I have written a number of posts here about government incompetence relating to Hurricane Katrina. In fairness, I should acknowledge the one department that seems to have performed with uncanny precision. That is the National Weather Service.
We joke a lot about bad weather forecasts and about how if the guy on the TV says it'll be clear and sunny, take an umbrella. In truth, while forecasts do sometimes go awry, the N.W.S. does a very good job. I just read over their forecasts leading up to and during the hurricane (archived on this page) and I was impressed, as you might be if you go there and root around. The early bulletins, issued when there were still different tracks Katrina might take, were cautious but they put everyone on alert. By the time a Category 4 (or maybe a Category 5) seemed likely, the forecasts were firm and accurate. In his weblog, NBC newsman Brian Williams wrote…
I will never forget one particular moment: I was on the phone with my wife while at the checkout area when a weather bulletin arrived on my Blackberry, along with a strong caveat from our New York producers. The wording and contents were so incendiary that our folks were concerned that it wasn't real…either a bogus dispatch or a rogue piece of text. I filed a live report by phone for Nightly News (after an exchange with New York about the contents of the bulletin) and very cautiously couched the information. Later, we learned it was real, every word of it.
Here's a link to that whole weblog entry by Williams. And if you read up on the page as far as this entry, you'll learn a bit about the folks who made the predictions and wrote those important announcements.
Why does the N.W.S. do such a good job when other agencies fail? Well, I'll suggest two thoughts. One is that it's the kind of bureau that can't be surrendered to cronyism and hiring one's old buddies. You apparently don't need a background in emergency services to work at or even run FEMA but to be involved with the National Weather Service, you have to know a lot about science and the weather. Also, there's no way to use the department to transfer large sums of money from the government to the private sector. No one gets wealthy working for the National Weather Service. No one makes their friends wealthy and then leaves to go into business with them, which leaves the opportunists out. Instead, the people at the National Weather Service just do the job they're supposed to do. More arms of government ought to try it.