Hurricane Katrina on the Coast of the United States - Research Paper Example

? Running head: KATRINA Katrina Educational KATRINA 2 Katrina “Hurricane Katrina was one of the strongest storms to impact the coast of the United States in the last 100 years” (Hurricane Katrina, 2005). Nearly seven years later, the various devastating effects of that disaster linger on. There is still so much work to be done and so many families who can never be whole again. So many died, some needlessly it is said. Still others lost most or all of their possessions. On Friday, August 26, 2005, Hurricane Katrina passed into the Gulf of Mexico presenting a huge threat to the coastal areas of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and New Orleans. Then, in the early morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore at the mouth of the Mississippi near Orleans with 140 mph sustained winds and storm surges two stories tall. To make matters worse, many of the 500,000 residents of New Orleans live below sea level and are surrounded by the Mississippi River, Pontchartrain, and several bays. It was obvious that this was going to be a huge storm; consequently hundreds of thousands of Gulf residents evacuated on Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday night Mayor Holloway of Biloxi said that most of the residents in the lowest-lying sections of his city of 55,000 had evacuated. (Drye, 2005). Wherever possible, evacuees from low-lying areas went to higher ground to stay with relatives and/or friends. Some competed to rent limited accommodations; however, soon these were no longer available. By Sunday night shelters were filling up, even as far away as South KATRINA 3 Texas and all over Lousiana, according to Steve Rinard, meteorologist in charge of the national weather service office in Lake Charles, Louisiana (ibid.). Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category Four Storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale which ranks hurricanes from one to five according to wind speeds and destructive potential” (ibid.). On Saturday morning, Hurricane Katrina actually became a Category Five Storm, with peak winds of 175 mph. Luckily, it lost some of its power as it came closer to the coast. The reasons for why Katrina will forever be known as the Hurricane that took so many lives and destroyed so much property are many; but, ironically Katrina herself was responsible for injecting the initial surprise and resulting confusion by making an unexpected jog southward as it crossed the Florida peninsula and then rapidly strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico. Residents in the Florida Keys were caught off guard by Katrina’s intensification. Katrina kept on getting stronger as it took a ragged S-shaped path across the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. By Friday afternoon meteorologists feared the worst They felt that the storm would further intensify as it approached large Gulf Coast cities such as Alabama, Mobile, and New Orleans, which it did (ibid.) One has to wonder why by this point, coordinated preparations were not being made for a huge impending disaster. Emergency management officials had been concerned for sometime about a powerful storm such as Katrina hitting vulnerable areas such as New Orleans and the Florida Keys. They saw the greatest vulnerability being the coastal population growth that had occurred during the past three decades, as well as the fact that 55,000 citizens were living below sea level. Knowing this, one wonders why coordinated plans were not in place for rapid evacuation and shelter for all these people should a Hurricane such as Katrina come to visit. They must have known that KATRINA 4 evacuation would not be easy, not only because of all of the people involved, but because there were a lot of people in the area without transportation and money to evacuate. Certainly there was a lack of preparedness for such a major storm, but, perhaps, even more to the point was a lack of communication, trust, and cooperation. Although President Bush declared a state of emergency for Louisiana and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide aid, in response to Governor Kathleen Blanco’s request, he could not, upon meeting with her on September 2, 2005, persuade her to relinquish control of the Louisiana National Guard. Regrettably, President Bush, mainly for political reasons, did not take a more aggressive approach in obtaining federal control of the National Guard troops. (Case Study 5: System Failure: The Response to Hurricane Katrina). Meanwhile neighbourhoods were being flooded and residents and quite a few tourists, with little or not direction, found shelter in the Superdome (and in the Convention Center), which on August 31 and September 01 housed 20,000 people. Soon food and water supplies were depleted and toilet facilities were not working anymore. Conditions were now ripe for the lawlessness and violence that ensued in the Convention Center, the Superdome, and the many other parts of New Orleans where people had sought shelter. Still there was no agreement among local government authorities, state authorities and FEMA. The issue now was who would provide the buses to evacuate the people who had fled the Superdome and the Convention Center. Eventually, the