...response by government, NGOs and volunteer groups to Hurricane Katrina. The question for you to answer is whether or not the organizational structure for disaster response for the City of New Orleans, State of Louisiana, and FEMA was adequate to effectively respond to a Cat. 3 - 5 hurricane on August 26th, 2005. As you respond to this question please complete the following: o Review the various reports concerning the Katrina response and relief efforts. Identify an example of a relief effort which was successful and one which was unsuccessful. o Discuss the reasons why the examples you cited above were or were not successful. Comment specifically on whether you believe that the organizational structure at the City of New Orleans, State of Louisiana, and the Federal government was adequate, including communications and command and control. (Please refer to the Organization Structure for incident management in the National Response Plan.) Focus on how coordinating structures, processes, and protocols were employed to manage the disaster response. Discuss the importance of social networks during the Katrina Disaster. Please review the following (referenced) article and comment on the importance of social networks during a disaster response. ~ 1 of 11 ~ MHE 512- MOD 1 - Case Introduction to Disaster Relief; Organizational Structure of Relief Organizations; and, The National Response Framework Hurricane Katrina: Disaster Relief Efforts 1. What went right? Capturing...
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...will represent the residents of New Orleans, the residents of the surrounding floods plains, the Mayor of New Orleans, and the federal government represented by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and the taxpayers. We will look at scenario models, risk management, and decision trees to support our decisions and analysis. This natural disaster took an enormous toll on the residents of New Orleans. Over 1200 lives were lost and countless injuries were suffered. The loss of revenue from the shutdown of businesses, loss of homes and possessions of residents caused much pain and human suffering. We will conclude with an executive summary which will summarize our decision for or against rebuilding of New Orleans. Prior to the hurricane New Orleans was a tourism magnet. The city offered many restaurants, festivals, and great weather. These positives made tourism a thriving market. Other boons for the economy of New Orleans were the mining, transportation, and warehousing along its waterways. More products came through this port than any other port in the world. There are many colleges in the area than add to the economic bottom line of the city. Many things added to the beauty of the city. The diverse culturalism with many nationalities represented including the French, Spanish, Germans, Haitians, and other afro-American and Caribbean people made New Orleans a melting pot for many things. Jazz, Blues, Creole cooking and Gumbo are part of the history of New Orleans...
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...Hurricane Katrina changed the way United States viewed floodplain management and flood risk management. The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 produced the highest economic damages of the century, killing over 130 people, costing over $20 billion dollars in flood damages. Hurricane Katrina caused over a million people to lose homes, jobs, and took over 1300 lives. It has been estimated the restoration of the communities and some level of flood protections will exceed over $100 billion dollars when it’s all done. Before the twin towers were hit on September 11, 2001, it seem like the United States was headed in the right directions with floodplain and risked management. Due to the terrorist attacks on that day, change the way America took their approach on homeland security. All the focus and money shifted to US Department of Defense, and the natural hazard management was kind of put on the back burner and basically forgot about until Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina changed the game for how America planned for flooding and risk management. When Hurricane Katrina hit, it was a slap in the face on the response to flooding that took place in New Orleans. Up to this point there was not a single inventory of levees and flood damage structures in United States. America became a reactive force instead of an active force. The Secretary of Defense got involved and requested the US National Academics to establish...
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...grade? No, so I set up my alarm clock to 5 and wake up early in the morning to finish my reviewing of humanities. I learned that in life there will always be minor setbacks, weaknesses, and failures. I didn’t learn this just by waking up and have a bad day. It took an immense catastrophe to open my eyes that everything is bound to change sooner or later and there is nothing you can do, but pick yourself up and keep on moving. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana with my four siblings and mother. I have an older sister, a younger sister, and two younger brothers. I am the second to the oldest. I was use to my hometown New Orleans and leaving it was never something I expected to do. I will always remember the date and time that Hurricane Katrina hit my hometown. It was August 29, 2005 around 6:00am. I remember vaguely my mother running into my room telling me to grab only a few clothes and hurry outside to the car. I was half asleep and slightly confused at the same time. Everything seemed to happen in a blur. The next thing I knew my...
