Katrina

Katrina and New Orleans: What Went Wrong S. Elizabeth Brinson December 3, 2009 The story begins innocently, with yet another little disturbance in the Caribbean, the next in a summer's growing storm count during 2005. But some scientists were already fearing the worst as tropical depression twelve strengthened into a hurricane, grew still more in the Gulf of Mexico, then took deadly aim at the most vulnerable coastal region in the United States, south Louisiana and the famed "city that care forgot," New Orleans. (van Heerden) In August 2005, a small area of disturbance that had the potential to develop into a severe storm formed somewhere over the Caribbean, and by late afternoon, on Tuesday, August 23rd, the system was noticed by weather-observing aircraft and ships. On Wednesday, August 24th, the National Hurricane Center classified this disturbance as "Tropical Depression Twelve", which later was called Tropical Storm Katrina. By 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 25th, NHC officials upgraded Tropical Storm Katrina to a hurricane, and two hours later, Katrina made landfall as a category one hurricane in southern Florida. Hurricane Katrina quickly increased in strength as it entered the warm sea surface temperatures in the northern Gulf of Mexico, growing from a Category 3 hurricane to a Category 5 hurricane in just nine hours. (Leben, Born, Scott) "A hurricane is like a steam engine," said Leben. "The more heat that is put into it, the faster it is going to run. When I saw the predicted storm track over the Loop Current, I became concerned we might see a doomsday scenario." On Saturday, August 27th, the storm reached Category 3 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, becoming the third major hurricane of the season. Katrina again rapidly intensified, attaining Category 5 status on the morning of August 28th and reached its peak strength at 1:00 p.m. CDT that day, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph When Hurricane Katrina made landfall near the Louisiana-Mississippi border on August 29th, it set in motion a series of events that exposed vast numbers of Americans to extraordinary suffering. Experts had long warned of the flood dangers faced by New Orleans, much of which lies below sea level.(Horn) The storm caused breaches in the city's flood-protection levees, leaving about 80% of New Orleans under water and knocking out electric, water, sewage, transportation, and communications systems. Katrina also flattened much of Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi, flooded Mobile, Alabama, and leveled or wrecked havoc in smaller cities and towns across a 90,000 square mile area. (Horn) Up to 100,000 people were stranded in flooded New Orleans for days in squalid and dangerous conditions awaiting relief and evacuation. Not only would Katrina become the most expensive natural disaster in United States history, it would also prove to be one of the deadliest in more than 75 years. By early October, the confirmed death toll exceeded 1,200, with more than 80% of the fatalities in Louisiana, mostly in the New Orleans area. Nearly three-fourths of all houses in New Orleans were damaged or destroyed. In Mississippi, two-thirds of homes in the six southernmost counties were severely damaged or destroyed. As I read the volumes of material associated with Katrina, I came to understand that, as awful as the hurricane's effects were, things could have been a great deal worse. Katrina did not turn out to be the "big one" that has always haunted the New Orleans imagination, according to Hassan Mashriqui of the Hurricane Center at Louisiana State University. Nor is Mashriqui alone in arguing that human factors, beyond and apart from the sheer power of the storm, were what turned "a problem into a catastrophe." (McClay) Had it not been for breaches in three different levees after Katrina's concentrated fury had passed, the city would likely have experienced only scattered flooding and wind damage. It was this failure that transformed Katrina from an ordinary hurricane into the most expensive natural disaster in American history. According to three different teams of investigators, all three failures were likely caused by inadequate design or faulty construction. So then the "blame game" and the manipulation of angry emotion caused by the media began. President Bush was the main “villain”, because he had refused to address global warning, which most felt caused the severity of the storm; the levee breaks resulted from inadequate funding from the Bush administration; very late and inadequate federal response of the unrescued people of New Orleans seen sitting on rooftops, street violence and the terrible living conditions in the Superdome; and incompetent management of FEMA by placing it under Homeland Security. (Adams) On the local and state level, we must look at the Mayor and the Governor to see what roles they played in this disaster and how much blame should be registered to them. Despite adequate warning fifty six hours before landfall, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin delayed ordering a mandatory evacuation in New Orleans until nineteen hours before landfall. Mayor Nagin “failed to implement the city's own evacuation plan--which, as officials knew, was the only real defense the city had against catastrophic storms--allowing hundreds of municipal school buses under his direct control to sit idly in a parking lot.” (McClay) Mayor Nagin’s also decided to shelter but not evacuate the remaining population, and decisions of individuals led to an incomplete evacuation. This incomplete pre-landfall evacuation led to deaths, thousands of dangerous rescues, and horrible conditions for those who remained. In addition to being late to order evacuation, Governor Blanco also was late in requesting federal troops, and late in getting the Louisiana National Guard onto the street, and declined to permit