The Test of our Times: on Environment

Tom Ridge: Regional DHS office would have decreased Katrina damage

To be sure, had all gone right, there would still have been great loss of life and property. Even so, there is no doubt that many more people died and many more suffered than would have occurred if the government network had been working together in the way we had planned it.

If we had been able to establish a regional office in New Orleans, there would have been mutual support to deal with everything from evacuation to health care to emergency food and water supplies--and attention given to the immense task of dealing with the cleanup, and the even more daunting task of helping recapture the spirit of a city and its environs.