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...American Red Cross: A Community Organization The American Red Cross’s responsibility and involvement to the community involves care, compassion, assistance, and a plethora of other services. The American Red Cross has been providing disaster relief for well over 100 years and is well known as a humanitarian organization. The American Red Cross provides services in five key areas: blood drives, safety training (like CPR and First Aid), and community help for the poor, support services for military families, and various humanitarian programs (American Red Cross, 2013A). There are factors that influence social responsibility strategies of the American Red Cross. The American Red Cross must act ethically with sensitivity to the community and strive for positive effective contribution. The American Red Cross (2013) governing body is the Board of Governors. The Board has the necessary overseeing power to manage business affairs of the organization and maintains sequences of governing documents. The governing documents go through a review process to ensure safeguards are in place so that the needs of American Red Cross are met and reflect present-day industry best practices. There is a commitment with the Board of Governors to hold every member of the American Red Cross to the highest standards in reference to conduct and ethics. In addition, within the American Red Cross are corporate policies and regulations, which require compliance by employees and volunteers (American Red Cross...
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...(ARC), also identified as the “The Face of Recovery”, is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. The ARC is a non-profit organization that offers services in five areas of society. The community service sector helps citizens that are in need. In the communication sectors, the ARC provides comfort for military members and their families. The collection, processing and distribution of blood and blood products are also services provided by the ARC. There are also educational services on preparedness, health, and safety which are imperative for recovery acts. Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest and most destructive Atlantic Hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes. Hurricane Rita hit the coast of Louisiana and Texas only a month later and was even larger category 3 storm (Ferrell, Ferrell, Fraedrich 2011). The ARC raised more than 2 billion in private donations to fund massive relied efforts for both these disasters (Ferrell, Ferrell, Fraedrich 2011). Now let’s examine how this disaster impacted the ARC, benefits of business ethics. Business ethics’ is the application of ethical values, such as integrity, fairness, respect and openness, to business behavior. The American Red Cross was criticized for their operations being chaotic in some places, inequitable in others. This stung deeply within an...
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...three conditions met. First social audiences accept some rule or standard as legitimate. Second, audiences must maintain that a rule or standard has been violated, and lastly significant negative social reactions or sanctions are evident as a result. These terms were met in August of 2006 when the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2006, Hurricane Katrina ravished through the New Orleans area and destroyed 80,000 - 90,000 homes and businesses, and killed over 2,000 people. The entire city was flooded and sitting under water. Negligence began before the hurricane even reached the United States. About 5 days before the hurricane would eventually hit Louisiana, it was on radar as a level one hurricane which should have been reported to the citizens as an issue but never was reported. The storm reached the status of level 5 (highest possible level of a hurricane) about 48 hours before it reached the city and there still had been no report to the citizens of the city when in the correct procedure they would have been notified when it was first noticed. The citizens of the city were under a watch for the hurricane 24 hours before the hurricane would eventually hit the city, and were made a warning just 12 hours before the storm and citizens were told to evacuate. 12 hours is not enough time to evacuate an entire city and the federal agency knew...
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... Sanaz Peykari Hcs/320 Dr. Baker Communication and Crisis Paper September 10, 2012 Communication and Crisis Paper 2 On August 28, 2005 a nuclear reactor that malfunctioned, in the Three Mile Island created a release of radiation into the environment which caused a crisis. However, it drew a lot of media and created concerns in the local area. There were traditional form of technology by which was used to notify the public, television networks and local radio stations were also used. Compared to the crisis that took place in 2005, Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the New Orleans area, immersing many parts of the city under water causing trauma to families, the strategy for communication that was used are the internet, which reached a greater number of the public. As a director of a regional Emergency Management office if I started receiving official reports that the public water supplies of several towns in the area have become exposed with a life-threatening biological agent, the strategy I would use to start a contingency plan that would address my organization and the public without creating panic would be to send an immediate email to all staff to attend an emergency, mandatory meeting. Employees who are unable to attend because of emergency situations will have access...
