HURRICANE KATRINA
Hurricane Katrina 1
This first section will be an overview of the days that led up to Hurricane Katrina making
landfall on the coast of Louisiana. Being in the American Red Cross at the time the team had
been on high alert waiting for this storm to take a definite path. It was a very ominous site to
watch. As the hurricane grew in strength her eye became more defined and the pattern of her
outward bands were almost breathtaking. The NOAA storm prediction center was alerting the
people of New Orleans that they needed to prepare. Like many coastal towns, their reaction was
to wait it out and initially not evacuate. As the storm grew in strength, New Orleans and the
surrounding coast began to realize this hurricane was not like any other storm. The evacuation
window was closing for them to evacuate in time. They are started sheltering in place and hoping
for the best. “In advance to Hurricane Katrina, managers could not develop mindset required for
collaboration and foster culture that facilitates interoperability during the disasters. So, their
efforts were not open or clear to partnering organizations, accordingly, individual’s efforts were
severely isolated not to get appropriate assistance from supporting organizations.”[Nam12] The
organizational functions between the levels of government and the corresponding agencies like
the American Red Cross was so disorganized their emergency plan of action somewhat crumbled
before it even was set into action.
The breakdown began in the beginning and people from emergency teams were using
their own vehicles to drive to Louisiana to help with rescue efforts. The processes of the ways
things were down and how they broke down will be discussed in this paper.
Mitigation
Preparation is important to reduce the vulnerability of in the face of disasters, to lessen
the magnitude of the impact of disasters and to encourage resiliency after disasters to
continue positive development efforts. The mitigation process before Hurricane Katrina was
Hurricane Katrina 2
not thorough. Mitigation is supposed to reduce the loss of life in a disaster and lessen the
effect of the disaster on property. “Emergency management protects communities by
coordinating and integrating all activities necessary to build, sustain, and improve the
capability to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from threatened or actual
natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or other man-made disasters.” [Jer13] Policies and
programs have been essential in keeping communities viable, responding to the needs of
citizens facing dangers to their lives and property, and developing mutual aid agreements
with nearby jurisdictions when help is needed.
Even though a disaster declaration was implemented by the President prior to Hurricane
Katrina, no declaration was declared for the coastal regions of Louisiana. “For Hurricane
Katrina, the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch at 10:00 am CDT on
Saturday 27 August and a warning at 10:00 pm on the same day.” [WuH12] “Although local
emergency managers had developed evacuation plans before the hurricanes struck, there
were still problems during the evacuations.”[WuH12]
Preparedness
“Local and state partners are equally critical—and very often more significant as first
responders on scenes of crimes and crises and they include local and state police
departments, sheriffs' departments, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), fire departments,
local and state offices of emergency preparedness, and other nonfederal agencies, to name just a
few.”[Jim14]
With the National Incident Management System, the components of command and
management, preparedness, resource management, communications/information management,
support technologies management and maintenance are used.”[Koh10] This can make the response
factor move smoother.
Hurricane Katrina 3
Every though, all organizations were prepared, many things went wrong.
Response
“During their responses to Hurricane Katrina organizations had to address challenges that
they faced but they failed. This shows how organizations in the response system could
successfully upgrade their capabilities and structure for collaboration with significant changes in
policies and practices using lessons from accumulated knowledge from Hurricane Katrina.”
[Nam12] “In its wake, 80% of the city of New Orleans was flooded, and the official response by
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) became the subject of withering criticism.
Probably the most heavily criticized aspect of the official response was its inefficient relief effort
that did not deliver in a timely fashion the critical supplies needed at the disaster site. This was
recognized by the former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff when he testified
that “FEMA’s logistics systems simply were not up to the
task”, and by former FEMA Director Michael Brown, “FEMA has a logistics problem.”[Jos12]
“It is very telling that, although the official investigations conducted after Hurricane Katrina
provided minute details about the disaster itself and the ensuing federal response, they did not
discuss the actual needs of the population or the resources required by the response process
during the operations.”[Jos12]
Hurricane Katrina 4
Recovery
Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act provides the legal
authority for the federal government to provide assistance to states during declared major
disasters and emergencies. “The Stafford Act authorizes the delivery of federal technical,
financial, logistical, and other assistance to states and localities during declared major disasters
or emergencies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) coordinates
administration of disaster relief resources and assistance to states. Federal assistance is provided
under the Stafford Act if an event is beyond the combined response capabilities of state and local
governments.”[Rob17]
“Mostly economically and geographically vulnerable citizens without means of
transportation—remained in the greater New Orleans area, resulting in loss of life and a
demanding search-and-rescue operation that continued for weeks after the storm’s
landfall.”[Jim14]
Conclusion
“Those who lived farther from the coast began their evacuations later, so they tended to
enter the evacuation route system at the same time as those who lived closer to the coast, thus
creating traffic queues. Moreover, those who lived closer to the coast evacuated farther, stayed in
hotels/motels, stayed away longer, and had higher food and lodging costs.”[WuH12] Evacuations
should be in waves where certain section evacuates at different times. Also, all lanes of the
Hurricane Katrina 5
evacuation routes should be directed the evacuation direction. In Florida, only the north bound
lanes are open for evacuation.
“Emergency preparedness must take persistence, patience, and dedication within the
agency to form a good coalition.” [Chi14] “Refection, learning and action which enable the
agency to be active in building our own disaster risk resilience: this involves 2 stages: a survey
and consultation stage, and the action and learning stage that built on ground level information
gathered and then supported its practical implementation at the agency level.” [Mic13] The
agency needs to “assign communication responsibilities and appoint a public spokesperson, a
vendor contact, and an employee responsible for contacting the insurance company” [Joh16] in
the event that an emergency should occur. If the agencies would have communicated more
efficiency, then the utter lack of communication breakdown would not have happened. “From the
standpoint of the working class in New Orleans, recovery has meant deeper dysfunction and
worse housing opportunities. The developers and major business firms, however, seem well on
the way to securing their interests in the new New Orleans.”[Gre13]
The day of August 29, 2005 is a day not to be forgotten. People lost their lives, their
homes and New Orleans was and still is forever changed by the events of that day and the days
to follow.
Hurricane Katrina 6
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Hurricane Katrina 7
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