Washington ? The nation’s beleaguered disaster response agency is frantically trying to fill hundreds of vacant jobs as the next hurricane season looms less than three months away, top officials said Thursday.

The staffing concerns, voiced by Federal Emergency Management Agency acting director R. David Paulison, came as the House passed legislation extending disaster unemployment benefits by 13 weeks to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The bill still must be approved by the Senate.

In an interview, Paulison said “a couple hundred” jobs are open at FEMA, and he feared the vacancies could cause current staffers to burn out.

“It’s a big push right now to make sure those positions that are vacant, and have been vacant for a while, would get filled,” Paulison said. “Staffers have been working pretty much seven days a week, and we need to make sure we have enough people here to do the job so we can continue to move into this hurricane season.”

“We need to be full,” he said. “FEMA’s got to be full because of what we’re being asked to do.”

Additionally, FEMA is under order by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to create and fill 795 “surge team” positions – specializing in swift disaster response – by the storm season’s June 1 start. In all, the agency plans to hire 1,500 surge team responders over the next year.

A FEMA spokeswoman said later the agency has had no shortage of applicants.

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., left, listens to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., as he speaks to the media in the French Quarter of New Orleans March 2, 2006. Members of Congress arrived in New Orleans for a three day tour of the damaged region.

Paulison, who took over at FEMA two weeks after Katrina hit, said the agency also was focusing on more aggressive communications with state officials and emergency responders to ensure Washington has real-time information about disasters as they unfold. He said those channels were more successful during hurricanes Rita, which hit Sept. 24, and Wilma on Oct. 24, but “it just didn’t work in Katrina.”

“What we did in Rita and Wilma is what we should have done for Katrina,” Paulison said. “If I saw a flaw in Katrina, it was the lack of communications, us not knowing exactly what was happening.”

Top House leaders – including Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi – arrived Thursday in New Orleans for a three-day tour of the Gulf Coast to inspect ongoing cleanup and rebuilding efforts.

Before they left, the House approved legislation to extend unemployment benefits that were scheduled to end Saturday for at least 165,000 small-business owners, the self-employed and other victims who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for the assistance. The bill now goes to the Senate for approval.