From Federal News Radio: How FEMA Learned from its Mistakes.
When Hurricane Matthew made landfall in the U.S. in early October, it was a chance for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to prove it’s learned from its mistakes.
“I think that what you see in Matthew is the maturation of FEMA’s ability to be prepared and then respond to a disaster,” said Joe Nimmich, deputy FEMA director, on Homeland Security Month.
Recovery Diva 
“FEMA was not able to, by the construct of the Stafford act, be able to respond or pre-position resources,” Nimmich said. “We had to wait for the governor to ask. You saw how badly that worked in terms of Katrina. The post-Katrina legislation allows FEMA to be able to expend dollars to be able to move commodities and people forward in anticipation. The legislation has allowed us to become the responders that we think we are now, and that played out pretty well in Matthew.”
That’s actually another myth that shows how little FEMA actually knows of its own history. It’s patently untrue but serves as a crutch to show progress that actually happened years earlier.
Thanks for clarifying that point.
All of us could be doing a better job of lessons learned!
Amen.
If only the Red Cross would learn from their mistakes…
But that would require that they be willing to admit them first, which they never seem able to.