Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency

As the first tropical storm of the 2006 hurricane season makes landfall in Florida (the earliest on record, if I'm not mistaken), FEMA has no one in charge of Southeast operations:

But amid a tour of the Southeast region, Chertoff said the agency is still working to confirm a regional director to oversee a seven-state region that includes the nation's most frequent hurricane targets.

Three other regions - the Gulf Coast, the mid-Atlantic and the northern plains states - lack permanent directors, although experienced interim officials are in charge.

Southeast coastal states - from Texas across to Virginia - are most prone to billion-dollar disasters, according to the National Weather Service. Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama have averaged nearly one major natural disaster a year for the past 25 years - highest in the country.

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said later that a director for the Southeast should be hired next week.

Filling management positions isn't FEMA's only hiring problem:

Short about 500 workers - one-fifth of the work force - two months ago, FEMA officials initially said they would have 95 percent of their openings filled by mid-May. That date was later pushed to June 1 - the beginning of the hurricane season - and then discarded altogether.

"We are much better than we were," Chertoff said during a joint news conference with Gov. Mike Easley. "We're close to 90 percent. We're looking at getting between 90 and 95 percent by the end of the year."

The lack of leadership up and down the line is incomprehensible. Why is Michael Chertoff still in charge of DHS?