Hurricane Katrina: One of the Deadliest Hurricanes in the United States
Hurricane Katrina, which struck the United States of America in August 2005, was one of the worst natural disasters to strike the country. Hurricane Katrina impacted the Gulf Coast as well as the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi, with New Orleans taking the brunt of the damage. According to the History Channel (2009), the hurricane had gusts ranging from 100 to 140 miles per hour and spanned for almost 400 miles. Furthermore, the hurricane caused significant damage due to the powerful winds and floods that accompanied the wind (history channel, 2009). Hurricane Katina has come to be known as one of the deadliest hurricanes in the United States; according to Zimmerman (2015), the hurricane caused the death of over1800 people. Also, millions of people who lived in New Orleans and around the gulf coast were left homeless. Further, the hurricane caused over 100 million dollars' worth of damage according to Amadeo (2015). The economy of the U.S. was also affected since 19% of the U.S. oil production, chemical plants, major casinos and the Louisiana sugar industry all based on the areas where the hurricane struck were affected. The losses experienced by these industries affected the economy of the country (Amadeo, 2015). The hurricane Katina, therefore, exposed severe cracks in the national emergency management system and its ability to respond to catastrophic events. The following essay will examine the emergency management used by the U.S. government during Hurricane Katrina and critique its failures.
Importance of Effective Emergency Management
Emergency management plans are supposed to address hazards or emergencies such as natural disasters. The government plays a major role in emergency management since they are involved in activities such as preparation of the emergency and evacuating people when the emergency happens (Baker, 2014). However, there is no way to create a foolproof plan that will ascertain 100 percent preparedness for an emergency. Nonetheless, a good emergency management plan will help increase the chances of saving more lives and reducing the damage caused by an emergency (Brown, 2015). In some cases, the emergency plan proves successful. In other cases, the plan may be unsuccessful due to various factors such as poor leadership hence causing inadequate preparation for disasters.
Inadequate Preparation for Hurricane Katrina
Although it is impossible to predict the weather, it is essential that governments prepare for emergencies such as hurricanes that are caused by the weather. It is clear that people on the gulf coast and New Orleans were not adequately prepared for the hurricane. Several other hurricanes have happened in the past, and therefore this should have alerted the people in the gulf coast and New Orleans to prepare for such occurrences. For instance, there were hurricanes in 1915, 1940, 1947, 1965, and in 1969 which flooded New Orleans (Zimmerman, 2015). This should have been a lesson for people living there to prepare for hurricanes in the future. So the question is; why was the government not prepared for the hurricane? Besides, after all these hurricanes in the past, they should have been adequately prepared to protect their citizens from such natural disasters.
Failures in the Government's Emergency Response
The hurricane, therefore, exposed several flaws in the United States' emergency management system and its ability to respond to catastrophic events. The response to the natural disaster was obviously flawed, federal, local and state officials started blaming each other for these flaws. However, the real blame should be on the whole government since it failed to act immediately to meet the needs of the people affected by the storm (Baker, 2014). These government officials include the state governor, the local administration, the president as well as the leadership of the federal emergency management agency (FEMA). Now let us look at all the flaws that the hurricane exposed.
Flaws in Risk Management and Pre-Storm Deployment
The local administration in New Orleans had built levees in preparedness for future hurricanes. However, the levees were built to handle a category three hurricane; more to this, the local government had failed to upgrade the levees despite the hurricane Betsy in 1965, which was classified category 4 (Zimmerman, 2015). This shows a flaw in risk management which is intended to make a trade-off between the likelihood of occurrence and the consequences of the natural disaster. There was a high probability that a huge hurricane would strike New Orleans, and therefore the government should have been more prepared.
There were errors in the pre-storm deployment of supplies and rescue teams. The government had failed to predict correctly where the storm would strike. Supplies and troops had been pre-positioned where the federal government thought the storm would be; however, the storm hit New Orleans hardest and hence the troops and supplies had to be redirected to New Orleans. It took a lot of time to get troops to the new location since Katrina had destroyed roads and bridges (Zimmerman, 2015). Further, it had destroyed communication infrastructure required to coordinate emergency responses to the disaster. This further exposed cracks in the government's ability to respond quickly to unexpected outcomes in emergencies.
