When you step back and analyze the situation, it is clear that the lack of coordination and communication from Mayor Nagin made the situation worse. As, he did not heed the warnings about: the total amounts of destruction and the possibility that the city could be paralyzed from this storm. This caused a ripple effect in the city government, with no one being prepared for the overall scope of the damages and the possibility that the disaster could become worse in the days after the storm. What is most troubling about these events is that Nagin; did not accept responsibility for what was happening. Instead, he began to blame others for his shortcomings and waited for the state or federal government to do something about the issues that they were facing. Once this occurred, it meant that the overall scope of the disaster became even more severe by: leaving tens of thousands of residents stranded vs. providing some kind of effective assistance.
The Reaction of the City of New Orleans in Comparison with the Coast Guard and FEMA
When you compare how the City of New Orleans and the FEMA reacted to the crisis, it is clear that both entities were unprepared for the disaster. This is because, the top leadership failed to understand the overall severity of these events and the effect that it would have on the citizens of New Orleans. The role of these two entities made the aftermath of the crisis even worse. The reason why is due to the fact, that there was a delay in sending the necessary resources to those regions that were hardest hit. This made it difficult for relief organizations to provide any kind supplies in these areas and it helped to make response / recovery efforts slow. (Brinkley, 2006, pp. 499 -- 540) (Griffin, 2008, pp. 90 -- 91)
However, the Coast Guard was one of the only entities that were actively conducting effective search and rescue missions in...
As, their leadership began to fill the void that was left in wake of the absence of the response from: FEMA and the city. In this case, they had personnel conducting search and rescue operations of stranded residents. Where, they would evacuate them to areas that they were safe and could be able to have access to a host of different relief supplies / organizations. The problem was that they had limited amounts of personnel and equipment. Given the overall scope of the situation, meant that any kind of relief efforts they were conducting were having a minimal effects on addressing the severity of the problem. (Brinkley, 2006, pp. 499 -- 540) (Hurricane Katrina, 2007, pp. 90 -- 110)
When you compare the responses of the three entities, it is clear the FEMA and the City of New Orleans were underestimating the total response of what was occurring. This is based on poor leadership, which caused key personnel to delay any kind of responses. Where, they took a blaming approach of assuming that other organizations should be responsible for dealing with the crisis. This made the aftermath of the disaster even worse, which led to chaos and uncertainty. While the Coast Guard, was taking a proactive approach by sending in key personnel to be a part of: the rescue and recovery efforts. This helped to save lives and reduce the impact of the disaster on the citizens. However, given the fact that the city and FEMA were somewhat dysfunctional, meant that they were unable to effectively address all of the challenges they were facing.
Bibliography
Hurricane Katrina. (2007). Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Brinkley, D. (2006). The Great Deluge. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Griffin, R. (2008). Fundamentals of Management. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Johnson, (2005). The Four Pillars of High Performance. New York:…