Lousiana National Guard came to the rescue on September 03, 2005 (ibid.). Governor Blanco has been blamed for flawed communications and blocked aid. She let it be known that as result of several skirmishes she had with the President in the past, she did not KATRINA 5 trust his administration. This she reinforced by stating that she made several calls to the President but could not reach him nor did she receive any call backs. Yet, Mississippi’s governor Haley Barbour said that not only did he not have to wait for hours to talk to President Bush, but that he called him several times during the wake of Katrina. Barbour said that he never called the President because the President called him. That being said, a Congressional Research Service report issued on September 13, 2005, concluded that the Governor of Louisiana “took the necessary and timely steps needed to secure disaster relief from the federal government” (Hurricane Katrina: Who’s at Fault?). However, not everyone agrees with that. What is a bit confusing is that Michael Chertoff, who was by no means blameless in all of the confusion, did, however, investigate what went wrong with the disaster relief activities. Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, was “the federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina and could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials” (ibid.). Michael Brown as manager of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, however, “had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit when Chertoff designated him as the principal federal official in charge of the storm” (ibid.). However, that power was not shifted until the evening of August 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. A memo stated that Chertoff may have been confused about his and his department’s lead role in disaster response. Importantly, Chertoff’s memo, however, indicates that the disaster response was not being run by neither Brown nor by himself but by the White House. It goes on to say that Brown was not the problem, he was just a convenient fall guy. “The problem is a system that was marginalized” (ibid.). Shockingly, it has been stated that the cause was political, a matter of KATRINA 6 principles and values. Progressive liberal values are empathy and responsibility, which translate into a simple principle; namely, “Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives” (ibid.). It was said that the values of the right-wing Conservative Party that was in power at the time was just the opposite. Their main belief is to “Rely on individual discipline and initiative” (ibid.). Importantly, the difference between the two belief systems is “We’re all in this together” and “You’re on your own, buddy” (ibid.). “It is ‘the difference between ‘Every citizen is entitled to protection’ and ‘You’re only entitled to what you can afford” (ibid.). It is said that “It is this difference that lies behind the tragedy of Katrina” (ibid.). There seems to be more than enough blame to go around. FEMA has been one of those who have shouldered a lot of blame and have done so from the start. It should be noted though that developing a comprehensive plan of responsible belief is undermined by the fragmented intergovernmental system. That being said, FEMA, apparently, failed to grasp quickly the extent of the Katrina disaster and to put into place a central and a command structure. President Bush been blamed for quite a few things in the Katrina disaster, not least of which is his management style which has been described as haphazard and reactive. William Kristol said that although Bush is a strong president, he has never focused on good execution. It has also been said that the White House (and Bush) do not have a strong Chief of Staff who could act as a sort of deputy president, checking on the various Cabinet agencies. President Bush has also been faulted for staffing FEMA (as well as other components of the federal KATRINA 7 government) with individuals who adhere strongly to conservative political beliefs and personal political loyalty rather than demonstrated competency. Michael Brown, the former director of FEMA, had little experience with disaster relief before taking on his current position (ibid.). Yes, New Orleans was very vulnerable. However, it need not have been so to that extent. The US Army Corp of Engineers should have, perhaps, allocated more money to more adequately strengthening the levees. However, not all of the money allocated was used to protect New Orleans. Louisiana had received $1.9 billion over the previous four years for corps civil works projects, more than any other state. Although much of this money was used to protect New Orleans, much has, however, been spent on unrelated water projects such as an unnecessary lock in the New Orleans Industrial Canal, dredging little-used waterways such as the Red River, and so forth, mainly to serve the barge the barge industry and other commercial interests (ibid.). Environmental groups, victims, and others have all been given a generous measure of blame, albeit some more so than others. If anything good can come out of all of this, it is that the intergovernmental agencies have realized how badly prepared they were for Katrina; and that they must prepare thoroughly and