President Bush to federalize rescue and relief efforts, and whose own Louisiana Department of Homeland Security barred the Red Cross from to the those camped out on bridge overpasses and in the two megashelters.” (McClay) But what really went wrong in New Orleans' According to the Bipartisan Report from Congress, and as we already know, local, state and federal governments failed to listen and respond to the warnings of Katrina’s intensity. This was reflected in communication failures and weak leadership. The authors of the report wrote ”there was a litany of mistakes, misjudgments, lapses and absurdities all cascading together.” (Bipartisan Committee) The committee also pointed to the fact that Homeland Security was not prepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude, and although the military responded well, there did seem to be a lack of coordination, the breach of levees and various other problems. Ironically, the one area that seemed to work well was the accuracy and timeliness of National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center forecasts which prevented further loss of life. In review of literature regarding Homeland Security during Katrina, there were many “communication” problems that in essence “paralyzed” effective response. With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the development of the National Response Plan, an additional layer of management and response authority was placed between the President and FEMA, and additional response coordinating structures were established. (Bipartisan Committee) The Secretary of Homeland Security became the President’s principal disaster advisor responsible for enabling the President to “effectively utilize his authority under the Stafford Act to direct all federal agencies, particularly the Department of Defense, to respond in a coordinated and expeditious fashion.” As part of these changes, critical response decision points were assigned to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and unfortunately, Secretary Chertoff executed these responsibilities late, ineffectively, or not at all. The “single biggest failure” of the federal response seems to be that it failed to recognize the likely consequences of the approaching storm and mobilize federal assets for a post-storm evacuation of the flooded city. (Bipartisan Committee) If it had, then federal assistance would have arrived several days earlier. Literature available has also stated that not only did senior Department of Homeland Security officials fail to acknowledge the scale of the impending disaster, they were ill prepared due to their lack of experience and knowledge of the required roles and responsibilities prescribed by the National Response Plan. As we have learned, the cycle of emergency management begins with preparedness and mitigation, flows into response, and ends with recovery. The four cornerstones to comprehensive emergency management preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation are interdependent and all vital to successful emergency management. (Bipartisan Committee) FEMA is no longer a department unto itself and has been placed under the Department of Homeland Security. It is thought that due to this movement, there is now a shift in its priorities due to organizational change. According to the Bipartisan Committee Report, the “decline in preparedness has been seen as a result of the separation of the preparedness function from FEMA, the drain of long-term professional staff along with their institutional knowledge and expertise, and the diminished readiness of FEMA’s national emergency response teams. Unfortunately, the numbers of trained FEMA personnel has declined and there were not enough in place to cope with the disastrous results from Katrina. Coupled with the lack of funds for training and equipment, FEMA was left with inadequate readiness plans and inappropriate staffing which added to the ineffective response to Katrina. At the time that Hurricane Katrina hit, a feasibility study was being performed on the possibility of upgrading the hurricane protection system so that it could withstand a Category Four or Five storm. In what some experts have called the worst engineering disaster in the United States, the extensive system of levees and floodwalls in and around New Orleans and in surrounding communities failed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina beginning on Monday, August 29, and resulted in widespread flooding in the city of New Orleans. (Schlager) The American Society of Civil Engineers deputy executive director, Lawrence Roth, stated that most of the destruction was not caused by the hurricane but by the state of the levee system due to a series of failures in engineering and engineering-related decisions. The levees and floodwalls breached because of a combination of unfortunate choices and decisions, made over many years, at almost all levels of responsibility. According to a Report by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the levees that protected New Orleans were not built to withstand most severe hurricanes. Five major direct problems were cited (1) incorrect designs on several of the levees that contained concrete floodwalls (what was called I-walls); (2) overtopping of levees and floodwalls by water pouring over them, which eroded their foundations; (3) insufficient strength of levees and floodwalls to counter storm surge pressures; (4) weakened levee and floodwall foundations even before the hurricane; and (5) antiquated pump stations, whose function was to pump away floodwaters, which did not work. (Anderson) According to several articles read, the military also had a role to play, and ultimately, the National Guard and active-duty military troops and assets deployed during Katrina constituted the largest domestic deployment of military forces since the Civil War. Unfortunately, even though additional steps were