State Health Director Julie Eckstein expresses a certain amount of frustration with how things were run when it came to coordinating activities between state and local officials in setting up the welcome center for Hurricane Katrina evacuees at the Lambert-St. Louis Airport. Eckstein was happy with the response from the St. Louis City Emergency Manager and the airport management, but she won’t say exactly who she was frustrated with. Eckstein does say, however, that top elected officials at the St. Louis city government level had a lack of understanding of how to work with the National Incident Management System. She says that’s not uncommon, and even non-governmental agencies could use the training.
