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Government Response Of Hurricane Katrina

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Government Response to Hurricane Katrina
Levels of Government
In my opinion, all three levels of government failed the people of New Orleans in responding to Hurricane Katrina. There was plenty of pushing the blame on one another that ended up delaying responses and finding results. It seemed like one level of government would try saying the other level of government is responsible for that role. For example, The Director of FEMA, Michael Brown would say that the local and state are in charge of evacuation planning. There is some truth to that, but according to the U.S federal law governing homeland security it states that FEMA, “operations to save lives, through evacuating potential victims.” (Producers, 2005).
The national government, in particular the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was one of the culprits. FEMA director, Michael Brown was quick to point the blame to the local and state governments for not being prepared and not providing FEMA a specific request. The video points out that FEMA received a 48 page document requesting additional resources from the state. The federal government did not know what their own government was doing. According to Richard Falkenrath, Homeland Security Advisor (2001-20014), “There was a period of days and we weren’t sure who was directing the federal response, and were all the actions being taken.” (Producers, 2005.) It took the Bush Administration 6 days to notify the American people of the failures of the federal

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