taken to get ready for Katrina, they fell far short of what was needed to respond to this monster storm. An area of concern noted is there seems to be two distinct military chains of command, one for federal troops and one for National Guard troops under state command. (Bipartisan Committee) This of course led to poorly coordinated efforts in response to Katrina. In the end, ineffective leadership, poor advance planning, and an unwillingness to devote sufficient resources to emergency management over the long term doomed all systems to fail when Katrina struck. Despite the understanding of the Gulf Coast’s particular vulnerability to hurricane devastation, officials braced for Katrina knowing full well they had deficiencies in their plans and holes in their resources. So, is the country ready for another disaster of this magnitude' At this point, I do not believe so. There have been many suggestions/ways to “fix” the problems that occurred. Certainly one of the main concerns is to bring the Emergency Management System into the 21st Century. Perhaps FEMA has outlived its potentials and use and a new agency needs to be formed with its own leader and connection directly to the President. The agency needs to focus on “preparing for and responding to” disasters and turn away from terrorism – that is why we have Homeland Security. According to William Waugh, “Katrina was a man-made, nature assisted disaster” and now is the time to look at the various reports and remedy the situation. Make the engineers accountable for their levee design and construction. All levels of government should be ready to perform their duties and activities in a disaster and not concentrate on pointing fingers. Perhaps there needs to be a revision of the National Response Plan, or at least have the people understand what it is and how the phases should be utilized. Look at the military and devise a better way to coordinate their use. I imagine there are so many ways to correct “what went wrong”, but until everyone takes responsibility and accountability for their actions and roles, things will not improve. I do have to mention a word about the media. The Bipartisan Committee did chastise them for their actions and their words. They of course sensationalized what was happening. The public is dependent on the media for news, however, they must learn to be more accurate. Much that was reported was proved to be rumor based and unsubstantiated. This caused resources to be deployed, important time and energy wasted, and further panic among the citizens. Former FEMA Director Michael Brown told the Select Committee one of his biggest failures was failing to properly utilize the media as first informer. “I failed initially to set up a series of regular briefings to the media about what FEMA was doing throughout the Gulf coast region,” Brown said at the Select Committee’s September 27 hearing. “Instead, I became tied to the news shows. We should have been feeding that information to the press in the manner and time that we wanted to, instead of letting the press drive us.” The bipartisan committee makes the point this disaster not only was predictable, but predicted, and expresses dismay that the response could have been so poor with so much advanced notice. It finds this particularly distressing in the face of the risk of terrorist attack, and the future hurricane seasons. The preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina should disturb all Americans. While the Select Committee believes all people involved, at all levels of government, were trying their best to save lives and ease suffering, their best just wasn’t good enough. The information from SPC was somewhat informative, but mostly reinforced what I had read in articles I had obtained on the web or in the public library. The most informative articles included those that dealt with levee failures and/or the lack of preparedness by governments on all levels. The report, A FAILURE OF INITIATIVE, Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, was by far the most informative of any of the material I obtained. To me this report looks at all aspects of “what went wrong” with Katrina and New Orleans and how not just one person or one area is to blame. I think this report shows that when one area “misses the beat” so to speak, it has a domino effect with others. References Adams, Shawn. "Learning the lessons of Katrina for the unexpected tomorrow." Risk Management 52.12 (2005): 24. Web. General OneFile. 4 Dec 2009. >. Anderson, Christine. "The New Orleans Hurricane Protection System: What Went Wrong and Why." What Went Wrong and WHy. 2007. American Society of Civil Engineers, Web. 27 Nov 2009. . Davis, Thomas. "A FAILURE OF INITIATIVE." Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate. February 15, 2006. U. S. G O V E R N M E N T P R I N T I N G O F F I C E, Web. 17 Nov 2009. . Horn, Geoffrey M. "The Katrina Disaster.(Special Features)(Statistical data)." World Almanac and Book of Facts. World Almanac Education Group, 2006. 5+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. Leben, Robert, George Born, and Jim Scott. "CU-Boulder Researchers Chart Katrina's Growth In Gulf Of Mexico ." CU-Boulder Researchers Chart Katrina's Growth In Gulf Of Mexico . 15 Spet 2005. University of Colorodo at Boulder, Web. 17 Nov 2009. . McClay, Wilfred M. "The storm over Katrina." Commentary 120.5 (2005): 34+. General Reference Center Gold. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. . "New Orleans levees - Louisiana: 2005." When Technology Fails. Ed. Neil Schlager. Online. Detroit: U*X*L, 2009. Science Resource Center. Gale. 29 November 2009 Ivor VanHeerdon, and Mike Bryan. The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina - The Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist . 1st ed,. 1. New York: Viking Press, 2005. Print. Waugh, William. Jr.. “The Disaster That Was Katrina” National Hazards Observer. (2005). 7-8.