Leadership During Hurrican Katrina

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. The results were catastrophic. Katrina and storm-related flooding took more than 1,800 lives and caused an estimated $81 billion in damages. In the storm’s aftermath, there was widespread debate over government response to the disaster. I believe that the bulk of the responsibility lay with the state and local governments. They should have been better prepared ahead of time and had more comprehensive plans in place to minimize danger to citizens. The national government has traditionally only sent its military into a state at the request of that state’s governor. The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi did not immediately request that action (Fraga, L.

Hurricane Katrina not only provided new response for natural disasters but also for terrorist response and mitigation. Hurricane Katrina helped the Department of Homeland Security to see the vulnerability of the nation and how bad a single storm could affect the communities. After Hurricane Katrina DHS started to plan and “imagine” the possibilities of future disasters both natural and manmade as if they were actually going to happen. After 9/11 FEMA was downsized and DHS replaced most of its disaster and planning operations. This became clear after seeing the poor response FEMA had with Hurricane Katrina and the thousands of people left stranded without help. The aftermath of Katrina showed how much we needed both counterterrorism along with

Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes that hit America. Federalism played a major role in the rescue missions for this natural disasters. It’s evident that the government failed in many ways during Hurricane Katrina. Federalism plays a huge part in preparing for natural disasters. The powers were not equally shared within the levels of government, which made the local government weak and had to completely rely on the federal government. The government of U.S. was not prepared enough for hurricane Katrina.

In the couple days after Hurricane Katrina, many people were left to think whether help was on the way due to the uninhabitable conditions. The ill-timed response lead to a lot of government officials being removed from their positions for their failure to perform at an exceedingly high level with regards to the issuance of natural disaster assistance. Even though there were a lot of improprieties were committed, there were a lot of federal entities that provided a great amount of aid directly after the storm. For instance, the National Guard was commended highly for their participation in the recovery efforts during and after Hurricane Katrina in all areas that were affected, especially New Orleans.

In late October of 2012 many weather factors converged to create Hurricane Sandy, a huge storm with winds gusting up to 90 miles per hour. This hurricane was unprecedented in modern times, arriving late in the hurricane season, making landfall abnormally far to the north on the United States east coast with an exceptionally low pressure and a record breaking storm surge. Sandy also had among the most kinetic energy of all tropical cyclones on record at 222 Joules, more energy than category 5 hurricanes, despite just being category 1 because of the large area over which she spread.

On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, also known as Katrina, made landfall along the Gulf Coast. It hit states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. As of today Hurricane Katrina is one the most destructive hurricanes to ever hit the United States. In total Katrina caused over one hundred billion dollars worth of damage. It left people homeless, starving, and in some cases dead. New Orleans, Louisiana was hit the hardest, “New Orleans will forever exist as two cities; the one that existed before that date, and the one after.” Even over a decade later, the effects of Hurricane Katrina can still be felt as the south continues to rebuild their lives and return to some normalcy.

Hurricane Katrina was a colossal storm with incredibly fierce winds resulting in the death of almost 2000 people. Because of the environmental conditions of the Gulf Coast, Katrina was able to build up wind speed and mass over the water at an exceptional rate. At its strongest, Katrina had hurricane force winds stretching out 104 miles, and tropical storm force winds reaching 230 miles from its eye. After breaching the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, the

Hurricane Katrina is infamous: the storm that buried the vibrant city of New Orleans under up to sixteen feet of water. Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster, but the crimes committed against the storm’s survivors in the months prior, setting them up for devastation, were the true tragedies. Not only were the citizens of the Big Easy neglected pre-Katrina, but they remained on the back burner of the federal government for days after the storm hit. Citizens of New Orleans - who had just been put through one of the worst natural disasters the United States had ever seen - were treated like animals, or foreign refugees seeking sovereignty in the US. They were not treated with the common decency an American citizen deserves, but why did this happen? The answer is simple, because the politicians on all levels, before, during, and after the storm, neglected the citizens that trusted them. City, State, and Federal government officials incorrectly used funds that had been allocated for disaster relief, and to the repair of the levees for many years leading up to the disaster. Because of this corrupt behavior, the people of New Orleans were caught in a very unnatural disaster to accompany the storm. The low class citizens of New Orleans were hit with unparalleled injustices. The atrocities committed against these innocent people was no less than a war waged against them, but the

