Then: FEMA Director Michael Brown, a political appointee with little experience managing disaster response and relief, had no direct line of communication with President Bush following his agency's absorption into the new Department of Homeland Security. While Brown took the brunt of criticism for the agency's slow response, DHS chief Michael Chertoff and the president also were seen as disengaged and slow to react. The chain of command was muddled at the regional level, with a 2004 reorganization leaving many front-line FEMA officials unsure who was in charge.

Now: Brown was replaced by David Paulison, former chief of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, who is attempting to reinvigorate the agency. But some question whether Paulison's experience is sufficient for such a big job. Congressional critics also are calling for FEMA to be separated from the DHS or rebuilt from scratch with a Cabinet-level leader, but that won't happen this year. DHS says it has clarified the responsibilities of its lead officials in disaster regions, but FEMA employees continued to express confusion about the hierarchy.

Then: Once it became clear that the evacuation of New Orleans was beyond the capability of local officials, FEMA failed in its support mission by taking nearly a week to get to thousands of stranded residents. Under an existing contract, logistics company LandStar was responsible for coordinating the federal evacuation effort. But the involvement of several layers of subcontractors and lack of a central communications hub often resulted in bus drivers receiving confusing or conflicting instructions. It also took months to pay many bus operators.

Now: For the first time, the American Bus Association, a private industry group, has joined preparedness exercises run by DHS and FEMA. The bus association has called for a central communications system for drivers and proposed that contingency contracts be signed with bus companies. However, it has received no response yet to those proposals. Landstar's contract for transporting evacuates and emergency supplies runs through the end of the year, but the government has not made a decision on 2007.

Then: When Katrina struck, FEMA lacked adequate fraud-prevention measures and often didn't use those it had, the General Accountability Office reported. As a result, there was rampant abuse and duplication of $2,000 emergency payments. Overall, as many as 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received aid did so using false names, addresses or Social Security numbers. Shortly after the storm, FEMA hired ChoicePoint to screen applications filed over the Internet, but applicants who were rejected were able to reapply by telephone and in-person, where screening efforts were seriously flawed.

Now: FEMA says it now can screen all applicants for emergency assistance in future disasters via ChoicePoint, which should largely eliminate abuses of the system. It has also been chasing down people who received erroneous payments after Katrina in an effort to recover some of the lost funds.

Then: FEMA stockpiled a record volume of essential supplies prior to Katrina - from water and soap to blankets and pre-made meals -- but was unable to track the shipments once they left the distribution centers. This led to confusion and uncertainty as shipments of essentials like ice - critical for preserving medications and food in areas without electric power - were rerouted or stalled all over the country. Drivers also reported difficulty reaching the disaster area because of closed roads.

Now: FEMA's new approach is vastly improved, though untested. The agency has adopted a global positioning system to track shipments of emergency supplies, similar to those used by private shipping companies to track packages. They also have pre-positioned three times as much emergency supplies as last year at Gulf Coast distribution centers for improved accessibility to coastal areas.

Then: FEMA lacked what it calls "situational awareness" and officials were often forced to get their information from television news reports. As a result, officials were slow to understand that levees had been breached in New Orleans, and later were unaware when thousands of evacuees were stranded in the New Orleans Convention Center. The breakdown was caused by cell phone and landline outages, the inability of various emergency communications systems to "talk" to one another and poorly maintained relationships with local officials.

Now: Federal teams will be deployed to stricken areas to beam back live images to agency officials, supplementing those delivered by television. Agency officials have ramped up emergency exercises with local officials, which should help to improve coordination and re-establish relationships among government entities that were weakened by the Department of Homeland Security reorganization. They have also dispatched more satellite phones to employees to help bridge communication gaps.

Then: In the 90 days after Katrina, FEMA awarded 4,700 contracts worth more than $8.1 billion. No-bid contracts, failure to specify exactly what work was to be performed and the lack of basic internal controls recommended by government auditors more than a year earlier cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Large contractors also pushed up costs and created confusion by hiring many layers of subcontractors, often at the expense of local contractors. One factor was too few procurement experts at FEMA with the ability to put in place appropriate contracts in advance.

Now: Seeking to tighten financial controls, auditors have been scrutinizing major Katrina contracts -- especially those handed out in the initial weeks or awarded on a no-bid or limited-competition basis -- and checking cost-reimbursement, time and material reimbursements. FEMA has appointed a veteran procurement specialist and is hiring additional staff to oversee its contracts. Ongoing Gulf Coast work awarded under noncompetitive contracts will now be competitively bid. FEMA also is awarding some 36 contracts worth up to $100 million each to small and minority-owned businesses, largely in the Gulf Coast.

Then: The agency purchased modular and manufactured homes for use in flood plains that were not allowed under its own regulations. Many contracts for some 27,000 travel trailers that were bought "off the lot" did not specify FEMA minimum requirements, and some trailers did not meet them. In some instances, it pursued needlessly expensive options: For example, it ordered a $7.9 million renovation of a facility at the shuttered Fort McClellan Army Base in Anniston, Ala., but then closed it two months later after only a handful of storm refugees arrived.

Now: Glitches in the housing program have been extensively reviewed by Congress, and will presumably lead to reforms. But the agency has not yet announced any major new initiatives specific to this program. It should nonetheless benefit from other efforts to improve procurement and customer service for disaster victims.

Then: To address the urgent need to remove millions of tons of debris, FEMA charged the Army Corps of Engineers with overseeing execution of contracts worth a total of $2 billion awarded to four major companies. These deals, which created layers of subcontractors, have been criticized as overpriced, rife with inefficiencies, open to fraud and hard to monitor. Places where the worst debris piles were removed often saw an exodus of contractors, who are generally paid by the load, not by time spent working.

Now: FEMA says it has taken steps to streamline the contracting process and is now making it easier for local officials to hire locally and bill the government. This is expected to be cheaper, and allow the local decision makers to focus on their priorities in the cleanup.

Then: Morale among FEMA professionals has suffered since the agency was absorbed into the new Department of Homeland Security in late 2002, as many high level positions were filled by political appointees and many positions that were vacated were not filled. Because of the brain drain, FEMA had an estimated 500 vacant jobs when Katrina struck, and seasoned staff members were stretched past the breaking point. The agency hastily added about 7,000 temporary workers in the wake of the disaster, but most lacked relevant experience and training.

Now: FEMA has waged an aggressive hiring campaign, filling about 85 percent of vacant permanent full-time positions by late May. It also more than doubled its disaster assistance force to more than 8,000 employees and is working to fill some 700 two-year positions to stay focused on recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. There are concerns about the large number of inexperienced workers, though, and the hiring of Paulison as FEMA's new chief came only after several other candidates rejected the post, apparently unconvinced that the agency is viable under DHS.

Then: The Small Business Administration, tapped by FEMA to process long-term, low interest loans to homeowners, renters and small businesses in disaster areas bogged down after Katrina because its new $24 million computer system couldn't accommodate the number of loan officers needed to process applications. Though the SBA has approved more than 136,000 loans totaling $9 billion since Katrina, the SBA's inspector general reported that disbursal of the funds has been delayed in many cases because the agency's computer system doesn't always interface well with the FEMA system.

Now: The SBA is upgrading its disaster loan computer system so that it can support a total of 4,000 users, up from 1,500 after Katrina, and better communicate with FEMA's computers. The upgrade of the system, is "very close to being completed," according to an SBA spokeswoman. However, it will be untested in the real world as hurricane season gets under way.

"Grades" assigned by MSNBC.com are based on interviews with current and former FEMA officials, local and other emergency response experts and congressional investigations.