The poor response to Hurricane Katrina was “a failure of leadership at all levels of government” that requires an overhaul of the country’s disaster response capabilities, the Senate committee investigating the disaster said on Thursday.

The Senate homeland security committee, whose leaders were instrumental in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security following the September 11 terrorist attacks, called for the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the disaster response agency created in 1979, which was folded into the new DHS in 2003.