“The Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrinaâ€
Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive natural disaster to ever hit America. Over 90,000 square miles of land was destroyed, about the size of the United Kingdom. In Mississippi, the storm obliterated coastal communities and left thousands destitute. New Orleans was overwhelmed by flooding. Along the Gulf Coast, tens of thousands suffered without basic essentials for almost a week. More than 1500 people died and not just from the storm alone. Suffering continued in the days and weeks after the storm passed because of the government’s failure at all levels to plan, prepare for and respond aggressively to the storm. In this paper, will explain how the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina greatly affected the nation and the many factors that show the government’s inability to plan, prepare for, and respond to national catastrophes lead to one of the most talked about event in history.
The first factor is the long term warnings that went unheeded. Before Hurricane Katrina, government officials knew for forty years of the potentially devastating threat of a catastrophic hurricane to the Gulf region and the destruction it could cause. Government officials had plenty of time to prepare for a catastrophic hurricane but refused to heed the warnings of past hurricanes to the gulf coast. For example when New Orleans experienced flooding in some areas of remarkably similar proportions from Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and when Hurricane Camille devastated the Gulf Coast in 1969 (NOAA/ National Weather Services). When Hurricane George hit the Gulf in 1998, the state of Louisiana to ask FEMA for assistance with catastrophic hurricane planning but little was accomplished in the six years of planning.
With six years of planning, the government should have had time to develop and test a catastrophic hurricane plan. In 2004, numerous experts and governmental officials had been anticipating an increase in violent hurricanes, and New Orleans’ special and growing vulnerability to catastrophic flooding due to changing geological and other conditions. If these facts were known, why weren’t plans made in order to prevent a disaster such as this from happening?
It seems as though that officials at every level of government did not appear to grasp the magnitude of the storm’s potential for destruction before it made landfall despite strongly worded advisories from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and personal warnings from NHC Director Max Mayfield. Mayfield was so worried about Hurricane Katrina that he called the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, and the mayor of New Orleans to discuss the effect Hurricane Katrina might have on their regions. Mayfield even talked about the force of Katrina during a video conference call to President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas (Lush). If Mayfield was so worried about the effects of the storm, why weren’t his advice heeded and the necessary precautions taken to reduce the effects of Hurricane Katrina?
The second factor was the terrible decisions in the days before the hurricane hit. Some coastal towns in Mississippi went to extraordinary lengths to get citizens to evacuate, including sending people door-to-door to convince people to move out of harm’s way. While New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin only orders a mandatory evacuation of all residents from the city of New Orleans. Yet instead of asking for assistance to help residents who lacked the means to leave the city, he orders the Superdome to be opened as a shelter of last resort.
The Superdome proved to be more like a prison than a shelter. More than 20,000 people were forced to reside inside the Superdome without working plumbing, food, water, and other necessities for nearly two weeks. Yet Ray Nagin decided that this was appropriate shelter for those people instead of evacuating everyone out of the city.
Hurricane Katrina’s devastating effects were felt before the storm even reached the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. In the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Katrina battered the offshore energy infrastructure and forced the evacuation of more than 75 percent of the Gulf’s 819 manned oil platforms. Two days before landfall, U.S. energy companies estimated that the approaching storm had already reduced Gulf of Mexico oil production by more than a third. The government knew that if Hurricane Katrina had that much force to evacuate 819 manned oil platforms, that the havoc it would reap on the New Orleans would be devastating.
Despite the understanding of the Gulf Coast’s vulnerability to hurricane devastation, officials braced for Katrina with full awareness of critical deficiencies in their plans and enormous holes in their resources. While Katrina’s destructive force could not be denied, state and local officials did not have enough of the resources at their disposal. And even though the Governors of the three affected states requested, and President Bush issued, emergency declarations before the Hurricane hit, none of it actually prepared citizens for what they were about to experience.
Another terrible decision was the lack of transportation and supplies. FEMA failed to approach other federal agencies for help with transportation to ensure that the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana had the means to evacuate their citizens. The City of New Orleans was unprepared to help people evacuate, as many buses from the city’s own fleet were submerged, while at the same time officials had not arranged in advance for drivers for those buses that were available.
On Monday, August 29, 2005, Governor Blanco asked FEMA Director Michael Brown for buses, and Brown assured the state the same day that 500 buses were en route to assist in the evacuation of New Orleans and would arrive within hours. In spite of Brown’s assurances and the state’s continued requests over the course of the next two days, FEMA did not direct the U.S. Department of Transportation to send buses until very early on Wednesday, two days after Hurricane Katrina hit and the levees had broken, and the buses did not begin to arrive at all until Wednesday evening and not in significant numbers until Thursday (Millholom).
