To: Mayor of New Orleans
From: Xu Han, Consultant at Nonprofit Alliance
Date: April 8, 2015
Subject: Hurricane Katrina Analysis
Introduction
Hurricane Katrina is a destructive disaster that in New Orleans. Despite the
fact of severity of the disaster, more attention was focused on its emergency response
failures. From evacuation to necessity supplies, almost every segment of response got
criticism. This memo analyses two issues identified, limited knowledge and
bureaucracy. Bounded rationality is to explain the limited knowledge of New Oleans’
development and levee system. Bureaucracy characteristic explains why it sets back
the progress of disaster response. At the end, collaborative network is recommended
to manage future disasters.
Summary of the case
Hurricane Katrina is one of the most devastating disasters in the United States.
It has impacted millions of people in New Orleans. Thousands of people dead or
missing and a $75 billion damage was estimated by National Hurricane Center.
Hurricane Katrina has not only revealed a huge gap in emergency response action
among local, state, and federal government, but it also uncovered the long history of
New Orleans’foundation and its daunting flood experiences.
Issues identified
Limited knowledge of New Orleans
As most of people know, New Orleans was founded on an inappropriate site,
which is flood prone area, but there is a little discovered about levee system and
severity of floods. Bounded rationality plays a critical role in decision making of New
Orleans’ development. According to Simon, bureaucrats have fragmented
knowledge of possible consequences, and values can not be perfectly anticipated,
therefore, only a few alternatives can be considered. (Simon, 1997) When levee-only
policy was brought up, federal government determined to take action to implement it
at full scale, believing that this policy will not only address water problem, but also
for expansion. (Lalwani, 2007) However, it turned out to be a complete failure.
Decision makers did not anticipate this possible consequence with their limited
knowledge. In another word, their rationality is bounded.
Bureaucracy in emergency response
Hurricane Katrina has revealed a couple of bureaucratic setbacks in
emergency response process. Local, state and federal government had to go through a
painful process coordinating the responses, which delays a big deal in evacuation.
One of the characteristics of bureaucracy is office hierarchy and levels of graded
authority according to Webber. It determines a super-subordination ordered system.
(Webber,1946) This characteristic has generated inefficient back and forth
coordination among different levels of government agencies. As FEMA spokesman
stated that FEMA only acted after a request from the state has arrived, while
Greyhound bus company mobilized their buses after getting approval from FEMA.
(Lalwani, 2007) This process has delayed evacuation for three days.
Recommendations
Collaborative network of emergency response
Emergency response is different from other public administration daily
operation. It requires immediate attention and action from every level of the society.
Especially the society is more complex than ever, there is scarcely a single duty of
government which was once simple which is not now complex. (Wilson, 1887) If
Wilson has ever felt the complexity of issues a century ago, current issue can only be
more demanding. Multiple levels of government duties, equity issues, and severity of
Hurricane Katrina has made emergency response became more complex. Local, state
and federal government agencies shared the responsibilities that were not clearly
defined before Katrina hit. Building a collaborative network that integrates local, state,
federal government agencies, as well as local nonprofits, who are specialized in
disaster response, will be beneficial to somewhat simplify the emergency response.
Agranoff has emphasized the importance of networks, which is a collaborative
management process of facilitating and operating in multi organizational
arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved or solved easily, by single
organization. (Agranoff, 2006) Hurriance Katrina is a catastrophic disaster that
beyond the capacity of one single organization to respond, therefore, collaborative
network will be well fit into this situation. Furthermore, information-sharing is critical
in collaborative network, because it improves the efficiency of cross-government
coordination. (Yang & Maxwell, 2011) Hurricane Katrina emergency response did
not have much information-sharing as officials failed to act decisively. (Lalwani,
2007) By having a collaborative network that closely share their respective
knowledge to reach to an agreement on future emergency response will likely to
mitigate the damage of disasters.
Conclusion
Even though Hurricane Katrina has revealed much of the problems of its
development and disaster response, it also brought opportunity to learn and improve.
If it leads to better understanding and administrative systems that benefit New
Orleans’people, the government has done its duty to represent its people.
References
Agranoff, Robert (2006) Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public
Managers. Public Administration Review
Lalwani, Tanya. (2007) Hurricane Katrina: A Man-Made Crisis? Seattle, WA: The
Electronic Hallway.
Simon, Herbert (1997) Administrative Behavior, 4th ed. New York: Free Press
Webber, Max (1946) Bureaucracy: Characteristics of Bureaucracy. UK: Oxford
University Press.
Wilson, Woodrow (1887) The Study of Administration. Political Science Quarterly,
Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 197-222
Yang, Tung-Mou & Maxwell, Terrence A. (2011) Information-sharing in Public
Organizations: A Literature Review of Interpersonal, Intra-organizational and
Inter-organizational Success Factors. Government Information Quarterly 28:
164-175