Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management

Crisis and Emergency Management

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December 2005                                                                            Volume 9 - Number 3

Perspectives...

Reactions to Hurricane Katrina
By Stephen DeRosa

Besides being a natural and humanitarian disaster, Hurricane Katrina was also an eye opener. It exposed our nation’s weaknesses and revealed that we were not ready to handle a forewarned natural disaster, much less a terrorist attack. Our response was so disastrous that only “Murphy’s Law” could begin to explain it. Everything that possibly could go wrong did, and it did in the worst possible way.

From the outset, the Gulf Coast region and those affected by the hurricane should have been prepared for the storm ahead of time. The hurricane was closely monitored by satellite each step of the way as it moved through the Gulf of Mexico. The director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Max Mayfield, initiated briefings with local, state, and federal authorities and bulletins to warn the nation about the menacing storm that was approaching. He even made special mention that the levees in New Orleans could overtop and that the city could face massive flooding.

But very little preparation was done, and our nation soon became like a deer caught in headlights—watching as the most devastating storm in US history struck us head on. The tragedy is that the response to Hurricane Katrina was mismanaged at all levels of authority. State and local officials should have planned better for the crisis, anticipating the worst case scenario at all times. Federal officials should have taken the storm warnings and the hurricane itself more seriously by focusing on what would and was actually happening on the ground and then preparing for it.

Instead, the National Guard was severely understaffed and ill-equipped. When the levees broke, they were unable to provide supplies and equipment to New Orleans. They had planned to use trucks for the response, but those were rendered ineffective when the roadways flooded.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency didn’t plan sufficiently either. They should have strategically planned and positioned adequate supplies before the storm hit. When telephones and radios failed, FEMA was thrown into disarray, even though they were responsible for maintaining communications throughout the crisis. Instead, it took nearly a week to get working modes of communications to their employees on the ground. Furthermore, they should have had a larger contingent plan that would utilize helicopters and rescue boats as needed. Despite the fact that they were short of air support, they turned away over 50 civilian aircrafts that were responding to evacuation requests from hospitals and various other agencies, saying that the operators were not authorized.

Similarly, state and local officials, who had also become quickly overwhelmed when New Orleans flooded, blocked Red Cross from providing relief services. They told the agency that if supplies and food were supplied to victims of the storm, it might make it harder for them to convince citizens to evacuate.

But those who needed to evacuate perhaps most urgently, hospital and healthcare patients, went largely ignored. Dr. Norman McSwain of Charity Hospital said that despite his numerous pleads for assistance, "the military didn't help; the state government didn't help and the federal government didn't help."

In Washington, paperwork stalled the response even further. The governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson called Governor Blanco of Louisiana before the hurricane hit on Monday offering her the National Guard troops designated for his state. They would have flown into the disaster at about the same time the levees broke, however they were put on hold because deployment orders had not been filled out correctly. Because of this, they didn’t reach the area until that Friday.

What made the situation even uglier was how out of touch the government was with the actual events that were unfolding. On Monday, when the storm entered the Gulf Coast FEMA director, Michael Brown, told reporters, "We were so ready for this.... We've planned for this kind of disaster for many years because we've always known about New Orleans and the situation. We actually did catastrophic disaster planning for this two years ago."

But in reality, no one was ready for this. And when the situation began to worsen, the blame game began. White House officials pointed the finger at state and local officials, while the governor of Louisiana and other regional authorities complained of an inadequate federal response. Those involved seemed to be more like WWF Wrestlers trash talking before a big match than leaders of a nation in crisis.

The public was further disillusioned by much of the media coverage that showed officials saying things that weren’t true, such as when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff appeared on a split screen with survivors chanting for help, while he assured the country that everything was under control. Similarly, Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," a comment that was at odds with decades of explicit warnings.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the seemingly lax attitude the president and his aides had towards the disaster. Leading up to the storm, most of the White House officials were off vacationing. Although, they were warned that the storm would be one of the worst in history, operations continued from the Texas ranch and other vacation spots through conference calls and other modes of communication. After the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Bush continued on with his prescheduled events for the week, visiting Arizona and California for speeches on Medicare and a commemoration of the end of World War II. It wasn’t until Thursday that he finally arrived back to Washington to focus his attention on the disaster. But even by Friday, he seemed to be largely uninformed of what had happened. As public officials were building up their case against the FEMA director’s poor performance, Bush commented, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Of course, it important to note that the storm wouldn’t have been so devastating if it had not been for the collapse of the levee system. But the system’s weaknesses had been a longstanding and long known problem in the community that should have been resolved well before the storm hit. Early investigations indicate that the levees were built on poor soil and were constructed with an inferior grade of concrete.

Besides being a humanitarian crisis and a tragic disaster, the hurricane and its effects upon the Gulf Coast was an embarrassment to our nation. It exposed our weaknesses and showed the world that despite all of the money we have spent on homeland security and protecting this nation, we are not ready to deal with a crisis, be it a natural disaster or otherwise. It also showed how much our military endeavors abroad affect our response to such disasters. Because many of our National Guard troops were bogged down in Iraq, the National Guard respondents here in America were undermanned for the tasks they were needed for. Furthermore, this incident showed that public leaders need to communicate, coordinate, and plan better. The tragedy that happened in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans did not have to end in mass death. Let’s just hope that we learn our lesson next time.