Hurricane Harvey and Emergency Management

Hurricane Harvey: Emergency Management
Billed as being one of the most costly tropical cyclones in recent times, Hurricane Harvey, according to the National Hurricane Center (2018) caused damage worth $125 billion. According to McGillivray (2017), both the federal and state governments were not prepared for the hurricane. This is more so the case with regard to long-term mitigation planning. The big-picture considerations both levels of government missed “include looking at the condition of green space and wetlands that could have aided in mitigating the impact of the storm, land-use planning and runaway development in such places as Houston, building codes in affected areas....” This is an assertion that is seconded by Kimmelman and Haner (2017), who are of the opinion that more mayhem in places like Houston was caused by issues on the ground, rather than those form the sky.
Hours before the disaster, FEMA issued the relevant information with regard to disaster assistance and had the FEMA mobile app running for live updates. The state’s political leadership encouraged locals to be on alert and heed to warnings and advisories from the relevant agencies. Soon after landfall, President Trump made an announcement to the effect that he had appended his signature to the presidential disaster declaration (Federal Emergency Management Agency - FEMA, 2018). In essence, this effectively meant that the state government would receive more federal funding to contain the disaster. It should be noted that personnel as well as supplies had been pre-positioned in the state by FEMA before the storm’s landfall (FEMA, 2018). At the state level, a state of disaster was declared by Texas Governor, Greg Abbot, for all of the counties in Texas. Others that responded to this emergency included nonprofit organizations, the private sector, faith-based organizations, etc.
FEMA was essentially the emergency manager as far as coordination of efforts and planning is concerned. With workers drawn from various organs of the federal government including, but not limited to, EPA, the Transportation Department, and the military, the headquarters of FEMA served as the command center with all systems going in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the disaster. Many lessons could be derived from the preparations prior to, and response to, Hurricane Harvey. One of these is the cross-boundary nature of disasters of this nature. Towards this end, the relevance of collaboration cannot be overstated so as to prevent instances of overlap and redundancy. Indeed, as Brandon, Lombardi, and Shen (2017) point out, “multi?agency collaboration is important in the risk assessment process to allow agencies to move towards a common understanding of the local risks and develop a common risk mitigation plan” (312).












References
Brandon, P.S., Lombardi, P. & Shen, G.Q. (Eds). (2017). Future Challenges in Evaluating and Managing Sustainable Development in the Built Environment. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons
Federal Emergency Management Agency – FEMA (2018). Historic Disaster Response to Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Retrieved from https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2017/09/22/historic-disaster-response-hurricane-harvey-texas
Kimmelman, M. & Haner, J. (2017). Lessons from Hurricane Harvey: Houston’s Struggle Is America’s Tale. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/11/climate/houston-flooding-climate.html
McGillivray, G. (2017). Why the U.S. Wasn’t Prepared for Hurricane Harvey. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/why-the-us-wasnt-prepared-for-hurricane-harvey/article36098669/
National Hurricane Center (2018). Costliest U.S. Tropical Cyclones Tables Updated. Retrieved from https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/UpdatedCostliest.pdf