Interagency Prevention and Planning Failures- Hurrican Andrew - Research Paper Example

With each disaster, the US government set up different agencies and bodies to provide help and succor to survivors of the aftermath. The method of providing aid and succor had clear sections of authority and a clear identification of which agency was to do what tasks (Nudell, 1988). Unfortunately, the precision with which these agencies were supposed to work did not happen. These agencies had turned into ‘stove pipes’ and did not cooperate with each other. With very little interagency cooperation, the various federal agencies that were seized with providing help were left powerless and tangled up in bureaucracy and red tape.

The result was that thousands of people could not be evacuated to stations built specifically for such tasks. Billions of dollars in funds that were used for infrastructure were wasted (Herman, 2010). This report discusses and focuses on the poor interagency prevention and planning that contributed to the disaster after Hurricane Andrew struck Florida. Morton (2008) has commented on the structure and functioning of the national security and the defense forces that have ambiguous security roles and function and which serve the President of USA.

These departments have strong workforce cultures and a deep seated desire to protect their turf and this created stove pies in the departments of national security. These entities tend to work in isolation and prefer to be the bearer of good or bad news. Various departments such as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence - ODNI, Department of Justice - DOJ under various acts ranging from the National Security Act 1947 to the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, 2004 have never managed to bring the various departments to act in a cooperative manner and where a common culture exists.

The various national security acts and state security at the national and state levels are uneven. A critical review of Shelby (2011) shows that at the time when