On Monday morning, President Bush announced the resignation of Fran Townsend, the White House homeland security advisor (AP) .

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Towsend struggled with the decision, talking about it with the president for months. Townsend has told colleagues she is looking for opportunities in the private
sector. (AP)

Notably, Townsend led the White House assessment of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and prepared a February, 2006, report describing “lessons learned.” Number one on a list of “11 critical actions to strengthen Federal response capabilities” (White House Factsheet), scheduled for completion by June 1, 2006, was this recommendation:

Ensure that relevant Federal, State, and local decision-makers, including leaders of State National Guards, are working together and in close proximity to one another in the event of another disaster;

To accomplish that, the federal government first needed to revise the National Response Plan, the flawed blueprint for coordinating disaster response. But, more than a year after the White House’s self-imposed deadline, the work has not been completed. According to recommendations of the Disaster Accountability Project, much work remains to be done to make the draft National Response Framework an effective disaster response plan.