National Guidance Of Hurricane Katrina's Wake

President Bush signed a $10 billion relief package within four days of the hurricane, he ordered 7,000 troops to help with relief efforts. There was also concern that many National Guard units were short staffed in states surrounding, because some were deployed overseas and recruiting efforts in schools and the community had been shorted. Due to the slow response to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official called it a "national disgrace" and questioned when additional aid would actually reach the desperate city. The city's emergency ops chief Terry Ebbert blamed the response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The mayor Ray Nagin expressed his anger at what he claimed were lousy reinforcements provided by the President and the federal government.

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 response explains the faults that took place that delayed the ability to get victims in New Orleans health care and also shows the steps that should have taken place to help the citizens in New Orleans. It begins explaining the proposals that were suggested after hurricane Katrina. There were two different policy’s, one was a bipartisan proposal from congress that aimed to provide temporary, federally funded Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals affected by the hurricane, no matter where they sought care. It would also have 800 million dollars to help uninsured victims of the hurricane. While the estimated cost of this would only be 8.9 billion.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina left Morgan City, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama with homes and business destroyed! This hurricane also affected the wildlife, the sea birds and water fowls were the closest to the

Furthermore, the utilization of response to address life safety, incident stabilization, property preservation and social-economic impacts continue to play a role in emergency response lessons learned taught today. Response Comparison: Hurricane Katrina

More and more authorities continue to be taken away and have been spread across many agencies within DHS. “FEMA no longer manages a comprehensive emergency management program of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery and the agency function that President Carter and the Governors envisioned in 1979 no longer exists” (FEMA, 2013). The sole focus has turned to terrorism disaster preparedness and FEMA has become somewhat dismantled and lost its ability to provide the command and control that it had prior to the move to DHS. This will prove to be a major flaw and will again, show the failure of FEMA in the next occurrence of natural disaster the United States faces. There are other agencies within the DHS that need to be scrutinized as

Following the tragic event, the Water and Sewage Board in New Orleans ordered taller levees to be constructed. Hurricane Betsy in 1965 caused leaders to redesign the levee system and the responsibility of levee construction was placed under the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Once again citizens of New Orleans started to reconstruct their city after another natural disaster. Only forty years later Hurricane Katrina, the unfortunate event that was due to the failure of levees to withhold water, left many homeless, dead and looting for survival. Not only did the levees fail the people of New Orleans, but their government also fell short of supplying the desperate citizens of the city with aid and support.

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.

From the book Zeitoun proves that Fema had mismanaged funds and did not take care of the most important tasks during the hurricane. According to the website Prison Legal News “Over 6,000 prisoners who had been packed into the Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) were displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina” (Williams, Bob). That a mass of amount of prisoners in a short period of time at the cost of the Federal emergency management agency costing Fema big. Another fact for the state by Prison legal news “The DOC reportedly received funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for each prisoner in custody -- the more prisoners, the higher the per diem payment.

Lastly even though people blame here and there, I think it also the responsibility of state-trained the entire citizen and tell them the evacuate route in the case of emergency. Only if victims had some emergency equipment and resources for them at home they would not have to suffer as they did suffer in Katrina. Personally I always have emergency kit and the first aid box, food and stuff for the emergency at home , even

To what extent do you agree with President Bush´s description of Hurricane Katrina as a natural disaster? In August 2005, over 1,700 people lost their lives as a result of Category 5 hurricane Katrina. The hurricane affected over 90,000 square miles in many of the Gulf Coast states, under which Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. (Hurricane Katrina).

The safety, security, prevention and resiliency of the United States against acts of terrorism, natural disasters and pandemics do not simply rest on the government alone, but rather the concerted effort of the whole community. The whole community is the idea that everyone, including individuals, businesses, community and faith-based groups, nonprofit organizations and all levels of government contribute to the nations preparedness goal. The National Preparedness Goal is, “A secure and resilient nation with the capabilities required across the whole community to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from the threats and hazards that pose the greatest risk” (National Planning Frameworks, 2015). As a result of this,

Bush meets with members of the White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Recovery on August 31, 2005, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. The United States Coast Guard began pre-positioning resources in a ring around the expected impact zone and activated more than 400 reservists. On August 27, it moved its personnel out of the New Orleans region prior to the mandatory evacuation. Aircrews from the Aviation Training Center, in Mobile, staged rescue aircraft from Texas to Florida.

With winds reaching more than 175 miles per hour this was the strongest winds the city of New Orleans had ever seen. With the winds came lots of water, some areas of New Orleans seen more than 20 feet of water. My home was in an area that was greatly impacted by the water. I remember watching the news and seeing all the damage caused by the hurricane. The system that was in place to protect the city had failed.

There are a few research studies and related pieces of literature that concerns disaster preparedness of nurses. This important due to the fact that nurses is a big chunk in health workforce. Moreover, nurses are considerably the first-line health professionals in giving health care services. As such in times of disaster, preparedness on a personal and professional level is important. As a result, it will enable nurses not only to ensure safety, health and well-being of their client or patients but also themselves.