1
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
Research Paper: Analysis of Major Event
Hurricane Katrina
HLSC 500: Homeland Security Foundation
Author Note
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Email:
2
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
A natural disaster can be labeled as a major adverse event which results from natural
processes of the Earth. Examples of natural disasters can be described as firestorms, dust
storms, floods, hurricanes, and other natural processes that cause destruction. Hurricanes fall
into the natural disaster category as a result of being a storm with winds that will be in excess of
seventy-four (74) mph as well as torrential rains and storm surges along a coast. Generally a
hurricane will have an eye approximately 20-30 miles wide with an overall width of the
hurricane being approximately 400 miles wide. Hurricanes will initiate due to a low-pressure
system with warm temperatures over the ocean and have the spark with a tropical wind pattern
over the equator. Hurricanes that affect the United States fall into what is deemed “Hurricane
Season” which typically lasts from June 1st to November 30th. The U.S. National Hurricane Center
began formally naming storms using female names based on a tradition of naval meteorologists
naming ships with women’s names.
On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall east of New Orleans, Louisiana.
There was a mandatory evacuation order the day before landfall which attempted to require all
residents to leave the city. Even though only approximately seventy percent (70%) evacuated,
this would not have prevented the devastation created due to a failure in levees creating
massive flooding. The massive flooding created a destruction of housing and a community in
great need. “The destruction of housing displaced hundreds of thousands of residents for
varying lengths of time, often permanently. It also revealed gaps in our knowledge of how
population is recovered after a disaster causes widespread destruction of urban infrastructure
3
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
and housing” (Fussell, 2015, p. 1231). Adding to the issues was a following storm, Hurricane
Rita, which added complications in September.
A holistic approach assures that any local, state, or federal agency can deal with any
disaster situation and provides guidance for the overall process and is referred to as ‘All-Hazards
Planning’. All-Hazards Planning incorporates four pillars of Homeland Security including
Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.
Mitigation
Mitigation is the proper pre-planning for any event with the goal of reducing loss of life
and loss of property. Mitigation finds what the risks may be and determines a proper plan of
action for if that risk occurs and sometimes the plan of action if the risk is known to occur in the
near future. The levees built for New Orleans were specifically designed with the intent to
prevent devastating flooding in that area. The failures of the levees proved that no system is
absolutely effective at eliminating risk. Cigler (2009) displays hundreds of coastal restoration
alternatives now being put into place based on learned lessons from Hurricane Katrina. These
alternatives include restorations of shorelines and marshes. A closer look at floodwalls and
levees was needing to be completed to engineer them with newer technology. Coastal areas
would need to use a combination of these risk reduction measures in order to effectively reduce
the harm storms can cause their communities.
The proper pre-planning now is structured around what agencies learned from Katrina
as a worse case. Hazard mitigation has come to the forefront for budgeting and training in those
areas. Katrina showed that the United States had become complacent with small amounts of
4
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
pre-planning for major disasters and the need for risk management including comprehensive
plans for evacuation, sheltering, and proper zoning requirements when building back. The
needs for vulnerable areas to be secured was shown including electricity, water, gas, and even
communications. “All of the reports in response to Katrina, Rita, Ike and Gustav promote
comprehensive flood planning and risk management based on a combination of structural and
nonstructural measures” (Cigler, 2009, p. 335).
Preparedness
Preparedness takes the mitigation results and ensures that the proper resources are
trained and logistically ready to act when the circumstances exist. Mitigation only works well if
all involved know the plan of action, train on how to act, and have the necessary tools to act
with. Poor leadership and communication problems were listed to be major factors in the
failures of response from organizations responding to Katrina. FEMA experienced one disaster
with the Hurricane itself, but compounded with the levees failing as a second disaster on top of
this made it overwhelming for FEMA who had not planned on multiple disasters occurring at
once. Many people were suddenly needing to be rescued along with finding shelter for those
displaced and recovery of those that had died during the incidents. Sylves (2008) provides the
correct framework that FEMA was working under a new and largely untested National Response
Plan (NRP), which could not provide enough relief fast enough for all the people that were in
need of their help.
FEMA is now preparing by issuing new contracts with technical assistance specifically for
tasks rather than contracts with few organizations that would try to handle an overwhelming
5
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
amount of agendas. These new organizations should have an inventory on-hand, trained
employees, and necessary equipment to handle the specific task that would be required of
them.
