TCS applauds you for looking more closely at certain contracting mishaps in the wake of Katrina, both because of the sizable federal investments being made to rebuild the region and the importance of getting the Gulf Coast back on its economic feet. Also, I would like to take this opportunity to salute the hard work done by the Inspectors General and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in looking into the waste, fraud and abuse in the Katrina contracts. Without their tireless efforts, we would not know nearly as much as we do about how taxpayer investments have been faring in the region. The more we know about what went wrong, the better we are going to be able to dramatically improve contracting operations in future natural disasters.

There are four major time periods for actions surrounding natural disasters. The first is pre-disaster planning and mitigation. The second is immediate disaster response over the first few days following the initial event. Then there is the short-term recovery over the next few months. And finally, the long-term recovery and reconstruction, which naturally leads into pre-disaster planning and mitigation, because we know if you’ve been hit by a disaster once, it can certainly happen again. For this testimony, I’m going to touch on pre-disaster planning, but concentrate on the short and long term recovery periods and the contracting activities that occurred then. Immediate disaster response is a different issue that could be discussed separately.  (Read the full testimony)