By the time the government realized that they needed the buses to help get people out of the city, the levees had broken and most of the people who they intended to rescues had died or were either trapped on top of roofs on untraveled, flooded streets. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin could have prevented many deaths had he gotten people to drive the local buses through the residential areas to save the elderly and the people who had no way out. FEMA could have arraigned for buses from other towns close to New Orleans to rescue the citizens. Yet, these ideas were not thought of when they had two days before the levees broke.
The government also failed to communicate properly throughout the entire Hurricane Katrina dilemma. The Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC) was suppose to provide information about the disaster to decision-makers including the Secretary and the President but failed to create a system to identify and acquire all available, relevant information, and as a result situational awareness was deeply flawed. Yet reliable information on such vital developments as the levee failures, the extent of flooding, and the presence of thousands of people in need of life-sustaining assistance at the New Orleans Convention Center did not reach the White House, Secretary Chertoff or other key officials for hours, and in some cases more than a day.
FEMA Director Michael Brown, then in Louisiana, contributed to the problem by refusing to communicate with Secretary Chertoff opting instead to pass information directly to White House staff (Taylor). Moreover, even though senior DHS officials did receive on the day of landfall numerous reports that should have led to an understanding of the increasingly dire situation in New Orleans, many indicated they were not aware of the crisis until sometime Tuesday morning. DHS was slow to recognize the scope of the disaster and that FEMA had become overwhelmed.
On the day after landfall, DHS officials were still struggling to determine the “ground truth†about the extent of the flooding despite the many reports it had received about the catastrophe. Government officials did not grasp the need to act on the less-than-complete information that is to be expected in a disaster. DHS leaders did not become fully engaged in recovery efforts until Thursday, when in Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson’s words, they “tried to kick it up a notchâ€; after that, they did provide significant leadership within DHS and FEMA as well as coordination across the federal government.
But this effort should have begun sooner. This effort should have been done when they realized Hurricane Katrina was coming to destroy New Orleans. They had enough time to investigate the reports that were given or to go and get a firsthand look at the destruction that Hurricane Katrina had caused.
Another factor was the government’s knowledge that the levees could not withstand a level 4 or 5 hurricane. The levees which prevented New Orleans from being turned into a swamp were built to only withstand Category 3 hurricanes. Officials have known for years that the levees could fail under the pressures of a Category 4 or 5 hurricanes but did nothing to reinforce the levees (CNN). There have been many different sources acknowledging the affects the hurricane would have on the levees. In 2002 the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a five-part series exploring the vulnerability of the city (The New Orleans Times). The newspaper and other news media as well, specifically addressed the possibility of massive floods drowning residents, destroying homes and releasing toxic chemicals throughout the city.
Reuters reported that in 2004, more than 40 state, local and volunteer organizations practiced a scenario in which a massive hurricane struck and levees were breached, allowing water to flood New Orleans. Under the simulation, called "Hurricane Pam," the officials "had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed more than half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents," the Reuters report said (Kahn).
If government officials knew that the levees could not stand a Category 4 or 5 hurricanes, then why wasn’t anything done to reinforce the strength of the levees. If nothing could be done to reinforce the wall, why wasn’t a secondary barrier put in place in case of the levees actually breakage? The government had enough time to do something about the levees but instead choose to ignore that it was a structural problem. If the problem had been fixed, many lives and homes would have been spared.
Government has since then fixed the levees. Almost a year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared that it had restored New Orleans’ levees and floodwalls to pre-Hurricane Katrina strength. But yet again another storm weaker than Hurricane Katrina can destroy the levees once again. The new levees sit atop steel sheet piles driven 20 feet (6 meters) into the ground. The piles are long interlocking wall sections that retain water and transfer pressure deeper into the ground, where the soil is more stable (Bourne).
But water from holes in the canal bed, excavated before Katrina or scoured by the storm, may be seeping under the barrier through permeable layers of sand and silt. Thus again making the levees a vulnerable target for the next hurricane. The government has spent 3 billion dollars on these levees only to have them possibly torn down again (MSNBC). What was the purpose of fixing the levees if they were still going to have major structural flaws in them that could possibly cause dozens of lives to be lost again?
Another major factor is the law enforcement problem that New Orleans faced after Hurricane Katrina. Law enforcement outside the Superdome and the Convention Center was a major problem, and was fueled by several contributing factors, including multiple statements by government officials inflaming the public’s perception of the lawlessness in New Orleans (New York Times). Without effective law enforcement, real or imagined safety threats interrupted every aspect of the response. So without
Fearing for their personal safety, medical and search and rescue teams withdrew from their missions. FEMA and commercial vendors of critical supplies often refused to make deliveries until military escorts could be arranged. In fact, there was some lawlessness, yet for every actual act there were rumors of dozens more, leading to widespread and inaccurate reporting that severely complicated a desperate situation (Dyson). Some were looters who were stealing just to be stealing but others were looting for the supplies such as water and food that the vendors refused to bring because of other crime or speculation.
