Hurricane Katrina Emergency Plan

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Hurricane Katrina I remember when I came to school and heard people talking about hurricane Katrina. People said “New Orleans is gone” and at the time that was a fair assumption. Hurricane Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes ever to hit the United States. There where over 1,836 people who were killed during the hurricane and the flooding that followed. Katrina ranked sixth overall for strength and set records for the Atlantic Ocean. Identify those responsible for creating and maintaining an emergency plan. In the past emergency management has been as simple as a fireman with military experience developing a whole town’s emergency management plan. Over time it has developed as hazards have progressed and become…show more content…
When a local government feels it will be unable to effectively respond or it will be overwhelmed the federal government will step in with assistance, “jurisdictional level – typically the local government, with state government becoming involved at the local government’s request when the resources of local government are (or are expected to be) overwhelmed” (SECURITY, 2006). What emergency plans were in place prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina? Prior to landfall the preparation for Katrina was extensive and much more impressive than most think. “The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) positioned an unprecedented number of resources in affected areas prior to Katrina’s landfall. Indeed, FEMA’s efforts far exceeded any previous operation in the agency’s history” (Committee, 2006). That being said these efforts were still criticized simply because they weren’t enough. The plans put in place before Katrina’s landfall were seemingly all that planners could do for the time they had. The preparation was massive, preparing for shortages of all kinds and evacuations of personnel in harms…show more content…
The plans were in place to assist and respond to the needs of those affected. The problems came with things like communication and lack of manpower. Phone lines were down, power was out, and first responders weren’t showing up to work. The problems were endless and the scale of the devastation made responding a lengthy process. What lessons learned from the Katrina disaster can now be used to improve the emergency planning for other natural and man-made disasters in the U.S.? The lessons learned from Katrina can now act as guidelines and have helped with later hurricanes like Andrew. These lessons were hard learned but now FEMA is more prepared than ever. The main lessons learned were things like preparedness and familiarization, “the part of the explanation for why the response to Katrina did not go as planned is that key decision-makers at all levels simply were not familiar with the plans” What actions have been taken by the federal government to improve emergency
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