Preparing for Hurricane Katrina's damage

New Orleans endured one of the most traumatic turning points for the state of Louisiana in 2005.

Hurricane Katrina, which was known to be a category four storm, had hit the state of Louisiana. Category four storms can have winds that range anywhere from 130 miles per hour to 160 miles per hour, and can cause disastrous harm to different building and properties including humans and pets. Category 4 hurricanes regularly include long periods of wipeouts of all electricity water and food sources. When the storm hit individuals appeared to think little of the affect, and did not take it as seriously as they should of.

Aside from all the devastation throughout the city, the levees broke and overflowed the entire city with numerous amounts of water. A lot of people wondered where FEMA was at the time they needed, and why no one had been prepared for a crisis like this to occur, because everything was going down hill.

After Hurricane Katrina hit, the communication system shut down completely.

One enormous reason was that everyone was not expecting Katrina to occur or to be that terrible. So when it made such a colossal affect on New Orleans, everyone went into shock and it turned very chaotic, nobody knew how to react or what to do. Citizens couldn’t contact their government authorities since the storm had destroyed all cell phones connection and the landlines weren’t working. Even the authorities could not communicate with one another. This is when interoperability comes into hand. When a natural disaster hits or somebody attacking the twin towers or something of that nature the greatest issue is the need of interoperability communication.

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It is very hard to keep this communication through the computer systems, during these traumatic conditions. It’s pivotal to the government to have a radio communication with the state to be able to talk things through and try to figure out a solution to help the situation in any way. The reason of the hurricane pam was to plan and be prepared for something like Katrina.

Clearly it was not effective at all because of all the damage and harm that was caused by this disaster. Tragically, there are still more questions than answers of the after impacts and how they were so ineffectively executed. There are three reasons that the storm exercise was unsuccessful. The first was that all of the money that was being funded was taken away so most of it could not even be finished. Second, it set up inaccurate expectations, because nobody took it seriously, which had led to the thought that a storm like this would never or hardly occur. Lastly, the third was that there were multiple things that were not spoken of and explained in such detail or just not mentioned at all such as different ways of transportation, how everyone would be able to communicate if electricity was cut off, and the different types of medical care.FEMA had got a lot of negative flashbacks after the hurricane, many would say FEMA is disorganized and unprepared because of how they reacted when the storm had hit New Orleans.

Others say FEMA doesn’t have sufficient communications, because the communication was ripped apart and no types of communication had occurred. Unfortunately, those who were given the opportunity and was chosen for such positions had no genuine preparing which helped. Beneath the Clinton organization, numerous things changed. Each individual chosen was because of their broad preparing for disaster help. FEMA was criticized multiple times over the 9/11 catastrophe that occured in 2001 where numerous individuals said this is not the FEMA they have seen some time recently. The problem inside FEMA does need to be required to be addressed as FEMA moves forward. The United States depends and needs FEMA in the terrible occasion of a catastrophe. The framework needs solid authority, superior communication, more proficient planning tactics,and to be able to act exceptionally rapidly. All lives matter and they need to take the lives of others very seriously.

History repeating itself is universal stereotype. In the case of natural disasters, we can use this theory to our advantage by becoming more well equipped and prepared for the future; unlike how it’s been in the past. However, improvement doesn’t always happen. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, President Bush failed to respond to the damage in a timely manner, similar to the reaction during 9/11. When asked about why this delayed behavior was becoming consistent, the response the media got was that he was in shock and scared about what to do. Whether it is fear, shock, or confusion on what the next step should be, delayed responses during times of nationwide disasters can lead to more damage than necessary. Some experts have certain inputs about how they think that things can be done differently next time a big crisis occurs.

Michael brown the former FEMA chief had mentioned “ I think that one of the greatest errors that I made as the FEMA chief amid Katrina was not instantly turning to the military and saying: ‘We have been overpowered. We require you to take over coordinations, dispersion of commodities, etc.’ We quickly did turn to the military and mission-assigned them to begin doing carriers, begin bringing things in. The mistake that I made was not doing that sooner and not giving them the orders that we required them to do all of that promptly, since we were all overwhelmed”(Brown 1). Michael Brown had realized many things that he believed he could have done differently and how FEMA as a whole could of done things differently. With that being said he was not the only one who felt this way. Warren Rudman was a former US senator and had studied homeland security for 10 years. He stated “ I think all of them could have done somewhat better. The two things that could have been better is number one, to get major military force into the community almost immediately to make sure that there was law and order. Number two, we had enough helicopters to airlift food into the centers of population and those places. We could have done that better.” (Rudman 1).

The reason for this is because both of the governments are “getting a false sense of security, relying on Washington rather than preparing proper emergency responses themselves” (Mayer 1). When hurricanes and disasters occur there is no way people can tell when they might occur. Being prepared is one of the main things FEMA needs to initiate when training. The state of Louisiana said that the “vital flood-protection system failed and had poor design or bad construction” (Kintisch 1). The current direct of FEMA is Brock Long. Trump had designated him with the foundation in Disaster alleviation in April. He was chosen because he was very familiar with disasters in the past. The United States is very dependent on FEMA in the terrible occasion of a catastrophe even though we have no idea when they may actually occur. The framework needs to be more solid. Authority needs to be taken, superior communication needs to be more precise, there needs to be more proficient planning tactics, and lastly to be able to act exceptionally rapidly in case a disaster occurs randomly.

They need to realize that lives are being lost, and that is something that needs to be taken very seriously. With hurricane katrina occuring, President Bush was being blamed for a lot of things. He was being blamed for not being quick enough to respond. He had flew over to New Orleans three days after but still continued to get criticized for not being quick enough. They saw his endeavors as not being good enough to when it came to the people who were hurting. Hurricane Katrina was unexpected for not only the residents, but also the government. The magnitude of the hurricane and it’s damages were far beyond anything the United States expected, and had ever dealt with before. Because of this, the government and the people weren’t fully equipped with the needed resources to limit the damages they could control. After Katrina however, there were many changes made in the system to ensure that the country would never be this unprepared ever again. Lessons that were learned were that, we need to be practical, catastrophe drills need to incorporate all basic capacities and regions. Expect disturbances in communications administrations, conceivably for long periods of time. It is essential to understand that if there are going to be multiple operations for recovery, there also needs to be a sufficient amount of people willing to work for those different stations. Food sources can be hard to to obtain during mass destructions.

So for cases like those, there needs to be a backup plan on how we can obtain food and how it can be distributed to those in need during shutdowns. Because institutional facilities may be damaged or completely destroyed, it would be advised that the government have either back up generators or institutions ready to work during natural disasters. Locations of backup sites are critical because if it is within the same area of the original facility, the possible of the backup location also receiving damage is highly likely. Competition in the financial industry includes, but is not limited to, multiple infrastructure sectors in multiple interest areas. Natural catastrophes are unavoidable. However, with the amount of technological advancements that are being made, it is possible to spot the catastrophe, such as a hurricane, and prepare for it’s possible damages weeks, sometimes months, in advance. When it comes to natural disasters its essential for everyone to come together and work as a team to be able to provide to the people and help them as much as they can.