Unfortunately, local, state, and federal officials did little to stanch this rumor flow. Police presence on the streets was inadequate, in part because in a matter of hours Katrina turned the New Orleans police department from protectors of the public to victims of the storm as well. Nonetheless, most New Orleans police officers appear to have reported for duty, many setting aside fears about the safety of their families or the status of their homes just to maintain order amidst the chaos.
The storm also laid waste to much of the city’s police headquarters and several district offices, along with hundreds of vehicles, rounds of ammunition, and uniforms were all destroyed within the first two days of landfall. Because of this reason, the government shipped out 15, 000 soldiers to enforce the law and maintain public safety (USA TODAY). Crime eventually died down and this was one area that the government actually accomplished something and did it correctly without hesitation.
Another factor was the terrible living conditions that people faced while stranded in New Orleans. Over 20,000 people took refuge in Louisiana’s Superdome under unbearable living conditions. The halls reeked of urine and feces were everywhere, a sign of the broken plumbing system; food and water supplies were diminished; and crime ran rampant in the Superdome also known as the “Terrordome†(Brinkley). The Superdome was so packed, that thousands were turned away daily that were seeking refuge from the rising, polluted floodwaters.
Many people who were trapped in the city due to the flooding from the breaking of the levees. Flooding in New Orleans drove thousands of survivors to attics and rooftops to await rescue. Some people were trapped in attics and nursing homes and drowned as the dirty waters rose around them. Others escaped only by chopping their way through roofs. Others were sleeping on bridges, cars, and any place they could find that the water could not reach them.
The government failed to provide these people with appropriate shelter and when they did provide shelter, the living conditions were deplorable. They failed to provide them with enough food to make sure that they were well fed and not mal-nourished. While authorities recognized the need to begin search-and-rescue missions, other aspects of the response were hindered by a failure to quickly recognize the dimensions of the disaster.
Not only did they face terrible living conditions in New Orleans but during the after math as well. FEMA did not even provide adequate temporary relocated homes for many victims who got displaced because of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA offer these people, some of whom lost 300,000 dollar homes, with trailers to live in. Others were stuck in hotels across the U.S. But that didn’t last long, FEMA terminated their contract with the hotels and many people found themselves homeless once again (New York Times).
The government didn’t even have a system in place for those who lost their personal information. Many victims found it difficult to reconstruct their shattered lives. In many cases, they had either lost or forgotten basic documents, such as insurance information, birth certificates, and marriage licenses, which would later prove essential to rebuilding their lives. Most of the evacuees did not have access to their medical records, which increased the risk of complications when receiving medical treatment. And many of these citizens were faced with identity theft and no way to prove if they had payed certain debts off.
After the government realized that its initial response and the actions it took towards the Hurricane Katrina situation, it releases “The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learnedâ€, an extensive review, that identifies deficiencies in the Federal government’s response and lays the groundwork for transforming how the Nation – from every level of government, to the private sector, to individual citizens and communities – pursues a real and lasting vision of emergency preparedness and response (Fragos-Townsend).
In conclusion, there are a lot of factors that contribute to the government’s appalling response to Hurricane Katrina and destruction that it caused. There are a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to this topic but I think the government has a lot of work to do in regards to creating and implementing a hurricane disaster program. Many things could have been done to prevent Hurricane Katrina from being one of the worst natural disasters in America but it can only provide as an example to teach the government how to be more prepared when disaster strikes.
Bourne, Joel K. "National Geographic News." 6 May 2007. National Geographic. 11 March 2008 <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070506-orleans-levees.html>.
Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge. New York City: HarperCollins, 2006.
CNN. "CNN.com." September 5 2005. CNN.com. 11 March 2008 <http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/>.
Dyson, Micheal Eric. Come Hell or High Water. New York City: Basic Civitas/ Perseus Books Group, 2006.
Fragos-Townsend, Frances. The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. Extensive Review Report. Washington, D.C.: Homeland Security and CounterTerrorism, 2006.
Kahn, Michael. "Reuters.com." 19 April 2007. Reuters.com. 11 March 2008 <http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSIB97535720070419>.
Lush, Tamara. "St. Petersburg Times Online." 30 August 2005. St. Petersburg Times Online. 11 March 2008 <http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/30/State/For_forecasting_chief.shtml>.
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—. New York Times. 31 August 2006. 11 March 2008 <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hurricane_katrina/index.html?offset=60&s=oldest>.
NOAA/ National Weather Services. "National Hurricane Center." 31 August 2007. National Hurricane Center. 11 March 2008 <http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/history.shtml>.
Taylor, Matthew. "Yahoo News." 31 September 2005. Yahoo. 11 March 2008 <http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/katrina_disaster_response>.
The New Orleans Times. "The New Orleans Times." 22 September 2002. The New Orleans Times. 11 March 2008 <http://www.nola.com/katrina/>.
USA TODAY. "USA TODAY." 21 June 2006. USA TODAY. 11 March 2008 <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-20-national-guard-new-orleans_x.htm>.
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