These are among the findings of University of South Carolina researchers who saw a living laboratory in the devastated communities left behind in Hurricane Katrina's wake.

"We couldn't go and pack sandbags," said Sonya Duhe, associate vice president in the office of research and health sciences. But they could canvass the region collecting fresh data - information on the human condition, environmental effects and policy response - that would lose its value if researchers waited too long to collect it.

"We knew we had to do it and do it fast," Duhe said.

The university's Office of Research and Health Sciences received $1 million worth of research proposal, funding 18 projects, totaling $400,000. The funding is seed money the schools hopes will be supplemented with federal and private grants.

Researchers will present their findings Tuesday at the Crisis National Summit in Columbia.

Civil engineering researcher Ahmed A. Kassem worked with graduate students to create a scale model of the 17th Street Canal, the site of the most serious breach of New Orleans' levees.

His conclusion? Using sandbags to patch the levees at the site of the breach was never practicable. It would have taken 50,000-pound sandbags to hold back the storm waters rushing into the city's neighborhoods. The Army Corps of Engineers finally succeeded in using sandbags once the water levels on either side of the levees had stabilized nearly a weak after Katrina struck

Kassem and a team of other researchers visited New Orleans to gather data and talk to officials about the levee system. They created what they say is a more effective model. It involves several rows of sandbags, with the sandbags getting heavier and the rows taller as they get closer to the levee.

Criminal justice researchers Michael R. Smith and Jeffrey Rojek found that local law enforcement agencies were not familiar with the process for seeking out-of-state emergency assistance and did not establish a line-of-command to direct out-of-state relief when it did arrive.

"Most law enforcement agencies did not have comprehensive disaster plans," Smith said.

He said it also was clear that local agencies did not learn the primary lesson of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - good communications in a disaster is key.

"They had hundreds of law enforcement officers who attempted to venture out and couldn't talk to one another," Smith said.

The research points to a need to plan who will coordinate the numerous agencies that become involved in disaster response, particularly first-responders and out-of-state help, Smith said.

Smith and Rojek made two trips to the Gulf Coast. While the number of New Orleans police officers who failed to show up for work made national headlines, Rojek said the vast majority of officers along the Gulf Coast continued working despite severe personal and professional challenges.

For New Orleans churches, Katrina not only ripped apart their structures, it also split their memberships, said Andrew Billingsley, a professor in the university's Institute for Families in Society.

He and other researchers spoke to ministers in New Orleans and three evacuee sites: Columbia, Houston and Memphis, Tenn.

They found preachers commuting to various sites to minister to fractured congregations. They also saw that white churches and black churches were helping each other, creating a partnership that many ministers say will outlast hurricane recovery.

The influx of white college students who traveled to the Gulf Coast to assist black churches in recovery was reminiscent of voter registration efforts during the civil rights movement, said Billingsley, who has studied the role of black churches in advancing social change.

Many ministers say the recovery effort has allowed them to fulfill the church's mission to serve their communities, Billingsley said.