By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - The United States is better prepared to deal with a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf region in 2005, but still lacks a formal structure for coordinating a national response, the head of the U.S. Coast Guard said on Tuesday.

Adm. Thad Allen, appointed to oversee the federal response to Katrina a week after the hurricane, said the Department of Homeland Security was reworking it's national response plan to incorporate the lessons of Katrina and other incidents.

"Beyond that I think it's also necessary to take a look at a broad framework for how we can bring together the different capabilities and competencies across all levels of government -- local, state and federal," Allen said in a statement.

Allen said he had created a special Coast Guard unit to respond to disasters based on his experience with Katrina. A similar group was needed at the national level, he said.

He cited some movement in this direction, noting that a group of U.S. officials flew to Lebanon last summer to help coordinate the evacuation of U.S. citizens during the war between Israel and Hizbollah fighters.

"We're far better prepared than we ever have been before," he told reporters after a speech at the Brookings Institution.

Allen said the federal government had no clear mandate to get involved from the start in Katrina, because current protocols call for local and state officials to oversee the response to a natural disaster.

As the 2007 hurricane season nears, New Orleans officials are telling residents the city is better prepared than it was before Katrina, which killed at least 1,300 people, but they still cannot assure their safety.

Forecasters predict the hurricane season, which starts on June 1, will be busy, and the Gulf Coast could well be hit.

Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans when its storm surge swamped the surrounding levees in 2005. The storm caused some $81 billion in damage, the most by a natural disaster in the United States.

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