“The Role of the Federal Government
in Megadisasters”

WLOX-TV, ABC Network Affiliate

August 27, 2009

WLOX-TV in Southern Mississippi covered a press briefing at City Hall in Bay St. Louis, Miss., where Institute Co-Director Richard P. Nathan and Boston College Political Science Professor Marc Landy presented the final product of research in the four-year “GulfGov” study on government responses to the 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Their paper calls for changes in the federal Stafford Act, the law that authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to allow the president immediately to appoint a special officer-in-charge once a megadisaster strikes.

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