Hurricane Harvey Emergency Management: Lessons Learned
This paper examines the emergency management response to Hurricane Harvey, one of the costliest tropical cyclones in U.S. history, causing an estimated $125 billion in damage. The paper discusses the failures in long-term mitigation planning at both the federal and state levels, including inadequate attention to green space, wetlands, land-use planning, and building codes in affected areas such as Houston. It also reviews the pre-storm preparations and immediate response actions taken by FEMA, state officials, and other organizations. Finally, the paper highlights the cross-boundary nature of large-scale disasters and emphasizes the critical role of multi-agency collaboration in effective risk assessment and mitigation planning.
- Introduction: The Scale and Cost of Hurricane Harvey: Overview of Harvey's $125 billion damage toll
- Government Preparedness and Mitigation Failures: Federal and state failures in long-term mitigation planning
- Pre-Landfall and Immediate Response Efforts: FEMA, state, and federal actions before and after landfall
- FEMA's Coordination Role and Key Lessons Learned: Multi-agency collaboration and cross-boundary disaster lessons
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What makes this paper effective
- Balances critique of government preparedness failures with an objective account of response actions taken before and after landfall.
- Uses multiple credible sources — including the National Hurricane Center, FEMA, and academic authors — to support each claim.
- Concludes with a policy-relevant takeaway about multi-agency collaboration, grounding the argument in an academic citation.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively synthesizes journalistic, governmental, and academic sources to build a layered argument. Rather than relying on a single perspective, it weaves together institutional reports (FEMA, National Hurricane Center), opinion commentary (McGillivray), investigative journalism (Kimmelman & Haner), and a peer-reviewed edited volume (Brandon et al.) to present a well-rounded analysis of emergency management successes and shortcomings.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with the scale of the disaster and critiques of pre-disaster mitigation planning. The second paragraph shifts to concrete pre-landfall and post-landfall government actions. The third paragraph focuses on FEMA's coordinating role and draws a broader lesson about cross-boundary disaster collaboration. A references section follows in standard APA format. The structure moves logically from problem identification to response description to lessons learned.
Introduction: The Scale and Cost of Hurricane Harvey
Billed as one of the most costly tropical cyclones in recent history, 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 unprepared for the hurricane — a failure that was especially apparent in the area of long-term mitigation planning.
Government Preparedness and Mitigation Failures
The big-picture considerations that 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…" (McGillivray, 2017). This assessment is seconded by Kimmelman and Haner (2017), who argue that much of the mayhem in places like Houston was caused by conditions on the ground rather than forces from the sky. In other words, Houston's vulnerability to flooding was significantly shaped by decades of land-use decisions that left the region ill-equipped to absorb a storm of Harvey's magnitude.
Pre-Landfall and Immediate Response Efforts
Hours before the disaster, FEMA issued relevant information regarding disaster assistance and activated the FEMA mobile app for live updates. The state's political leadership encouraged residents to remain alert and heed warnings and advisories from the relevant agencies. Shortly after landfall, President Trump announced that he had signed a presidential disaster declaration (Federal Emergency Management Agency — FEMA, 2018). This declaration effectively meant that the state government would receive additional federal funding to address the disaster.
It should be noted that FEMA had pre-positioned personnel and supplies within the state before the storm made landfall (FEMA, 2018). At the state level, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster for all counties in Texas. Additional responders included nonprofit organizations, the private sector, faith-based organizations, and others.
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
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