Senator Jim Talent wants to make sure those in charge of emergency management have a level of expertise to avoid the problems seen in the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Not only does he believe the federal, state, and local emergency managers need to have practical experience in these situations, he says there needs to be large-scale exercises to train them as well. He likens the experience to what a military commander needs to have before going into battle. But Talent admits the nature of political appointees sometimes precludes having these people be experienced in emergency management. He says, in that case, at a minimum, there needs to be experienced people surrounding the appointee – so at least officials can tell that person what to do.
