HARVEY E. JOHNSON JR., deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, flew down to East Texas recently and got an earful from local officials. Not for FEMA's response in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Ike. That went relatively well. But Texans were not thrilled with FEMA's red tape and sluggish actions once people returned to what was left of their homes. But rather than obfuscate or shift blame, Mr. Johnson took responsibility and told the Houston Chronicle that "we need to box some ears."

Word of the sluggish pace of securing mobile homes and other disaster assistance for the folks in Galveston and other places devastated by Ike had that deja vu quality: It was a troubling flashback to the ineptitude and indifference that came to characterize the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. While acknowledging the problems highlighted by local officials, Mr. Johnson assured us that FEMA was not backsliding. "We were talking to each other, but we weren't communicating," he told us.

Both FEMA and the authorities on the ground have separate responsibilities and laws to abide by that neither appreciated, and that worked to slow the flow of help. Local zoning laws prevented placement of mobile homes in certain areas. Waivers were needed. Getting the mobile homes hooked up to utilities, such as electricity, proved to be a cumbersome task. The agency now has a contract with the Entergy power company that keeps its workers on call to more efficiently link more homes to the power grid. And Mr. Johnson said that FEMA looked at its own processes and "knocked out" delays that didn't make sense. He also ordered a review of the assistance application process that rejected people who needed help. To demonstrate the newfound cooperation, Mr. Johnson told us that people moved into 23 manufactured homes on Oct. 31. There were 50 move-ins Wednesday.

Galveston is bouncing back. By the time Ike made landfall on Sept. 13, "approximately 80 percent of island residents" had evacuated, according to city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill. Last week, she reported that upward of 79 percent of Galveston's 57,000 residents and 70 percent of schoolchildren have returned and that "most of the island now has water, sewer, electricity and natural gas." There's a lot more work to be done. But it should get done much faster now that FEMA and local officials are working more effectively together.

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