Hurricane Katrina was the largest scale disaster since September eleventh. With that being said, it was the first time since then that we could try and test our improvements that we have made in communication, technology, and associations such as FEMA. It was the first time that we would be able to see how our improvements would work; in some ways it worked great, in others it failed. For example the new system known as NIMS (National Incident Management System) was basically the protocol that the emergency responders had to follow failed. It failed because all the different government agency did not want to share information and data with one another, so basically they all wanted to be the “heroes” instead of working together and getting the job done correctly. At other points, such as organization and the public response was a success. Two being PeopleFinder and ShelterFinder.
One of the reasons why I think the emergency response failed was because people did not think that another attack of this magnitude would happen. In other words, I believe that the American people were very stubborn in the fact that it wouldn’t happen. I believe that if the American people were open to the fact that another attack could happen, then we would have been more prepared for this event. The government became logistically overwhelmed by hurricane Katrina. We exhausted all of our resources and personnel.
We also had some successes though. For one, a private citizen came up with the idea of a website that would be the centerfold for other websites. The idea sprouted because there were dozens of different websites that would have posting from people looking for their relatives and vice versa. The problem with that was that people would have to look at all the different websites to find the one person they were looking for. The idea eventually launched into what is called PeopleFinder. This was a huge success because it gathered all the different information from the websites and put them all into one place. This made it easier for people to find what they were looking for.
Furthermore, FEMA launched a statistic that 500,000 people were left homeless and another 500,000 people were left jobless. This raised a huge concern because how are 500,000 people who are located in a relatively close grouped area going to be able to find a home to temporarily live in? This is were the idea of ShelterFinder came about. The idea, much like Peoplefinder, would help people find homes from all over the country. People from all over the nation were posting up adds for Katrina victims to come stay with them, but they didn’t have a central place to post them, that is what ShelterFinder fixed. The best part about it was that it was not a government organization that designed it. It was a civilian that came up with the idea, and ran with it so to speak.
There are many things that we have taken out of the disaster relief of hurricane Katrina, some good some bad. But we are making progress and things are looking up for the future.
NIMS and NRP go hand in hand; the Final Report does a good job explaining what NUMs and NRP are responsible for during a major emergency and the actions they need to take. The Report; however, does not go into detail about what the two did during the response to Hurricane Katrina. The probably because it seems they didn’t do much of anything. NIMS consist of six major components, one of them being communication and information management. They should have took charge of the situation when FEMA couldn’t communicate with state emergency management agencies, when city police and state police lost communications, and when active duty members couldn’t coordinate with the National Guard. It seems ridiculous for the government to force states to adopt NIMS if they perform like they did during Hurricane Katrina. I don’t believe Katrina is to blame one-hundred percent for communication flaws. There was extensive damage to several towers, communication facilities, and major loss of power in the affected areas. But, NIMS and NRP should have planned on this happening; the government was warned a week before Hurricane Katrina made land-fall that there was going to be severe damage and major loss of power.
ReplyDeleteI would have to slightly disagree that emergency responses failed because people didn’t think another attack of the magnitude would happen. The Army Corp. of Engineers advised New Orleans several of times that the levees needed repairs or there would be major flooding and sever damage because the levees weren’t designed to withstand a hurricane larger than and category two or three. Nobody took action to repair the levees and basically ignored the warning signs. Also, the National Weather Service new at least a week ahead of time that Hurricane Katrina was going to be a category three or four when it made land-fall. The government on all levels ignored the warning signs until it was too late. Mayors and governors didn’t evacuate until it was too late, and federal government let the state government take charge of evacuations. So I think emergency responses failed because of lack of communication and ignoring warning signs.
I agree with you that this was the biggest disaster since September 11th but I will disagree to say the American people did not think it would happen. They knew it could happen, probably would happen but didn't want it to happen. Also the people in the cities were just listening to their leaders. If the leaders said to stay than it can't be that bad. It was not their fault that they thought the levies would hold and that the evacuation orders were given to late. If you instil a false sense of security then you cannot be upset when people believe it. It is much easier to hope and believe things will be okay than they are going to go to hell in a hand basket.
ReplyDeleteBut yes NIMS did fail and the government agencies did not work together in the way we thought they would. Yes also people did rise to the occasion to try and help their fellow man. They did some truly innovative things to try and reach out and help people, like peoplefinder and shelterfinder. Shelterfinder more so than peoplefinder in my opinion because shelterfinder to the best of my knowledge have never been used maliciously or for nefarious reasons. People finder was good at the time but should have been taken down as now it has led to more harm than good with stolen identities and the like.
Overall a very thought provoking post.
Hey Mike,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you when you state that Americans, post- September eleventh, became too complaisant with the way life became and did not think that another tragedy on such a large scale would happen again, let alone so soon. I remember thinking to myself, back in fifth grade, that since the terror attacks of September eleventh occurred and so many people died or were injured that nothing bad would happen to us for a while because we had already sacrificed so much that it just wouldn’t be fair for many more people to come to the same fate. Terror attack or natural disaster aside, no one was really ready for how devastating Hurricane Katrina became when it made landfall.
If the attacks of September eleventh showed nothing else, it showed that we as Americans are resilient, and the effects of Hurricane Katrina strengthened that resiliency. PeopleFinder and ShelterFinder were indeed huge successes in dealing with the aftermath of the hurricane that left thousands of people temporarily displaced throughout the country, and thousands more without jobs. With people missing, and a lack of information readily available, these two search sites proved to be useful tools in recovering from Hurricane Katrina’s effects.
I think that we should take the lessons learned from both of these events and apply them to our operating procedures now, so that when another attack occurs (whether it be intentionally done, or done by nature) we already have standards and operating procedures in place so we can act efficiently and effectively.