Inability to Evacuate and Resulting Chaos
Inability to evacuate people was another shortfall of the government's emergency plan during Hurricane Katrina. Majority of the people had evacuated from New Orleans before the storm. However, tens of thousands were trapped by the storm. The local and state resources became overwhelmed, and hence the federal forces had to step in to help with the evacuation (Brown, 2015). Local resources should be enough for people in the locality and hence the inability to evacuate citizens was a failure in the emergency management response.
Chaos also accompanies natural disasters such as the Katrina. Citizens tend to resort to looting and other acts of violence hence creating chaos. This is what happened in some parts of the city since law enforcement was busy helping out in the evacuation. The guidelines for such an occurrence state that the military should be allowed to go and restore order (Baker, 2014). However, only the governor can call for such action. The governor of Louisiana failed to call for help immediately, and hence the town descended into chaos (Baker, 2014).
Inadequacy of FEMA and Misappropriation of Funds
FEMA also proved inadequate in responding to emergencies, especially Hurricane Katrina. FEMA had an obligation to help people during disasters; however, the agency did not respond as expected during the hurricane. The leadership of the agency, headed by Michael Brown, was corrupt. Instead of helping the citizens, the agency was busy engaging in fraud and money laundering (Hemenway, 2011). FEMA helped in the recovery from the hurricane, but it also caused harm to the people due to corruption. For instance, FEMA collected more than 600 million dollars for assisting people affected by the disaster. However, the money was misappropriated due to human error, inadequate internal controls, and fraud (Hemenway, 2011). As such, another crack in the government's ability to respond to disasters was exposed. The government was not prepared on how money for assisting people affected by disasters should be handled.
Failures in All Four Phases of Emergency Management
The hurricane Katrina, therefore, exposed serious flaws in the government's emergency management abilities. The government failed in all four phases of emergency management which include preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery. Lack of preparedness is evident from the fact that the levees in New Orleans were not built for a hurricane of that magnitude whereas they should have already been built and upgraded since the place had experienced strong hurricanes in the past (Brown, 2015). Flaws in response are evident from the fact that the government took a lot of time to get to New Orleans which was the place the storm struck hardest. The government was also unable to mitigate the effects of the storm hence leading to several billion dollars' worth of damages and the loss of many lives (Amadeo, 2015). Finally, money meant to help in recovery from the disaster was misappropriated.
Lessons Learned and Improvements Needed
In conclusion, the natural disaster opened the eyes of many people including the citizens and well as the government. It showed them their failures when it comes to handling natural disasters such as the Katrina. Although the government cannot be 100% prepared for every storm that occurs, they should at least have an effective emergency management plan that will enable them to do all it takes to help save lives. For instance, they can build better levees to handle stronger storms hence they will be better prepared in the future. The local government should also have better evacuation strategies put in place to ascertain an effective response to such a storm. Finally, emergency funds should always be put aside to ensure that there is money to help in recovery after a storm. However, the agency handling the funds should be under good leadership to prevent fraud and corruption.
References
Amadeo, K. (2015). “Hurricane Katrina facts: Damage and economic effects.” About News.
Brown, C. (2015). The 2005 Hurricane Katrina response failure: Seeing preparedness for foreseeable complex problems through a neo-institutional lens (Doctoral dissertation, CRISMART/Radboud Universiteit).
Baker, C. R. (2014). Breakdowns of accountability in the face of natural disasters: The case of Hurricane Katrina. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 25(7), 620-632.
Hemenway, C. (2011). “FEMA told to go after $643M in payments made after Katrina, Rita.” National Underwriter Company.
History Channel (2009) Hurricane Katrina: Before the storm. Retrieved August 24, 2017, http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina
Zimmerman, K. (2015). “Hurricane Katrina: Facts, damage & aftermath.” Live Science. Retrieved August 24, 2017 http://www.livescience.com/22522-hurricane-katrina- facts.html