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...Discuss the risk management of natural hazards using a range of examples to support your answer. Natural hazard processes are an essential part of how Earth functions. These processes have been shaping the planet Earth for millions of years. In modern times risk management plans are a necessity because of the wide variety of natural disasters occurring all over the world. It is thought that because of the frequency and increase in severity of hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tornadoes that the United States alone experiences an average loss of one billion dollars every week. (C. McMillan, 1998) Therefore it is obvious why a procedure of disaster preparedness, mitigation, management, and prevention is highly important as a method of dealing with such events. Risk management involves addressing any phenomena that could potentially cause havoc in a community. (C. McMillan, 1998) It is significantly different from traditional preparedness and response activities. A traditional approach attempts to address existing problems, while hazard risk management “focuses more on anticipating problems by ensuring that growth and development address the likelihood of hazards and their interaction with environmental systems.” Whereas traditional preparedness and response mechanisms often focus on individual hazard events, risk management views hazard exposure as an ongoing process and aims at reducing the vulnerability of the society and the economy to natural disasters. Such...
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...The Future of Emergency Management Jeffrey C. Jones Case Studies in Natural and Man Made Disasters Professor Charles Kocher July 16, 2012 Abstract Emergency managers have historically been just that, managers of emergency situations. As the field of emergency management changes, more and more emphasis is being placed on the prevention of the emergency all together. This paper will lay out the frame work of emergency management in terms of total reorganization. The current model although tweaked many times is still response heavy, the new model will be more prevention and mitigation based, as will call for the total overhaul of conventional emergency management. Introduction The American public as an expectation that be it private or government on any level professional responders and emergency managers should be capable of handling any and all types of emergencies. They have an expectation be it fair or not that these responders should execute these responses without error. This expectation is only further fueled by popular television programs that depict stoic emergency managers that handle the large events everyday. In addition to emergency managers the same could be said about military commanders, and political leaders. The odd coincidence is that this was also the key duty that emergency managers have always focused on. The thought was that if a manager handles the call or...
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...negative. I feel the negative effects are stronger because of the "consistency" used to pound this negativity into society's mind. It isn't necessary to use a hot babe in skimpy attire to sell a hamburger, but I've seen it done and in commercials for "family" restaurants. Sex is used to sell anything and everything and in that respect, it sends a negative message all around. Gone are the days when it was a shock to see an undergarment in a commercial. Now it's nothing to see the undergarments attached to live models. How many people do you think are actually looking at the undergarments instead of the body parts ( Kathy D 2007)? . On the flip side...there are good influences via the media. When a catastrophe strikes such as hurricane Katrina, people are seen reaching out to help others. The tv show "Extreme Home Makeover" is a great example of how strangers pull to together to help those less fortunate. Influences such as these can provoke the thought for people to help more in their community before catastrophe strikes, to be more giving all around (Kathy D 2007). We all know that the media is a strong influence in our society and that is why it is incumbent upon parents to set the tone and to be good examples for their children and to steer them in the right direction and let know that they need to think for themselves and not to be swayed...
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...morning, 29 August 2005, this is a day most New Orleans residents will never forget. This was the day a category 5 hurricane named Katrina made its catastrophic debut to the Gulf Coast region and killed over 1,300 people. (The White House, 2006, p. 1) After it was all said and done, the nation was shocked at the events that unfolded in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi and people were left wondering, “What went wrong?” National Geographic reported that the storm originated about a week earlier, 23 August, in the Caribbean and worked its up from the Bahamas making landfall Thursday, 25 August, in Miami. Winds at this time were 75-80 mph making it a category 1 hurricane causing some tree damage and killing two people. (Drye, 2005) The storm lost strength for a little while but once it hit the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it rapidly gained momentum and before long reached wind speeds up to 175 mph making it a category 5 hurricane. On Sunday, 28 August, New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, issued a mandatory evacuation order. Roughly 24 hrs later, the full strength of Katrina slammed into New Orleans and Biloxi. (Drye, 2005) Local and state emergency managers are responsible for coming up with a plan of action for different hazardous situations. Once a situation gets overwhelming for those levels of management, federal assistance is then requested. Prior to Hurricane Katrina’s arrival, various local emergency management agencies (LEMAs), such as local fire, police, and emergency...