Hurricane Katrina took 1,833 lives, but this number could’ve been lower had the government respond in a proper manner. The failure of proper execution of the Mayor Ray Nagin, of New Orleans at the time, the failure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to execute actions in a timely manner, and the failure of the President to actually visit the people in need to help all led to more destruction. Former FEMA director Michael Brown failed to address the request made by officials. The Lieutenant Governor was also criticized for making vague request and not communicating properly what she needed. Many of the officials in charge did not properly communicate what they needed. And those who did communicate request, were ignored.

Do you think hurricanes are nothing compared to tornadoes? The Hurricane of 1938 was a catastrophic disaster that New England was not prepared for. The New Englanders were just going about business as usual and once the storm hit without warning, no one was prepared. The hurricane caused very high waves, destruction of property, and flooding.

For future disasters, there needs to be more communication between different levels of government. Federal and local governments should work together to carry out the tasks they are legally assigned to. Rather than levels of government blaming each other for being irresponsible, they should work together and delegate tasks to help as many people as possible in an efficient manner. There needs to be significantly more effective leadership as well. Poor leadership was detrimental to FEMA’s practices during Hurricane Katrina. Preparedness is also essential in future disasters. FEMA was shown to be unprepared for Katrina’s landfall because of their incompletion of the Hurricane Pam project. Strategies to evacuate residents and choices on how to distribute medical care were undecided on, which is something that could have been avoided with proper and thorough

The United States government was highly criticized during the late summer of 2005 of how they went about responding to the call to the hurricane. George W. Bush was the 43rd president at the time of the hurricane and unfortunately for the people down in New Orleans, his administration was not very active in the way they aided New Orleans. Debarshi Chaudhuri goes on to write it best in his article Government: Response to Katrina; “As the situation unfolded, it became clear that the government’s response was inadequate and inefficient. The federal government did not have adequate information concerning the true devastation that the hurricane had caused (White House). Despite the quantity of government workers in the area, the effects of the hurricane continued to wreak havoc on the city with people still stranded in New Orleans and looters robbing stores left and right.” Not even after the hurricane past was the U.S. government very active in restoring New Orleans to its old self. In Bill Mckibben’s New York Times Bestseller Eaarth he goes on to write “sometimes its hue and traumatic and obvious; after Hurricane Katrina the federal government ponied up $130 billion for repairs, which as anyone who has visited Louisiana can attest, was not enough…. if you wanted to keep that one city safe from a Category 5 hurricane, you’d need $80 billion and another twenty years of work.” Now I have no idea as to why the Bush administration was not helpful as should have been but it is truly sad to know that thousands of people lost their life to a disaster such as this one and with the government downplaying how the storm was affecting everyone living in the

Hurricane Katrina was a failure of government at every level. The scale of Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed the national, state, and local government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency “FEMA” weren't prepare of a crisis of that size, and that location of many people. Typically, the emergency response in the United States is driven by the state and local government at first, with a federal aid coming behind that, and there are multiple level of breakdown in the state of Louisiana as well as the city of New Orleans. As a result of things that went out of control, FEMA which represent the federal government, became part of the situation as well. So the instructions would be given from Washington in coordinating with state and local officials

Katrina traveled into the Gulf of Mexico on August 26 and started to expand. When the storm reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane however, deteriorated before making it to Louisiana to a Category 3 on August 29 with winds at 145mph. Due to the 20 to 30 foot storm surge and levee failure, it resulted with the infrastructure critically damaged from Florida to Texas. State and local agencies use the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model to know whom and when to evacuate to include what routes people should take. There was argument on who failed the devastated areas, since the assistance needed could not get to the certain areas due to massive flooding and bridges destroyed. Even though there was no one agency to blame through the lack of coordination and communication from local agencies up through the Federal Government, the lessons learned where noticed within hours and days after the storm arrived, the local population felt as being neglected or forgotten.

Hurricane Katrina exposed huge issues in the United States disaster preparedness and response programs. In 2005, the structure for homeland security was unable to manage catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina. Unified management of national response