Is FEMA Ready For 2007 Storms?

NEW ORLEANS - The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency returned Wednesday to the scene of the agency's much-ridiculed performance after Hurricane Katrina and promised that it has transformed into a premier disaster response engine.

"We're going into the hurricane season as a stronger organization, as a more nimble organization, and as a more forward-leaning organization," David Paulison said at the National Hurricane Conference, vowing that the agency will focus on people instead of bureaucracy.

"We want a FEMA that is much more sensitive, that has a heart," he said.

Along the Gulf Coast, FEMA has become the butt of jokes and the source of countless horror stories for its inefficiencies after Katrina slammed into New Orleans and the Mississippi coast Aug. 29, 2005.

Paulison, who was confirmed by the Senate last year and did not lead the agency when Katrina struck, said last year's mild hurricane season gave his agency some time to refocus and reorganize. Politics is being taken out of top assignments, he said, as regional directors are hired based on their experience as career staffers. FEMA has filled many vacancies and brought in advisers to help with "critical issues" such as planning for people with disabilities and pet owners, he said.

FEMA also has stockpiled enough food to feed 1 million people for a week and aggressively worked with states threatened by hurricanes, Paulison said. But he also emphasized that people should not rely too heavily on the government when disaster strikes.

"If I had one message to get out, it's personal preparedness, to be able to take care of yourself for three days," he said.

Paulison's advice came as the director of the National Hurricane Center warned that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season likely will be more active than normal.

The El Nino weather pattern that suppressed hurricane development last year has diminished, and wind patterns appear to be shifting in a way that would lead tropical systems toward land rather than keeping them at sea, center director Bill Proenza said at the conference.

It appears that "we tend to go back to an above normal season" this year, in line with a theory that the Atlantic is in a decades-long active period that started in 1995, he said.

Still "there are a lot of things that could happen in the atmosphere that could have a bearing on the season," he said.

El Nino is the periodic warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can affect weather around the world.

On Tuesday, William Gray, a top forecaster, predicted a "very active" season this year with at least nine hurricanes — five of them major hurricanes — and a good chance that one major hurricane will hit the U.S. coast.

Gray, based at Colorado State University, predicted a total of 17 named storms this year.

The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, averages 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes.

Last year forecasters predicted a busy season too, but conditions were such that 10 tropical storms developed and five became hurricanes, two of them major. Three tropical storms made landfall.

The National Hurricane Center will issue its forecast for the 2007 season in late May.