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...Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was one of the worst devastating storms in U.S. history. The storm was unavoidable; the loss of life was. The Golf Coast was hit with category three winds from Louisiana to Alabama causing the water level to rise and flood over 80% of New Orleans and nearby neighborhoods (Raven, Berg, & Hassenzahl, p. 110, 2010). The levees simply could not hold the water and because New Orleans sits below sea level in most places, the city was submerged. Many people were asking how a tragedy like this could happen. This case study will attempt to review some of the key factors that contributed to the flooding. Factors to review will be the human factor, the destruction of the natural environment for anthropocentric reasons, and the technological mistakes. Each of the factors together had the power to weaken the natural environment unknowingly causing a vulnerability to the city and its inhabitants. Human population continues to grow and with this expansion comes the need for housing. The depletion of suitable land leads builders to begin to look at other options. In this case, many years ago it was decided to build levees and canals in the wetlands area of New Orleans. The initial purpose for the construction of the levees and canals was for commerce, but the city planners changed direction as the need for housing became more urgent, and the city was built. Humans through no fault of their own expanded into an area that was not suitable for construction and in the...
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...Popul Res Policy Rev (2010) 29:127–141 DOI 10.1007/s11113-009-9133-x The Role of Community in Disaster Response: Conceptual Models Olivia Patterson • Frederick Weil • Kavita Patel Received: 1 May 2007 / Accepted: 15 October 2008 / Published online: 5 November 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract We focus on the role that community plays in the continuum of disaster preparedness, response and recovery, and we explore where community fits in conceptual frameworks concerning disaster decision-making. We offer an overview of models developed in the literature as well as insights drawn from research related to Hurricane Katrina. Each model illustrates some aspect of the spectrum of disaster preparedness and recovery, beginning with risk perception and vulnerability assessments, and proceeding to notions of resiliency and capacity building. Concepts like social resilience are related to theories of ‘‘social capital,’’ which stress the importance of social networks, reciprocity, and interpersonal trust. These allow individuals and groups to accomplish greater things than they could by their isolated efforts. We trace two contrasting notions of community to Tocqueville. On the one hand, community is simply an aggregation of individual persons, that is, a population. As individuals, they have only limited capacity to act effectively or make decisions for themselves, and they are strongly subject to administrative decisions that authorities impose on them....
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...By: Miralem Smajic October 2, 2011 Political Science 3000 Professor: David G. Houghton In the milestone event of hurricane Katrina’s devastating destruction in 2005, the recovery process has had major impacts on the people in the Gulf of Mexico. Throughout the incident of Katrina, many organizations have helped contribute and donate their effort for the people of Louisiana and other states that have been affected by Katrina. Although years have passed since Katrina occurred, Red Cross for instance has raised the most for the beneficiary victims of Katrina. Donations throughout the United States such as: Red Cross, The Salvation Army, Joan B. Kroc, The American Cancer Society, and many other contributors raised funds for the victims of Katrina. The contributors statistics show that “The Red Cross moved up two spots to No. 2, rising nearly $3-billion,” Chronicle of Philanthropy. 20.2 (Nov. 1, 2007) while “The Salvation Army fell to No. 3, raising $1.6-billion” Chronicle of Philanthropy. 20.2 (Nov. 1, 2007) in the effort to provide outstanding amount of contribute to the people of Katrina’s destruction. Many who have lost their businesses and other data in the computing related plans by which the “Information Technology (IT) Disaster Recovery plan (DRP) to help protect their business data so as to ensure their survival,” (Academy of Strategic Management Journal. 10.2 (July 2011): p127) provides people who own businesses a safer straightforward plan to protect their...
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