Get America prepared; get past the Katrina video

Dallas Morning News: As the White House says, the video of President Bush being briefed the day before Hurricane Katrina hit is just a snapshot.
It is a disturbing snapshot.
On one end of the video conference, Michael Brown, late of FEMA, and Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center paint a picture of impending catastrophe, including Mayfield's statement that overtopping of the New Orleans levees is a "very, very grave concern."
On the other end, the president asks no questions, speaking only to reassure state and local officials -- erroneously, as it turned out -- that federal officials "are fully prepared."
The White House says the tape means little unless viewed in context. It is unclear from the video how much of the briefing Bush heard. But his top emergency-management staff was there. And the reason the footage has raised such a furor is because it's being viewed in the larger context of administration missteps. For example, its mishandling of the Dubai Ports World deal and its failure to internalize unwelcome information in the run-up to the Iraq war.
It's broken; fix it
For now, though, the matter at hand -- which was addressed with laudable candor and precision in the recent White House report about Katrina's lessons -- is how to fix what's broken in the nation's disaster-response apparatus.
Here are a few possible moves either drawn from or congruent with the White House report's recommendations:
The Coast Guard is among the few Homeland Security agencies that has excelled under pressure; perhaps a Coast Guard official should become secretary of Homeland Security;
FEMA has been gutted; it needs to be rebuilt, arguably as an independent agency rather than a ward of Homeland Security;
No other agency has the logistical expertise, trained personnel, equipment or command structure to match the U.S. military. In Katrina-magnitude catastrophes, there should be a way to immediately deploy military units.
Fix the substance, Mr. President, and nobody will care about a few minutes of video.