Discussion 5B:The Private Sector and Crisis Emergencies: Wal-Mart and Hurricane Katrina

 Read the article and view the video about the activities of Wal-Mart during Hurricane Katrina. Describe a few of the key activities of the WalMart Corp. in response the difficulties encountered by in interfacing with government agencies.  In your opinion and based on this one case study, do large private corporations have advantages over governments in the response to crisis emergencies? 

Organizations in Critical Incidents (Flexibility, Emergence, Creativity and Improvisation

Read or Review

• Module 3: Organizations in Critical Incident Response: overview, objectives and the following parts of the commentary:
  • Part I: Organizations in Incident Response
    • Disaster Research Center Organizational Typologies
    • Creativity and Improvisation
    • Inter-organizational Coordination - Emergent Multi-organizational Networks (EMONS) for Critical Incident Response
    • Inter-organizational Coordination in Hurricane Katrina
• In the UMUC Library: Agility and Discipline: Critical Success Factors for Disaster Response By John R. Harrald The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 604, Shelter from the Storm: Repairing the National Emergency Management System after Hurricane Katrina (Mar., 2006), pp. 256-272 (Pay particular attention to the organization typology – page 268)
• Pfeifer, J. (2012). Adapting to Novelty: Recognizing the Need for Innovation and Leadership. WNYF. https://ash.harvard.edu/files/adapting_to_novelty.pdf 
• Schiller, K. (2011, May) Disaster Response: Technology Makes a Difference. http://www.infotoday.com/it/may11/Schiller-Disaster-Response.shtml
• Kendra, J. & Wachtendorf, T. (2003).Creativity in Emergency Response to the World Trade Center Disaster. In Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Public Entity Risk Institute, and Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems. http://www.riskinstitute.org/peri/images/file/sept11book_ch5_kendra.pdf
• Watch video referred to in this article http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
• Beyond September 11th: An Account of Post-Disaster Research. Special Publication No. 39. Boulder, CO: Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center. Creativity in the 9/11 Response http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/publications/sp/sp39/sept11book_ch5_kendra.pdf
• Drabek, T. & McEntire, D. (2002). Emergent Phenomena and Multiorganizational Coordination in Disasters: Lessons from the Research Literature, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 20(2), 197-224. http://www.ijmed.org/articles/574/download/
• Barbaro, M. & Gillis, J. (2005, September 6). Wal-Mart at Forefront of Hurricane Relief. 
  • http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501598.html
  • AND http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2005/09/04/media-information-wal-marts-response-to-hurricane-katrina
  • AND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TJ7Mkw3rME
• Watch: Covella, V. (2011, February 23).  Message Mapping, (linked in commentary or full version here – 41:16 minutes), Homeland Security Research http://vimeo.com/20290221 or article http://www.orau.gov/cdcynergy/erc/content/activeinformation/resources/Covello_message_mapping.pdf