THE White House rejected calls by a Senate committee yesterday to close down the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the government body lambasted for its woeful response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The push to scrap the agency came after a scathing report by a bipartisan Senate investigation into the disaster, which said that Katrina had exposed flaws in Fema “too substantial to mend”.

The call to replace the beleaguered agency was the top recommendation of the Senate inquiry, which also heaped blame on President Bush for his slow response to Katrina. The report was issued during Mr Bush’s eleventh visit to the Gulf Coast region since the hurricane, a trip aimed at highlighting rebuilding efforts.

Visiting New Orleans, Mr Bush passed badly damaged houses, boarded up from top to bottom and awaiting rehabilitation. He later donned work gloves and a carpenter’s apron to pound nails into a house frame.

“We pray that there is no hurricane this coming year, but we’re working together to make sure the response will be as efficient as possible,” the President said.

The Senate report faults Mr Bush for waiting until two days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — triggering catastrophic flooding in New Orleans — to return to Washington to begin co-ordinating a federal response.

The inquiry, titled Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, also blamed Ray Nagin, the New Orleans Mayor, and Kathleen Blanco, the Governor of Louisiana, for failing to protect the sick and elderly and others who could not evacuate the city on their own.

But its main conclusion — to shut down Fema and replace it with an agency better able to respond to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina — looked set to face stiff opposition from the White House and reignite a controversy that has had a significant impact on Mr Bush’s approval ratings.

Frances Fragos Townsend, Mr Bush’s Homeland Security adviser, said that the White House would work with Congress on the issue, but signalled its opposition to shutting down Fema.

“As we’re headed to this hurricane season, now is not really time to really look at moving organisational boxes,” she said aboard Air Force One, as Mr Bush travelled to the stormravaged Gulf Coast.

She added: “Yes, there’s a better way to organise it . . . we look forward to working with the committee. I think we all share the same common goal, and that is having a strong, capable Fema that is better able to serve the American people when they’re in greatest need.”

Susan Collins, the Republican chairwoman of the Senate committee, said: “The first obligation of government is to protect our people. In Katrina we failed at all levels of government to meet that fundamental obligation.”The panel issued 86 recommendations for change that, taken together, indicate that the US is still woefully unprepared for a storm of Katrina’s intensity with the start of the hurricane season little more than a month away.

DISASTROUS

50,000 homes likely to be demolished

57,000 small businesses lost

$22 billion spent by federal government

1.5m people displaced

$3.1 billion promised by Bush Administration for repairs and improvements of flood defences

$2,000 given by Fema to each household in the states most affected by the hurricane

803,018 applicants in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama gained Fema assistance

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