Hurricane Devastation Of Hurricane Katrina

This case summarizes events preceding the Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the worst natural catastrophes in the modern history of the USA. It raises questions about the lack of reasonable prevention and preparation actions due to flimsy structure and management of the responsible organizations and persons, invalidity and inconsistence of their actions and incapability of making the decisions in a timely manner. As a result of the unstructured and incoherent activities, we could observe several ineffective and costly attempts to mitigate floods and hurricanes. In the beginning the local officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and “White Houses past and present always seem penny-wise and pound-foolish” because of the chain of the wrong

On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic damage and flooding in Mississippi, Louisiana, New Orleans and areas in between. It destructed the lives and homes of thousands of people, with a total of 1,883 fatalities (Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts, 2015). Hurricane Katrina left many homeless and hospitals unprepared for the challenges posed to the healthcare system as a whole. Some of these challenges included gaining access to healthcare facilities, providing expedited care to those most in need, and preventing spread of disease that commonly occurs during natural disasters. Many facilities did not evacuate in time and many were left stranded in flooded waters as patients conditions worsened and access to essential medications and treatments became limited.

The Red Cross is built to aide in disaster relief, but to receive a phone call asking “Where is the Red Cross?” from the Pentagon to activate the specialized teams in response to 9/11 left scars on the ARC's permanent record that are hard to overcome

Whether it is a local flood or a national disaster, there is always one organization there to help, the American Red Cross. Each year the organization turns down no one in need, benefits 70,000 people in disaster relief, along with saving three lives every time a person donates blood. The American Red Cross has evolved through the years and is still known as one of the most important nonprofit organizations in the world.

Katrina was a crisis primarily because of its scale and the mixture of challenges that it posed, not least the failure of the levees in New Orleans. Because of the novelty of a crisis, predetermined emergency plans and response behavior that may function quite well in dealing with routine emergencies are frequently grossly inadequate or even counterproductive. That proved true in New Orleans, for example, in terms of evacuation planning, law enforcement, rescue activities, sheltering, and provisions for the elderly and infirm.

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating disaster that has affected many people in New Orleans as well as the surrounding areas. It had a stunning “death toll of 1300 people and damage over $100 billion ”( Davlasheridze 94 ). The communication were taken down hours after Katrina because of the unexpected fast winds and floods that broke down “3 million phone lines and 1,000 cellular towers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.”( Joch ). Because of the millions of phone lines that were battered, contacting the government for help was difficult hours after hurricane Katrina. Not only that, the people of New Orleans underestimated the power of Hurricane Katrina causing many to be “ stranded with no food or water” ( Narrator, “The Storm”,PBS ).

“Then New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson offered 200 members of his state’s national guard to help Louisiana the day Katrina hit, but a letter from Washington authorizing the move did not arrive until five days later.” (Robillard Web). Four days after Katrina President George W. Bush sent 7,200 troops from the National Guard (Robillard Web). The Red Cross played a big role in Hurricane Katrina suppling 68 million meals to the survivors (American Web). Millions were taken care of with food, water, and shelter by 245,000 of the Red Cross Disaster workers (American Web). Firemen from other cities volunteered in the hundreds to help clean up (American Web). Louisiana was happy to have all the help they got after the

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, fires broke out, corpses were in streets, looting was taking place around the city, floor waters became toxic with sewage and gas. US Army Corps of Engineers came in to pump New Orleans dry; this was a continuous operation. (video: The Lost City of New Orleans: A Case Study) Organizations such as the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, National Guard and others helped the relief effort with housing,

Organizations over the past few decades have come to realize two things, there are a limited number of people in the government that are able to respond to natural disasters or large scale disaster effectively and that the government only has so many available resources to offer during a time of crisis. Another fact is, that private sector companies and non-profit entities, such as the Red Cross, have the ability to be more prepared due to their vast network of stores and distribution centers and their leisure, they indeed do have a unique responsibility

Hurricane Katrina was a devastating hurricane that blew through New Orleans, on August 23, 2005. This is significant because 1,836 Americans died, and a whole city was destroyed. Multiples of groups helped with disaster. relief of this hurricane, some of which are Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

The floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina marooned Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans [1]. Disaster struck leaving patients helpless, and doctors and nurses with confusion and stress. The article “Deadly Choices at Memorial” by Sheri Fink describes, in just the right amount of detail, the crisis that MMC faced because of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although the article was able to state a few good things that were done by medics at the hospital, it mostly showed all of the flaws that exist in the medical system. This causing us to face reality and face our problems head on.

The whole world observed as the administration responders appeared incapable to provide essential protection from the effects of nature. The deprived response results from a failure to accomplish a number of risk factors (Moynihan, 2009). The dangers of a major hurricane striking New Orleans had been measured, and there was sufficient warning of the threat of Katrina that announcements of emergency were made days in advance of landfall (Moynihan, 2009). Nonetheless, the responders were unsuccessful to change this information into a level of preparation suitable with the possibility of the approaching disaster. Federal responders failed to recognize the need to more actively engage (Moynihan, 2009). These improvements include improved ability to provide support to states and tribes ahead of a disaster; developed a national disaster recovery strategy to guide recovery efforts after major disasters and emergencies; and the Establishment of Incident Management Assistance Teams in which these full time, rapid response teams are able to deploy within two hours and arrive at an incident within 12 hours to support the local incident commander (FEMA,

The majority of the immediate relief occurred thanks to the aid of private organizations such as the Red Cross along with the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund (McNeill, 2011). The Bush administration and other government figures acted incredibly slowly and were unable to give the

Hurricane Sandy pushed across New York coast and left a devastating trail behind. There devastation was so great that it caused federal, local, and regional levels to develop plans and strategies for future crisis. An emergency situation on a magnitude as Hurricane Sandy created a collaboration of many emergency services. FEMA, Red Cross, Department of Transportation, and many local agencies were involved with managing the chaos caused by the storm. Collaboration was utilized during the occurrence of the storm and after the storm. Several of the agencies and their involvement will be described.

Hurricane Katrina exposed huge issues in the United States disaster preparedness and response programs. In 2005, the structure for homeland security was unable to manage catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina. Unified management of national response