Femas Lack of Help

With little warning Hurricane Katrina struck the quite town of New Orleans, claiming over a thousand lives. This extremely powerful hurricane seemed to develop over night. Only five days before it hit it was only a small tropical storm stirring in the Caribbean, but by now it had gained unimaginable strength and had upgraded to a Category 5 hurricane (Swenson 1). By now was the biggest concern in the united sates, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) seemed to have little care (Adams 691). FEMA's incompetence made the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina many times worse.

FEMA was established in 1979 and was developed to respond to major natural disasters and man-made emergencies. Some natural disasters include tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. FEMA provides help to victims in such emergencies by providing food, money, shelters, etc. (Adams 691).

One example of a natural disaster that FEMA responded to was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina developed in the Caribbean and hit Florida before gaining strength in the warm water of The Gulf of Mexico. Wednesday August the 24th, 2005 was when the first alert of the tropical storm was given out but when it reached its peak, which was on August 28th, 2005, it developed into a massive Category 5 hurricane (Swenson 1).

Friday August 26 at 5:00pm was when warnings from the National Weather Service Showed Hurricane Katrina taking a turn for New Orleans. This was when people began to give some attention to the storm, but Saturday August 27 was the morning that most residents of New Orleans really started paying attention to the weather. On Saturday the metro area started to evacuate and Governor Blanco sent a "State of Emergency" letter to President Bush. This was when worries became greater (Swenson 1).

On Sunday the Hurricane had become a Category 5 and the superdome has already become a shelter for over 26,000 residents. By Monday at 3:00am, Katrina made its first landfall. The hurricane was a strong Category 3 and had just dropped from a Category 4 so it was very dangerous. Its first landfall was at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Also, on Monday already 317,000 houses were without power and the roof of the superdome had hole in it due to strong winds. Also, most of the levees started to break, which cause even more damage and flooding. " By Wednesday the flood water had reached equilibrium as the "bowl" of the city was now even with the lake Poncharrine" (Swenson 1).

The Damage caused by Hurricane Katrina was about 84 billion dollars. Over eighty percent of the city of New Orleans was flooded (Wikipedia 1) Many people were forced to leave their houses and had no place to stay, which cause was directly related to looting. According to Swenson, " Looting reports went national presenting New Orleans as a lawless and violent haven for those trapped in the city"(1).

People that stayed behind or were not able to evacuate in time faced many obstacles such as lack of food, water, and sickness. Sickness was a major problem in shelters because of the high number of people that had to stay in a small area together for a long period of time. Many people got sick and died or starved to death because of lack of food. 1,577 people died in New Orleans and over 705 additional people were reported missing (Wikipedia 1).

According to Brown, " On August 28,2005 the United States Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency gave warning to residents along the Gulf Coast States to take immediate action to prepare for dangerous Hurricane Katrina"(1). FEMA gave this warning on the 28th and Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the 29th, so FEMA gave the Gulf Coast States less then one day to prepare for this horrible natural disaster. One day is not enough time to get almost all of southeast United Sates to evacuate and prepared for a hurricane, not to mention such a powerful one.

FEMA says that they sent help before the Hurricane struck because they sent 18 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams and they deployed three Urban Search Teams. Do you really think that 21 teams in all are enough to really help such a major disaster? There is no way that those teams were enough to prepare New Orleans for the hurricane (Brown 2).

FEMA was criticized because of their delay with responding and inability to coordinate its efforts with other federal agencies relief organizations. They could of reacted to the storm a lot better if it wasn't for their disorganization.

On August 29 Michael D. Brown, who at the time was the head of FEMA, announced that all fire and emergency service departments were not allow to respond to countries and states affected by Katrina without being requested and lawfully dispatched by the state and local authorities under mutual aid agreements and the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (Wikipedia 2).

After the hurricane passes David Paulison announced the problems that occurred and what they should have done instead.

Paulison said, "There were several significant things that I saw based on my experience of handling disasters and what I saw simply didn't work"(1). One problem he mentioned was how bad their communication was. They had problems communicating between the federal government, state government, and they even had problems communicating between themselves (Gables 1).

Another problem they had was having the right things at the right time and at the right place. FEMA did not have enough equipment so they bought more stuff, which cost them a lot of money. They also didn't have a way