quickly for future disasters as that part of the east coast has proven especially vulnerable to hurricanes. Even on the first day the results of Katrina were devastating. Communication systems and several large hospitals were destroyed. Hundreds of hospital patients were stranded inside dark and flooded facilities that lacked basic supplies. At St. Rita’s Nursing Home, 34 patients drowned in the waters from Katrina. Roof sections of the Louisiana Superdome, where over ten thousands of evacuees were staying, were ripped away. Sewage, drainage, and power lines were incapacitated. The storm surge, high winds, and much rain stressed the city’s 350 mile levees. KATRINA 8 Several of the levees and floodwalls were overtopped and some were breached during the day of the landfall. It was the overtopping and the breaches that led to the flooding of New Orleans. In addition, many pumping stations stopped working (The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina). A search and rescue operation was put into effect just as soon as possible. State and local emergency responders performed emergency medical services, fire fighting, law enforcement, and support to shelters. This they did during extreme heat, chemical contaminated mud, downed power lines, and standing water. Three Superfund toxic waste sites in the New Orleans area were flooded by the storm’s surge, and 170 drinking water facilities and 47 wastewater treatment works along the Gulf Coast were also either compromised or destroyed. Many local and state public safety agencies suffered a lot of damage to their facilities and equipment. While much has been made of the bravery of the emergency responders, sadly some emergency personnel abandoned their positions during the storm, 147 of them being police officers who, as the Superintendent of the New Orleans department said, are no longer with the force. Emergency response operations were made extremely difficult due to no reliable operational communication system. One of the biggest search and rescue operations in the Nation’s history was launched as a result of the storm’s surge and subsequent flooding. It is difficult to forget the many media pictures showing people and animals being plucked from rooftops and attics. Coast Guard rescued and evacuated over 33,000 people, earning themselves the name, “The New Orleans Saints” (ibid.). Inspite of all the displayed effort and bravery, the lack of coordination and direction left emergency personnel in many cases filling in the blanks themselves, such as “being forced to leave people on highways where they were exposed to the elements and in continuing need of KATRINA 9 transportation,food and water”(ibid.). Post-landfall protocol and evacuations in New Orleans and Louisiana were virtually non-existent, so they worked with FEMA, DOT, and DOD in this regard. Their immediate concern was the Superdome and the Convention Center whose population had increased dramatically. To help with the evacuation of thousands of people, the Governor commandeerd public school buses since many of the City buses where stranded in flooded areas. Air operations also evacuated 24,000 people. People arrived at the airport aboard buses and helicopters. The DHS Transportation and Security Administration provided screeners and Air Marshalls who in the first three days of the evacuation confiscated hundreds of weapons. Finding places for the evacuees to stay, especially with a severe lack of coordination, was no easy task. Flights and buses were often diverted enroute without the knowledge of officials at either the original or the new destinations. As soon as the worst of the storm was over, people began looting and committing `violent crimes against law enforcement officers and other emergency response personnel`(ibid.). Security problems sometimes halted relief efforts; suspended search and rescue missions,; delayed the restoration of communications infrastructure; hindered medical support missions; and delayed restoration of power, water, and telecommunication services. By September 3, there were 1,600 federal law enforcement officers in New Orleans to try and restore law and order. Getting evacuees into accommodations was no easy task. `Most of the thousands of housing units made available by other Federal agencies were never offered to evacuees and never used` (ibid). A number of evacuees were fortunate enough to obtain housing in other states in which they could live for one year. When that year was up, they had nowhere to go. Certainly, all the after effects of Katrina have not been resolved, but most people are trying to move forward. KATRINA 10 References Case Study 5. System Failure: The Response to Hurricane Katrina, American Intergovenmental Relations. Drye, W. (2005, August 29). Hurricane Katrina Smashes Gulf Coast. National Geographical News.. Retrieved on January 21, 2012, from http:news.nationalgeographic.com. Hurricane Katrina. (2005, December 29). National Oceanic and Atmospheric National Climatic Data Center. Retrieved on January 21, 2012, from http:ncdc.noaa.gov. Hurricane Katrina: Who`s at Fault. Retrieved on January 22, 2012, from http:www.sourcewatch.org. The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. (2006, February). Retrieved on January 22, 2012, from http:library.st.marytx.edu. Read More