August 29, 2005 was one of the darkest days for residents of the State of Louisiana. Katrina, a Category 3 hurricane, devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas causing catastrophic loss of life and property. The federal government's disaster response team, formed in 1978, called the Federal Emergency Management Agency, (commonly referred to as FEMA) responded to the needs of survivors. Unfortunately the Bush administration, through FEMA, displayed gross ineptitude in its response to the disaster. Before Hurricane Katrina, the lack of response resulted in a largely unsuccessful evacuation. After the storm, aid to the citizens of New Orleans was slow and inadequate. When we look back at the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, it appears that Bush's FEMA botched much of its handling of the crisis and that, overall, our "administration" could have responded to the situation much better. The lack of response dates back to the merger of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was formed in 2002 “in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001” (Adamski, p4). The function of the DHS is to provide a “unified defense structure against the threat of terrorism and other potential dangers” (Adamski, p4 (Homeland Security Act of 2002)). In 2003 the Bush administration reformed FEMA, which was moved under the umbrella of DHS. With that, the merger changed FEMA's mission from its primary focus of disaster response to fighting terrorism. The removal of FEMA from an independent agency that handled disaster response and the merger with DHS that responded to counterterrorism, according to Adamski, the merger raised concerns that natural disaster coverage would be…half of paper... .w FEMA could have done better. History and reporting indicate that FEMA has been more responsive to natural disasters than it responded to Katrina. After merging with DHS, FEMA could have established new policies and procedures earlier, perhaps then the death toll and damage caused by Katrina would not have been so catastrophic. The Government of Accountability Office has also made some recommendations for FEMA. The GAO recommended that FEMA obtain input from the Red Cross in developing its asset tracking system. Finally, the GAO recommends that FEMA work with the Red Cross to reach an agreement on operating procedures. Having said all this, in my opinion the best and most effective solution was that the agencies should never have merged. We can only learn from our past mistakes and try to create a better future, let's just hope that FEMA tries to do the same.