Getting Ready For Hurricane Season
This column was written by CBS News Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.
The hurricane forecasters at Colorado State will announce their educated guesses about the season to come today, and maybe they'll say this year won't be as bad as last. Maybe.
That can't come as much comfort to folks who live near America's Atlantic or Gulf Coasts.
Hurricane season is less than two months away. But in a conversation today with Jane Bullock, the former chief of staff of FEMA, she told me that if anything, the federal government is less prepared now than it was a year ago.
Recent divisions of labor and the very fact that the government can't find anyone to replace Mike Brown are signs, she said, that the system is still broken.
Meanwhile the cleanup continues in Katrinaville, where there's more debris than the World Trade Center site and Hurricane Andrew combined, and they're still not close to finishing.
And did you hear, the Corps of Engineers is proudly rebuilding New Orleans levees, but not high enough so anyone inside them can buy flood insurance?
Harry's daily commentary can be heard on manyCBS Radio News affiliates across the country.
By Harry Smith