RESEARCH
After
Hurricane Katrina the government was criticized for its slow response The
criticism of the government response to Hurricane Katrina consisted primarily
of condemnations of mismanagement and lack of preparation. This criticism was Criticism
was prompted largely by televised images of visibly shaken and frustrated
political leaders, and of residents who remained in New Orleans without water,
food or shelter, and the deaths of several citizens by thirst, exhaustion, and
violence days after the storm itself had passed. The treatment of people who
had evacuated to registered facilities such as the Superdome was also
criticized.
New Orleans Mayor
Ray Nagin was also criticized for failing to implement his evacuation plan and
for ordering residents to a shelter of last resort without any provisions for
food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. The most important criticism of
Nagin is that he delayed his emergency evacuation order until less than a day
before landfall, which led to hundreds of deaths of people who (by that time)
could not find any way out of the city. Adding to the criticism was the
broadcast of school bus parking lots full of yellow school buses, which Mayor
Nagin refused to be used in evacuation. When asked why the buses were not used
to assist evacuations instead of holing up in the Superdome, Nagin cited the
lack of insurance liability and shortage of bus drivers.
September
26, 2005 hearing, former FEMA chief Michael Brown testified before a U.S. House
subcommittee about FEMA's response. During that hearing, Representative Stephen
Buyer (R-IN) inquired as to why President Bush's declaration of state of
emergency of August 27 had not included the coastal parishes of Orleans,
Jefferson, and Plaquemines. (In fact, the declaration did not include any of
Louisiana's coastal parishes; rather, they were included in the declarations
for Mississippi and Alabama.) Brown testified that this was because Louisiana
Governor Blanco had not included those parishes in her initial request for aid,
a decision that he found "shocking."
New Orleans was
already one of the poorest metropolitan areas in the United States in 2005,
with the eighth-lowest median income ($30,771). At 24.5 percent, Orleans Parish
had the sixth-highest poverty rate among U.S. counties or county equivalents.
The 2000 U.S. census revealed that 27% of New Orleans households, amounting to
approximately 120,000 people, were without private mobility. Despite these
factors preventing many people from being able to evacuate on their own, the
mandatory evacuation called on August 28 made no provisions to evacuate
homeless, low-income, or sick individuals, nor the city's elderly or infirm
residents. Consequently most of those stranded in the city were the poor, the
elderly, and the sick.
President Bush
signed a $10.5 billion relief package within four days of the hurricane, and
ordered 7,200 active-duty troops to assist with relief efforts. However, some
members of the United States Congress charged that the relief efforts were slow
because most of the affected areas were poor. There was also concern that many
National Guard units were short staffed in surrounding states because some
units were deployed overseas and local recruiting efforts in schools and the
community had been hampered making reserves less than ideal.
On September 13,
2005, a memo was leaked that indicated that Chertoff issued 36 hours after the
hurricane's landfall which read, in part, "As you know, the President has
established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will
meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland
Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will
assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina." The
memo activated the National Response Plan and made Michael D. Brown responsible
for federal action.
FEMA was accused of deliberately
slowing things down, in an effort to ensure that all assistance and relief
workers were coordinated properly. FEMA also interfered in the Astor Hotel's'
plans to hire 10 buses to carry approximately 500 guests to higher ground.
Federal officials commandeered the buses, and told the guests to join thousands
of other evacuees at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. FEMA officials
turned away three Wal-Mart trailer trucks loaded with water, prevented the
Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they
cut the Jefferson Parish emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to
restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA. The Wal-Mart delivery
had actually been turned away a week earlier, on Sunday, August 28, before the
hurricane struck. Additionally, more than 50 civilian aircraft responding to
separate requests for evacuations from hospitals and other agencies swarmed to
the area a day after Katrina hit, but FEMA blocked their efforts. Aircraft
operators complained that FEMA waved off a number of evacuation attempts,
saying the rescuers were not authorized. "Many planes and helicopters
simply sat idle," said Thomas Judge, president of the Assn. of Air Medical
Service
Due to the slow
response to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official
called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when
reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city. New
Orleans's emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate
response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a
FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has
been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive
amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New
Orleans.
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