Katrina hero: Wal-Mart

Hurricane season is just around the corner, so Americans should know where to turn to if disaster strikes.

It’s not the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A new study suggests Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe’s would be a lot more helpful.

The study, by Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., stresses that successful disaster relief depends upon responders having detailed knowledge of a local area and the right incentives to act on that knowledge.

Examining federal and private responses to Hurricane Katrina, the study says why FEMA was destined to fail and why for-profit companies succeeded at disaster recovery.

Read it all here.

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