read the GAO quick summary of the report here and the full version here.

•Date: 8th September 2006• Region: US •Type: Article •Topic: DR general
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