The Hurricane Katrina disaster is a complex one when analyzed through the interorganizational context of public administration. One of the primary reasons that major failures occurred was due to the deficiencies of intergovernmental relations within government agencies that had a direct tasking of addressing these types of disaster relief at the local, state and federal level. A Frontline investigation describes the political context involved with the crisis as one where “local and state officials failed to plan, the U.S military waited too long, FEMA was poorly lead, the government was indifferent to victims who were mostly poor and black” (Public Broadcasting Service, n.d.).
The political context within the Hurricane Katrina disaster mimics
What was Hurricane Katrina? Hurricane Katrina was the largest and 3rd strongest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in the United States. Katrina first made landfall on August 29, 2005 and struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. Hurricane Katrina was first announced as a Category 3 hurricane and with time it soon grew into a Category 5 hurricane.
There became an obvious need for immediate assistance from the National Guard and the Active Duty Army to stop looters, crime, and other chaos that ensued shortly after the flood. Gaining assistance from state controlled National Guard units was not overly difficult. Unfortunately, use of Federal soldiers comes with the stipulation that “the Governor of the affected state must request use of the resources of the DoD”. (Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance) The Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco and her staff were already failing to control and lead emergency efforts.
The disaster of hurricane Katrina identified so many flaws in FEMA. Some of these flaws were due to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 deviated a lot of money from FEMA and weakened its ability to respond adequately to the disaster of Katrina. As you stated this bought on many changes to FEMA, which were now being addressed under the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA).
Reduce the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and key resources, essential leadership, and major events to terrorist attacks and other hazards. Provide grants, plans and training to our homeland security and law enforcement partners. We have taken significant steps to create a unified and integrated Department that will enhance our performance by focusing on accountability, efficiency, transparency and leadership development. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was the final weak link in the then-existing confusing chain of command. FEMA 's head, Wallace E. Stickney, had no apparent experience in emergency management or disaster response (Franklin, D. 1995).
It was 6:10 in the morning August 28 2005 and New Orleans had just been struck. Homes were being demolished, people were screaming, innocent people were getting killed from the result of the storm surge. . To this day there are 705 people still missing. While people are living there normal lives, they have not yet to know that in the middle of the Atlantic warm air is rising and it is getting replaced by the cooler air. the Not to forget, the hurricane affected their economy because of $81 billion dollars of property damage.
Also, during Hurricane Katrina FEMA didn’t allow for volunteer agencies to aide in the
Response Comparison: Hurricane Katrina VS. San Bernardino Terrorist Attack Armstrong, Troy Union Institute & University Critical Incident Management-Response Course Spring 2022-2023 Term Instructor Ron Santo Abstract In comparison, there were many differences between the 2005 Hurricane Katrina response and the December 2015 response to the San Bernardino Terrorist Attacks. There were main strengths and opportunities for improvement identified in both responses specific to emergency services.
Protecting Diversity and Civil Rights in Emergency Response Allen Nickerson Kaplan University Protecting Diversity and Civil Rights in Emergency Response Upon looking back at the history of this great nation we have come to know and love living in known as the United States of America, there have been numerous battles for something citizens felt violated about. We think about the Civil War and numerous battles before and after this great war that have been fought in order to obtain the highest level of freedom, ownership, and status in this nation. Even more important, there has to be an account for all the lives that were lost and sacrificed to obtain something that is deemed to be as valuable as life itself. This would be equal rights
Social determinants have become an influential component of innovation within traditional areas of research, from overall health of communities to disaster management. Starting in the 1980’s, researchers began to understand that social contexts, both micro and macro, have a significant impact on both individuals and the community as a whole when discussing response and resilience to disasters. After the chaos of Hurricane Katrina, after the sheer difference of separate populations ability to cope during the disaster area came to light, researchers began to elucidate the social factors which affect disaster response and ways to assess those for future disasters. The three largest areas of concerns that should be considered are social stratification and class, race and
New Orleans was mainly the Confederacy. To being, the South’s was the main and the largest city; it considerable industry that sold ironclads. The more important is it controlled the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. It was based of Waterfield Scott’s Anaconda plan. This was suffocating the south.
In the spring season of 1719, New Orleans floods and the building of levees begins and continues for three centuries, which is an example of the several times history has repeated itself. Although there are many positive attributes of the city, New Orleans has persevered through some of the most devastating natural disasters in the past century. The city of New Orleans was originally founded by Jean- Baptiste Le Moyne in 1717. His chief engineers informed him that the location was not an ideal place for a city because it was located along the Mississippi River, which was known to be prone to flooding.
There will always be shortcomings and pitfalls when emergency events take place. During the 1993 Great Midwest Floods, a number of deficits were clearly made evident throughout the entire emergency response efforts. There were deficiencies at every level of government. Two of the more prominent issues involve the lack of flood insurance for most of the infrastructure damage across the affected states and insufficient floodplain management
The Stafford Act was enacted in 1988 and determines how and when the federal government is allowed to intervene in a natural disaster. It also defines the type of assistance to be provided as well as the distribution of funds among the federal, state and local governments. FEMA is responsible for coordinating the assistance identified in the Stafford Act. However, FEMA has to answer to the Secretary of Homeland Security rather than making their own decisions. The authors describe how our current governmental system isn’t well equipped to deal with major devastation such as Hurricane Katrina.
FEMA’s mission and priorities were changed so that, “terrorism prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery became central to the emergency management mission” (Haddow 325). As a result of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 the country’s focus shifted completely from natural disasters to an outright major assault on all things terrorism with no second glance at the potential emergency’s natural disasters presented. There might be a possibility that because of the nation’s extreme obsession with terrorists and terrorism that Hurricane Katrina was not given full priority nor given as much thought as it should have been because the whole focus of the government was on terrorism. When an agency and governmental structure, such as the defense agencies, undergoes an extreme shift within the course of a few years brought on so suddenly, there are bound to be weaknesses. Hurricane Katrina was the most challenging threat that tested the DHS as well as FEMA’s preparation and mitigation of natural disasters since the shift of focus.
In these day, hurricane is the one of the most terrifying disaster that occur on many countries in this world, it can cause damage and harmful to people. Hurricane is a huge storm that form above the ocean then move to the land and we call it “hurricane” when the wind speeds reach up to 74 mph. However, these storm are call in different names depends on the location that they occur. For example, we call it “typhoon” in Pacific Ocean, “cyclone” in Indian Ocean, etc. In these essay, we will point on the two-main cause and two-main negative effect of the hurricane and some idea of the basic preparation.