According to a GAO report issued last Friday, 30 million taxpayer dollars were wasted by FEMA when it purchased trailers for survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

In one case cited, FEMA awarded contracts that could have cost as much as $229,000 to support one family in a single trailer — roughly the price of a five-bedroom home in Jackson, Miss. (Washington Post)

This is not, as the Government Accountability Office concluded, simply a case of “ineffective oversight.” It is also the expected result of government’s longstanding inattention to pre-disaster planning for long-term recovery. 

Knowing that New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities were highly vulnerable to catastrophe, federal, state and local planners long ago should have developed a recovery plan. After examining the costs and benefits of various housing options, and developing implementing procedures, officials would have been prepared to make smarter decisions when disaster finally struck, and might have avoided other problems that plague FEMA trailers.

FEMA agreed with GAO’s recommendations, USA Today informs us. So, have important lessons been learned? Apparently not. FEMA’s new emergency preparedness strategy, titled the “National Response Framework,” has little to say about how the federal government will assist long-term recovery of disaster-stricken communities. And, state emergency plans have been equally anemic in their discussion of long-term recovery strategies, some devoting only a few paragraphs to the subject.

Many government planners consider pre-disaster recovery planning unnecessary because they believe there will be plenty of time to make decisions after emergency (live-saving) activities have concluded. But, that seldom is the case. Once disaster hits, government officials feel pressured to act quickly and are reluctant to delay decisions in order to gather documentation.

Considering that recovery is the most expensive phase of a disaster, the potential savings are enormous. Many Gulf Coast residents and former residents undoubtedly are thinking of the permanent schools, health care facilities, and homes that could have been built with the $30 million FEMA needlessly spent on temporary trailers.

It’s not too late for agencies to ensure a smoother and more cost-effective recovery from the next major disaster by preparing plans, procedures and documentation in advance. But, with DHS/FEMA providing little leadership, reform may be far away.