Educated by Rita

Editorial - New York Times: "Three weeks after the nation was shocked to realize how little the government knew about emergency management in New Orleans, another hurricane has hit the South and made it clear that the learning curve is still daunting.

There was little danger that Rita would fail to get the authorities' full attention, or that people in the potential path of danger would not heed warnings to evacuate. But when Houston residents were told to leave, they found themselves stranded and sweltering in 90-degree heat in colossal traffic jams.

High-occupancy-vehicle lanes went unused, as did many inbound lanes of highways, because authorities inexplicably waited until late Thursday to open some up. Some motorists discovered, in terror, that they were stuck in what could be the hurricane's path. Tragically, one bus carrying 45 people - 38 of them elderly nursing home residents - caught fire near Dallas, killing at least 24.

If Katrina exposed what happens when many people have no cars to escape danger, Rita seemed to show the other side of the coin. The authorities are going to have to become much more sophisticated about developing evacuation plans that do not put every family on the highway in its own vehicle. But the car-obsessed American public is going to require a lot of education before many will accept the idea that they should flee disaster via mass transit.

Some Rita-related failures seemed inexplicable. A dearth of federal security screeners at Houston's airports led to long lines for the airline passengers trying get out of the city. The Homeland Security Department should have anticipated that problem. Houston's shortage of emergency shelters and the local officials' apparent reluctance to let the public know where space was available were hard to comprehend.

President Bush was as visible in the preparations for Rita's arrival as he had been absent during Katrina. He had even planned to meet a search-and-rescue team in San Antonio yesterday, but the team was moving elsewhere so that stop was canceled.

The president well knows that his presence can be more of a distraction than a comfort when he's on the scene in these circumstances. What the country wants is confidence that the administration is improving the leadership and performance of FEMA, and homeland security operations in general. We already know that the White House knows how to manage a good photo-op."