Hurricane Katrina was the most costly natural disaster inAmerican
history.
Some elements of government response were excellentwarnings
from the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration, for examplebut other aspects of public
administration failed
under the weight of the event. Since August 2005, the Katrina Task
Force
(KTF) of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) has
focused
on understanding the successes and failures of the response to
Katrina at all
levels of government. Each year, the KTF submits a report to the
ASPA membership
summarizing the Hurricane Katrina research to date. In March 2008,
the KTF presented its third annual report in the form of a panel
discussion at
the societys annual meeting in Dallas, a community with many
Katrina diaspora
residents.
The 2008 panel discussed the obstacles that have arisen as the
damaged areas
along the Gulf Coast struggle to recover. It explored some of the
political aspects
of recovery and the implications of the upcoming change in
administration.
Also, the panel was challenged by a highly engaged audience,
including international
delegates,whose views of Katrina events often differed greatly from
those
of the panel.This summary includes information helpful to public
agency leaders
in improving recovery planning, an often overlooked aspect of the
four phases
of emergency management:mitigation, preparedness, response, and
recovery.
Top Findings in Katrina Research
Panelists listed the top two items discovered in their Katrina
research in the
past year.One view was that we need to explore improvisation as a
functional behavior
in disaster response.We also need to emphasize the role of
risk-based planning,
beyond flood plains to other sorts of risklike fire.The next
administration
has to face the remaining repair effort while coping with
challenges in organizational
behavior and personnel.For example, the Federal EmergencyManagement
Agency (FEMA) has been reconstituted with a new generation of
agency members
and no institutional memory.The new FEMA must have the capacity to
link
to state and local agencies and support the increased capacity of
local agencies to
handle their own problems. Some of the post-9/11 efforts have
proven cumbersome
and even counterproductive, including the fifteen planning
scenarios,whichdrag resources away from planning for seasonal and
cyclical
natural events and toward preparation for rare weapons
of mass destruction.
Another perspective emphasized the importance of better
understanding how decisions aremade under conditions
of uncertainty.The obstacles to disastermanagement revealed
in the research show the need for a national systemfor identifying
risks, assessment of hazards, and mobilizing capacity.
Information technology could have been used to facilitate
the interactive communications possible during
disasters,but public agencies are behind in the adoption of
technology because of their limited incomes and the many
demands for essential services.A better information technology
backbone would make a difference in developing
national capabilities.
Communities face challenges in their financial recovery,
including reconstituting tax income to enable physical
recovery.Many victims are still in diaspora cities because
the community infrastructure in their hometowns is not repaired.
Natural hazards are frequent and damaging, and deservemore
focus at the national level,where they have been
supplanted by terrorism since 2001.
Recovery always depends on funding, and the source
of funding is usually the states andmunicipalities.After a
disaster,
however, these government agencies cannot afford to
help communities recover because they have lost the sales
and income tax producing activities to disaster damage.The
states in the disaster areas need to rely on continuing federal
support to rebuild infrastructure and for aid to businesses
and families, if they hope to reconstruct the community.
Executive Branch and Change
The panel was asked about the mechanisms available
to the executive branch to effect change and whether moving
FEMA out of the U.S.Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) was a good idea. It viewed homeland security
as not a priority in the states because the tax base
is inadequate and competition for resources is enormous.
How can the federal government incentivize states to do
more for recovery?
Communities often do not identify ahead of time the
steps needed to thoroughly understand their risks,which
may include human-caused events like terrorism,weather-
related disasters like hurricanes,or geological risks such
as earthquakes.Detailed study is needed to understand these
risks in advance of events. Important investments from federal
and state resources include advance physical mitigation
measures, better community maps of where hazards
have occurred or are most likely to occur, and a better allocation
of budgeted resources for disaster response and
recovery, including appropriate insurance coverage.
Public managers need to work closely with scientists
and engineers to understand and prepare for likely risks.
For example, they need better information on the location
and probable impact areas of flooding, knowledge
from scientists and engineers about beneficial improvements
to the built environment, and better maps of hazard
zone locations. Furthermore, administrators and engineers
need to develop types of response activities most
suited to different risks and then inform states and municipal
governments about these strategies.States can provide
technology for improved communication, including
interoperability.
