Giuliani: FEMA as bad as in Katrina

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani slammed FEMA and President Barack Obama on Monday over the response to super storm Sandy-inflicted damages, saying the emergency agency is failing as badly to as it did during Katrina.

“The response since the time the president got all this praise and credit and press ops has been abysmal,” Giuliani said on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom.” “FEMA is as much a failure now as at the time of Katrina.”


( PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy)

Giuliani, a 2008 presidential candidate, said that he did not “understand” why New York was facing water, generators and gas shortages.

“It’s quite obvious they didn’t pre-plan for water, they didn’t pre-plan for the generators, they didn’t pre-plan for the gasoline,” he said.

He bashed Obama for losing “focus” on the subject.

“The president getting all this credit so early, maybe the first day or two he was paying attention, but the minute he got his credit, the minute he got his pat on his back, we had the same situation as we had in Benghazi,” Giuliani said. “He loses focus. He goes back to being campaigner-in-chief rather than commander-in-chief.”

( Also on POLITICO: Obama touts Sandy response in final Fla. visit)

Parts of New York remain devastated, including areas in Queens and Staten Island, where resident have been complaining that FEMA is a non-presence. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that between 30,000 and 40,000 people could be in need of housing, a major concern as temperatures drop. The National Guard is also providing assistance as citizens continue to clamor for gas, which has not been readily available in the wake of the storm.

In New Jersey, while the number of people without power dropped to below 1 million, many other Garden Staters are still in the dark, according to news reports.