During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "appoint a chief financial officer to oversee the rebuilding following national disasters to minimize waste and abuse."

Readers have periodically asked us why we have not yet rated this promise and one other related to disaster relief. Our answer has been that there has been no natural disaster of sufficient size to trigger the actions described in this promise.

For instance, the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a large event, but its impact was primarily on natural resources and the economy and did not destroy enough infrastructure to prompt a major and long-lasting "rebuilding” effort funded by federal money.

However, some readers have suggested that the flooding that hit parts of Tennessee, Kentucky and Mississippi in early May 2010 -- which was particularly damaging in Nashville -- might qualify as a big enough disaster. More than two dozen deaths were reported.

So we asked several independent experts in disaster recovery whether the Nashville floods -- or any other natural disaster since January 2009 -- would have been far-reaching enough to trigger this promise.

The consensus was that it wasn't.

Robert B. Olshansky, an urban and regional planning professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that in the past quarter century, only about a half-dozen natural disasters would have clearly demanded a response like the one outlined in this promise.

They include the Loma Prieta earthquake near San Francisco (1989), Hurricane Andrew in southern Florida (1992), the Midwest floods (1993), the Northridge earthquake near Los Angeles (1994), hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in Florida (2004), and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast (2005). He said a few other events might have qualified, such as Hurricane Ike along the Gulf Coast (2008), but including these would be a judgment call.

Our experts agreed that neither the Nashville floods nor any event since Obama's inauguration would have triggered the response Obama promised. Until there is one, we'll keep this promise at Not Yet Rated.