All levels of government would benefit from more
emphasis on functional planning.Before Katrina,Louisiana
had twenty-nine functions around which state agencies
were to organize their capabilities; that has now been reduced
to sixteen emergency support functions refocused
on the fundamentals of evacuation, transportation, shelter,
health, and medicine.When terrorism came up as a
threat after Oklahoma City, emergency management was
separated into crisis managementincluding law enforcement,
investigative work, and immediate response
and consequence managementincluding evacuation, care
and shelter, and emergency medical care, as well as community
recovery from pollution with chemical, biological,
or radiological materials.
Funding Streams
Much has been made of the variety of federal funding
streams to the Gulf region aimed at facilitating Katrina
recovery. Money has flowed from community development
block grants, the FEMA Public Assistance
program,U.S.Department of Transportation programs, and
the Gulf Coast and Louisiana Recovery authorities.
Which is making the most difference? Have others made
a difference?
The Road Home Project did not work well, although
much time and political capital were spent. Community
organization projects supported byAmerica Speaks to
engage residents in their rebuilding and articulate programs
for change did work well.The University of New Orleans(UNO) has
been especially active in supporting community
recovery.Also, the emergency management performance
grant (EMPG) program builds and maintains
capacity at local and state levels. In the past, this money
has enabled communities to have a professional emergency
manager and maintain an emergency operations center
and emergency operations plan.More money for EMPG
would enhance the prospects of community emergency
preparedness throughout the nation.
New Homes in New Communities
Katrina was distinctive for the number of people displaced
from their homes for very long periods.Research
has shown that states as far away as California and New
York received and hosted people from the Katrina diaspora.
The federal government reimbursed communities
for the cost of care and shelter for the displaced population,
an unprecedented action. Governors were able to
declare a state of emergency and request presidential disaster
declarations for the expenses incurred in humanitarian
assistance. Did FEMA learn anything about resettlement
problems?
African-American and Vietnamese people from the
Katrina diaspora went to San Jose,California,often on their
own,and were welcomed by the community.The local
CollaboratingAgencies
DisasterRelief Effort (CADRE),which
is made up of the non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) in Santa Clara County, organized the reception
of new residents, welcoming them to the new community.
San Jose State University had just closed up a graduate
student dormitory complex that had been replaced,
so these eighty-eight apartments became the temporary
housing for people as they arrived, often penniless, often
off a bus.The apartments, two bedrooms, living room,
kitchen, and bath,with linens and kitchen goods provided
by the university, allowed families privacy to recover
from the trauma of the storm and their loss of home and
community.
Children were able to have established bedtimes, and
families could cook the food they preferred.CADRE provided
each person with a backpack of personal care items,
individualized for men,women, and children. Each person
received a sweatshirt that said New Orleans
NeighborhoodAssociation,
provided in recognition of the temperature
change from the hot and humid Gulf Coast to
the relatively cool SiliconValley and to help the newcomers
recognize each other.Adults received phone cards to enable
them to notify loved ones of their new location.Older
children and adults received bus passes to help them
get to school, shop for food, and find jobs.The localAmerican
Red Cross (ARC) chapter, a member of CADRE,
provided casework services on site and a secure mailing
address at the chapter where people could safely receive
their FEMA debit cards.The local public health department
brought its mobile health center to the apartment
complex to care for minor injuries and mild illnesses and
provide school physicals and immunizations.
The county also coordinated the provision of free dental
care for people with acute problems, such as abscesses
and cavities.The local school districts welcomed the
children, adding them to classrooms whose populations
reflect the SiliconValleys diversity: 43 percent white, 27
percent Latino, 26 percent Asian, and 4 percent African-
American.The mayors office invited theAfrican-American
and Buddhist clergies to meet with him to develop
a plan to ensure that the new residents had access to worship
and clergy services.The religious community provided
buddy families and worship transportation to ensure
that the new community members were integrated
into the religious activities of their choice.The new community
members from the Katrina diaspora arrived from
Labor Day weekend through mid-September.ByThanksgiving
time, CADRE sponsored a Saturday holiday fair
with a hot lunch and food baskets for each family.When
the press asked some of the new residents about their plans
to return to New Orleans they said,We are home.
The experience in Pennsylvania was different.The terror
attack on 9/11 showed the importance of giving people
timely, accurate, and valid information on where to
go and how to get help.After Katrina,FEMA helped eight
hundred people go to Pennsylvania, many to Allegheny
County.There, the new residents experienced recurring
anxiety about jobs, schools, and fear of the unknown.Disaster
researchers have long known about the rule of uncertainty
for twenty years after a disaster.The post-Katrina
response was decentralized, without a focus for the
people displaced.