Response
Hopefully through mitigation and preparedness, response will be a well-coordinated
effort. Tiered responses are evaluated on the size of the incident and the need of state or
federal assistance. During the days following Katrina, the major question across the United
States was “Where is FEMA?” We watched on television as there were helicopters rescuing
survivors from rooftops, horrific conditions of those sheltered in the Superdome, and others
sheltered where there was no food or water being supplied. As an incident overwhelms a state
response, it is the responsibility of the federal government to step in with a response. Federal
response can only occur after a President declares a disaster and this is the point that FEMA will
initiate a response. The failures of Katrina range from many sources in the form of a lack of
leadership which resulted a long delay in that disaster declaration.
Even at this point, FEMA was still not prepared to respond and had to take time to
gather resources for response. This lack of timely response has been the criticism of FEMA for
smaller scaled disaster responses, but obviously was not altered or learned from those past
incidents. “This poor performance was made all the more apparent when one considers that
the U.S. Coast Guard, like FEMA a unit of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was on
the scene conducting rescue operations even before storm winds subsided” (Morris, 2006, p.
6
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
286). Katrina put FEMA at a strain in its capabilities and obviously showed the weaknesses in
their emergency response system.
Recovery
Recovery is a difficult thing to plan for as it involves whatever circumstances has been
brought forth. The issues can include rebuilding homes, resuming employment, restoring
businesses, and all with the focus of rebuilding a community. The recovery from damage of
Katrina leaves New Orleans still in a continuous process. Recovery was the main talking point in
politics for some time with a promise to rebuild quickly, however this has proven more difficult
and complex than anticipated. Recovery is often the most overlooked process in disaster
planning. The issue with New Orleans was in finding funding as there was very few willing
funders to get money directly to citizens or local government there. This can be blamed on the
reputation for corruption and mismanagement of funds in the past. Part of recovery has to be in
developing a quicker response. New Orleans has dedicated funds to strengthen the levees, but
they also have placed into effect mitigation steps with zoning and building codes. “The New
Orleans recovery process, in practice, has stretched the limits of community participation,
planning, and personal resilience” (Comfort, 2010, p. 672).
Improvement for Future
The four pillars of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery are what emergency
management and Homeland Security utilizes for personnel, training, and education. Some of
the most difficult hurdles during the Katrina disaster was overcoming the vast amount of agency
responses and how those agencies acted together. There was no coordination, communication,
7
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
or direct line of leadership to accomplish goals. Every agency had their agendas and sometimes
there was a duplication of efforts based on the lack of communication and/or lack of wanting to
work together to accomplish goals. There will have to be a strong relationship between
organizations and the local communities. This is to identify community leaders that
organizations can seek assistance from on identifying what needs to be done during response
and after response. The New Orleans community was so diverse culturally with a lack of
understanding from city leaders how diverse they were that there was a lack of cooperation way
before disaster struck. “The aim is to incorporate community considerations as part of
organizations’ routine planning processes so that leaders can be proactive rather than reactive
in managing them” (Cowen, 2010, p. 123).
Isaiah 26:3 (NIV) “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast,
because they trust in you”. During major events in one’s life, you must always have faith in the
Lord to see you through. This is not always felt or received as such when things of unexplained
disasters occur, however the faith that there is an ultimate plan must not be forgotten.
8
RESEARCH PAPER: ANALYSIS OF MAJOR EVENT
References
Cowen, A. P., & Cowen, S. S. (2010). Rediscovering Communities: Lessons From the Hurricane
Katrina Crisis. Journal of Management Inquiry, 19(2), 117–125.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492609351089
Comfort, L. K., Birkland, T. A., Cigler, B. A., & Nance, E. (2010). Retrospectives and Prospectives
on Hurricane Katrina: Five Years and Counting. Public Administration Review, 70(5), 669–
678. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40802363
Morris, J. C. (2006). Whither Fema? Hurricane Katrina and FEMA’s Response to the Gulf
Coast. Public Works Management & Policy, 10(4), 284–294.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1087724X06290218
Sylves, R. (2008, Spring). FEMA, Katrina, and operations research: better operations
management would have helped FEMA in preparedness and response work before
Hurricane Katrina--and still could now. The Public Manager, 37(1), 68+.
Cigler, B. A. (2009). Post-Katrina Hazard Mitigation on the Gulf Coast. Public Organization
Review, 9(4), 325-341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11115-009-0095-6
Fussell, E. (2015). The Long-Term Recovery of New Orleans’ Population After Hurricane
Katrina. American Behavioral Scientist, 59(10), 1231–1245.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215591181
Sadowski, Nicole, Sutter, Daniel. (2008). Mitigation motivated by past experience: Prior
hurricanes and damages. Ocean & Coastal Management. Volume 51, Issue 4. Pages 303-
313. ISSN 0964-5691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2007.09.003.
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
