(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Comparing to last year, more people in the United States trust their government’s ability to respond to natural disasters, according to a poll by CBS News. 59 per cent of respondents express a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in their federal administration to deal with these situations, up ten points since February 2006.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. More than 1,500 residents died as a result of the storm and its aftermath.

In September 2005, U.S. president George W. Bush admitted that Hurricane Katrina "exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," adding, "To the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong. I want to know how to better cooperate with state and local government." On that same day, David Paulison became the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), replacing Michael Brown.

In February 2006, a report from White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend urged for changes in 11 key areas, including disaster-relief coordination among federal agencies.

Last month, just days before the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Douglas Brinkley, author of "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast", criticized the government’s efforts to rebuild the damaged areas, saying, "The important thing is for America to decide whether the current policy of inaction is really the way we want to deal with the worst natural disaster in our history."

Polling Data

How much confidence do you have in the ability of the U.S. government to respond to natural disasters?

Archive Search

Over 19,600 Polls
Search the Angus Reid Global Monitor Polls & Research archive.