Disaster Commemoration
Sociologists say that a disaster is over when there is
a commemoration.When is 9/11 over or will it forever
be there? How close are we to the commemoration of
Katrinaa year or a decade away? And how do we get
beyond it?The real recovery of the local spirit was when
they held the Mardi Gras in 2006.The parade was limited,
and many krewes were missing from the festivitiesbecause they had
not returned,but people lined the streets
and celebrated that at least a part of the community was
whole.For some people, it will never be over as they cannot
return home or cannot reconstruct the community
where they lived.Lives have been lost, and livelihoods are
gone.The looming threat of terrorism will prevent us from
getting closure on 9/11.
Katrina will not be over until the next disaster arrives.
When CNN left New Orleans, attention at the national
level was lost, but the disaster is not over until people
start losing it as a focus that needs attention. Audience
members began contributing to this discussion.The City
of NewYork had a lengthy discussion about the memorial
at theWorldTrade Center.Over two and a half years
after the devastating storm, no plan for a Katrina memorial
has arisen.Last year, theVirginiaTech attack really hit
home for academics.President Bush was there for the commemoration.
Where is the memorial for those who died
in Katrina and Rita?
In 1976,China experienced the GreatTangshan Earthquake.
Within ten years, the areas affected were completely
cleaned up and rebuilt.The community preserved seven
damaged sites and created a museum to show the earthquake
effects. At the tenth anniversary, they had people
write personal histories of their experiences during the
time, contributing to research and also an evolution of
thinking about the tragedy of the earthquake as a lesson.
This changed the mentality of the community away from
victimization.After the Kobe Earthquake, the Japanese also
translated the event into learning experience.They have
a Great Hanshin Earthquake MemorialMuseum that focuses
on education.
March 25 is the ninety-seventh anniversary of theTriangle
Shirtwaist Factory fire, the worst disaster in New
York City until 9/11. Six months before 9/11,ASPA held
its annual meeting in Newark, New Jersey, and we saw
that the scene of the fire is now marked by an administration
building for NewYork University, with a plaque
signifying the event.Cornell University, through its labor
studies program,has an ongoing memorial to preserve the
history of the fire and its extensive loss of life.The future
probably holds something like this for Katrina.Maybe institutions
will keep the history and knowledge of the Katrina
experience going as New Orleans revives.
Vulnerable Elderly
The vast majority of the 1,342 people who died were
old. Did we learn anything about caring for the elderly
in future events? Television news coverage of Katrina
showedAfrican-Americans as victims,but those who died
in the rest homes were of various races.The care of the
elderly ill is an ethical issue.The Sacramento Bee noted that
the government is considering rationing health care in a
great disaster.The old will be triaged out of the system.
That this is not being discussed outside of Sacramento is
shocking.This is a case of emergency management meeting
ethics.
Some suggest that the next looming disaster is pandemic
influenza.Lessons from Katrina are being used by
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) in the planning. Social distancing (voluntary quarantine)
and storing medical supplies,water, and food were
learned from disasters.However, no guidelines cover the
effects on many vulnerable populations, such as those in
homeless shelters and patients who have to go to dialysis
centers several times a week or die.No one is currently
looking at these special-needs groups.A recent report on
federal leadership for pandemic flu notes that DHS and
HHS are confused as to which organization is in charge.
Federal roles in this looming disaster are unclear.
The elderly were clearly the most affected and vulnerable
in the Katrina experience, yet emergency managers
reached less than 10 percent of them through NGOs
that work with them regularly.UNO provided a grant to
develop a collaborative network to bring together the
NGOs to develop evacuation plans for the special-needs
and elderly populations. Research has shown that planners
have to be proactive with the elderly population, as
they shun social situations.They only use the post office,
pharmacy, and church.They will not leave the perceived
safety of their homes unless they know where they are going
and how to get there.Louisiana emergency managers
are taking pictures ofAmtrak trains they will use for evacuation
and what Memphis, the likely evacuation shelter
point, looks like.The city will provide trains,but the challenge
is how to convince people to get to the trains.Public
management as a whole failed during Katrina.Emergency
management failed to reach into the public sector
beyond effectiveness and efficiency to social equity issues.
This may be because most emergency managers are trained
outside of public administration, follow the rules, and do
not consider social equity.New areas for focus include
multilanguage
outreach, hearing-impaired residents, and the
special challenges of the illiterate.
