Hurricane Katrina vs. Sandy: Government Response Compared

Introduction

Tropical cyclones can badly destroy settlements and structures along the coast. Recent destructive tropical cyclones — such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — affirm that the destruction caused by a land-falling tropical cyclone is not merely dependent on its categorization on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. Hurricane Sandy of 2012 caused a tremendous amount of destruction; only Hurricane Katrina of 2005 has caused more damage. To reduce casualties from such calamities, the public needs to react promptly to any pre-storm decisions made by authorities (Kantha, 2013).

Government Response to Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was an extraordinary occurrence that brought with it great tragedy. Destroying approximately 90,000 square miles of land, it is the natural disaster that has caused the most destruction in the history of America. To put this in perspective, the area affected is roughly the same size as the United Kingdom. Mississippi saw thousands of people left without shelter after coastal communities were destroyed, and New Orleans experienced devastating floods. At least 1,500 people lost their lives, and thousands along the Gulf Coast were left stranded without essential commodities for nearly one week (Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2006).

It is important to note that the government's failure to plan, prepare, and respond to the storm caused people to suffer far longer than they would have had officials been more proactive. The government's failures were widespread, and several factors contributed to them. The central ones were:

The government did not pay attention to long-term warnings and negligently failed to prepare for a disaster that had been forewarned. The government took inadequate action or made poor decisions just before landfall and immediately after. The systems relied upon by officials to support disaster response failed. Government officials across all ranks failed to provide capable leadership (Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 2006).

Hurricane Katrina was the single largest catastrophe to befall America in modern times. According to federal disaster declarations signed by President George W. Bush, the affected area totaled at least 93,000 square miles, and 5 million individuals were left without power. Contributing factors to the Hurricane Katrina disaster notably included the lack of preparedness among Americans for a catastrophe of that magnitude as well as the federal government's failures (Cash, 2014).

Hurricane Katrina brought to light serious cracks in emergency response mechanisms, even after the transformation of FEMA, which had previously reported directly to the president but was at the time operating under the Department of Homeland Security. Also revealed was the fact that key federal government leaders did not fully understand the National Response Plan (NRP) (Cash, 2014).

The disaster showed American citizens that the federal government was unprepared to manage certain kinds of large-scale disasters. It was the first occasion where new Homeland Security directives — including the new DHS, the National Response Plan, and the National Incident Management System — were put to the test.

A key factor in the federal government's failure during Hurricane Katrina was that FEMA was not independent but was instead operating under DHS. This hindered communication between the White House and agency officials, causing information reaching the president to sometimes be inaccurate and to arrive late. Had FEMA been independent, some of the disastrous consequences of Hurricane Katrina might have been avoided. There were, of course, other contributing factors beyond FEMA's placement under DHS, but without an effective communication channel between the White House and FEMA, it was difficult for the president to be made fully aware of the catastrophe as it unfolded.

Following Hurricane Katrina, FEMA responded to disasters including Hurricane Rita, the Joplin tornado, and Superstorm Sandy. None of these subsequent disasters caused as much damage as Hurricane Katrina (Cash, 2014).

References

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ABC News. (2005). Who's to blame for delayed response to Katrina? Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/HurricaneKatrina/blame-delayed-response-katrina/story?id=1102467

Associated Press. (2011). In book, Nagin tells very different Katrina story. Retrieved from

Cash, J. T. (2014). Political failures of Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140708194346-192858373-political-failures-of-hurricane-katrina

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. (2006). Hurricane Katrina: A nation still unprepared. Retrieved from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CRPT-109srpt322/pdf/CRPT-109srpt322.pdf

Cooper, R. (2012). Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy: Comparisons and lessons learned. Retrieved from http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/hurricanes-katrina-and-sandy-comparisons-and-lessons-learned/

FEMA. (2013). Hurricane Sandy FEMA after-action report. Retrieved from http://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/20130726-1923-25045-7442/sandy_fema_aar.pdf

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Kantha, L. (2013). Classification of hurricanes: Lessons from Katrina, Ike, Irene, Isaac and Sandy. Ocean Engineering, 70, 124–128. doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2013.06.007

Ladislaw, S. O., & Sanok, S. (2013). Hurricane Sandy: Evaluating the response one year later. Retrieved from http://csis.org/publication/hurricane-sandy-evaluating-response-one-year-later

National Center for Disaster Preparedness. (2012). After Hurricane Sandy: Lessons learned for bolstering the resilience of health systems and services. Retrieved from http://www.northeastern.edu/kostas/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Health-Systems-and-Services-Resilience.pdf

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Walsh, K. T. (2012). A tale of two storms: Comparing Bush and Obama's hurricane response. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/ken-walshs-washington/2012/10/31/a-tale-of-two-storms-comparing-bush-and-obamas-hurricane-response