FEMA director vows no repeat of Katrina in 2007

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration's emergency management chief assured Congress on Tuesday there would be no repeat this year of the disastrous 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina response, despite concerns about overseas deployments of National Guard troops.

Federal Emergency Management Agency David Paulison said his once-beleaguered operation, widely blamed for a slow federal response in the aftermath of Katrina, has been reformed and re-energized by experienced new staff and better planning.

"There is no question in my mind whatsoever that you are not going to see another Katrina happen in this country," Paulison told a hearing of the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security.

But the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned the same panel that the National Guard may not be able to respond as effectively as possible to natural disasters partly because of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, critics of the Iraq war said the Bush administration's failure to replenish vital National Guard equipment deployed overseas had caused a shortfall in the response to a tornado disaster in Greensburg, Kansas.

Paulison declined to predict how the overseas deployment of National Guard troops might affect the government's response to a major hurricane like Katrina. There are about 13,400 National Guard troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"That would be impossible to answer," Paulison said. "But I can tell you we do have the ability to move equipment around. We do have the ability to move (the) National Guard around and we're going to prepare for whatever storm comes our way."

Tuesday's hearing took place about two weeks before the official June 1 start of the Atlantic hurricane season, which saw its first named storm last week in subtropical storm Andrea.

Leading storm forecasters say there is an above-average chance that a major hurricane will hit the U.S. Gulf Coast before this year's season ends on November 30, marking a possible return to the destructive storms of 2004 and 2005.

Hurricanes in 2005 devastated New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast, and knocked out a swath of the country's offshore oil platforms and coastal refineries, pushing oil prices to then-record highs. In 2004, four strong hurricanes struck Florida, the country's biggest citrus producer.

But it was FEMA's widely criticized response to the Katrina disaster in New Orleans that forced the ouster of the agency's former director, Michael Brown, whom Paulison replaced.

About 46,000 National Guard troops were sent to the Gulf Coast to help with hurricane relief in 2005.