Emergency managers need to get the attention of local
government officials who can start collaborative net-works that
will involve more people.After HurricaneAndrew,
Baton Rouge sheltered people from New Orleans
nursing homes.A man who was injured inAndrew formed
a special-needs task force that was active from 1994 through
Katrina.They developed model plans for nursing homes,
got the public health agency to put disaster response into
the regulations,and started yearly inspections of home health
services.After Katrina,Louisiana emergency managers are
working with an association of private dialysis companies
in the Gulf Coast,Tennessee, and Kentucky on evacuation
plans.For example, if they have to evacuate, there is a plan
for equipment to be evacuated and information on where
to go in the shelter area for a dialysis center, including patient
records transfer.The essence of emergency management
is to work through business, government, and community
organizations.
NGOs and Disaster Management
Twenty-five percent of the New Orleans human resources
agency budget is dedicated to theARC. Most of
the city workers are white collar workers, and if they are
burned out of their apartments, theARC shows up.The
ARC volunteers are safe even in dangerous neighborhoods
because of how they help.Where are we with nonprofits
in emergency management?Will we rely more on them
in the future? Have they proven more trustworthy? Are
there more unmet needs? FEMA will provide casework
money for future disasters.
KatrinaAidToday was funded by $66 million in foreign
government donations. FEMA issued a request for
proposals, and a coalition of nonprofits, representing a new
strategy of case management to meet family needs, responded.
This strategy involves NGOs working together
to advance a common goalachieving success through
a network approach. One NGO could not do it alone,
nor could government agencies,owing to the diverse skills
needed to work with people at the community level and
enable families to get back on feet.
The LouisianaVoluntary OrganizationsActive in Disasters
(VOAD) has had a cyclical existence. During Katrina,
they had one person in the state emergency operations
center to coordinate NGO activities.The Salvation
Army sent three representatives, and the ARC sent several.
Coordination had lapsed prior to Katrina, but it is
now revived.The nationalVOAD includes faith-based organizations,
through which it provides training for
groups that want to volunteer in disasters.They provide
liability coverage for their trained member organizations,
and the professionalization among participating NGOs has
increased.Many have preidentified specialties, such as child
care, debris clearance, and mass feeding.
Globalization of Disasters
As for the globalization ofAmerican disasters, foreign
donors have sought a niche after Katrina. Save the Children
was interested in developing capacity to respond inside
the United States, with a big donor community interested
in supporting that activity. Is the offer of foreign
assistance after Katrina a manifestation of the globalization
of disasters?
International NGOs have had problems in coordination
and response from foreign sources.They have found
themselves culturally and historically confrontingAmerican
exceptionalismthat prevents collaboration, learning,
knowledge transfer, or policy transfer from other nations.
Yet, there are things to be learned about receiving aid
from abroad. Is there a globalizing impact? Foreign aid may
be stimulated by the 24/7 news cycle,which picks up stories
around the world. People all over the world see the
news and are interested, as in the case of the 2005 Southeast
Asian tsunami.The extent to which disaster management
catches attention may be heightened by specific
news stories, such as people sitting on their roofs waiting
for water. In the international community, we learn
from each other and work toward developing resilient
communities.
Conclusion
Hurricane Katrina has created a unique environment
for the study of many aspects of emergency response.Researchers
have recognized the importance of understanding
federalisms role in disasters, especially catastrophic events.
More needs to be learned about successful strategies for
managing the special needs of vulnerable populations.
Funding the recovery from a disaster that damages the underlying
economy poses a challenge that requires outside
assistance,both from the federal government for seed money
and public works support and from the business community
that must reinvest in the disaster area.How do you
restart a community that has no schools,hospitals,or grocery
stores? Which comes first, people or services?
Mitigation works, and when it fails the entire community
is a victim. Perhaps the story of Katrina is not so
much about a storm as about a flood, not so much about
bad emergency response as bad urban planning. Should
rebuilding be allowed to take place in the same belowsea-level
areas? If not,where will people go? If so, is mitigation
possible?
Acknowledgment
This report draws on comments from a broad crosssection
of task force members and other contributions from
the 2008 panel participants.The KTF is led by Beverly
A. Cigler, Penn State Harrisburg. Other members are
Louise Comfort,University of Pittsburgh;Frannie Edwards,
San Jose State University, formerly director of the City
of San Jose Office of Emergency Services; Greg Gould,
Alaska Office of Emergency Services; Lenneal Henderson,
University of Baltimore; DC Jensen, Louisiana
Office of Emergency Services/Homeland Security (retired);
Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Louisiana State University;
Rick Sylves,University of Delaware; and BillWaugh,Georgia
State University.