Reform Is Promised for FEMA

WASHINGTON — The government may have to radically change FEMA, the agency that proved unprepared to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday.

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, which battered Gulf Coast states over an eight-week period, stretched the agency “beyond the breaking point,” Chertoff said in a public review of his department’s 2005 performance.

“We will retool FEMA, maybe even radically, to increase our ability to deal with catastrophic events,” he said in a 35-minute speech at George Washington University.

Chertoff offered no specifics for changing the Federal Emergency Management Agency but said its employees must be given authority to cut through bureaucracy to assist disaster victims quickly.

His aides said changes would come early next year.

Meanwhile, meeting notes released Tuesday by a union representative for federal emergency workers said that Chertoff told FEMA employees that many planned changes were for publicity purposes.

Chertoff’s spokesman denied he ever made such comments.

The typed notes, purportedly taken by an unidentified official, said Chertoff told the employees the retooling of FEMA “is partially a perception ploy to make outsiders feel like we’ve actually made changes for the better.”

The notes were released by Leo Bosner, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees local that represents FEMA headquarters workers.

Bosner said he obtained the notes from another FEMA official, whom he would not identify.

Russ Knocke, spokesman for Chertoff, said it was “categorically not the case” that Chertoff made those remarks.

Knocke said that improving disaster response “is one of the highest priorities we have.”