The Impact of Hurricane Katrina
Dr. Joseph Costa, D.H.Sc., PA-C
Health Policy and Management
MPH 525
Brianna Loeck
April 2013
Table of Contents
Chapter
Page
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….3
2. Who became involved?.........................................................……………………………...…...4
Governments Response…………………………………………………………………...5
What went wrong?.....…………………………………………………………………….7
3. Summary……………………………………………………………………………………… 8
5. Recommendations……………………………………………………………………………...9
References……………………………………………………………………………..…………10
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Chapter 1
Introduction
In August 2005, one of the nation’s worst natural disasters struck the Gulf Coast affecting
three of the poorest states in the country: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It was identified
as Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in 1,833 fatalities and a several hundred injuries. Katrina
started as a Category 1 hurricane while it made its way past southern Florida, but as soon as
made its way up the Gulf of Mexico it rapidly gained strength into a Category 5 where it did its
most damage to Louisiana. Katrina then weakened back to a Category 1 while it coasted along
the Mississippi boarder downgrading to a tropical storm.
New Orleans, Louisiana was the city to be most knowingly affected by Katrina. New
Orleans poverty rate is almost twice the national average and more than a quarter of the city’s
residents are living in poverty. A report from the Corporation for Enterprise Development and
the Greater New Orleans Community Data center found that 21% of New Orleans residents lack
health insurance; one in ten do not own a car, four in ten households are un-or under-banked and
that 71% the city residents have a subprime credit score (PND, 2012).
Being that New Orleans was already a city of poverty, Katrina unfortunately raised the
number of people in poverty as well as number of uninsured. A majority of residents had to
relocate to Texas and other surrounding states to be able to have access to food, safety, shelter,
and seek medical assistance. Hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, pharmacies as well as other
facilities had been destroyed. Schneider and Rousseau (2012) stated that “An estimated 400,000
jobs have been lost; many of those who lost their jobs have lost not only their source of income
but also the health insurance coverage that their former employers offered.”
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Several millions of people’s lives had forever changed by this destructive hurricane.
Hurricane Katrina had left many scars on peoples hearts and their communities, as well as the
nation as a whole. The author of this paper will discuss the types of collaborations that
participated and how public health agencies functioned during and after this disaster. It will also
examine the challenges individuals and communities had, in addition to what can be done in the
future if another disaster occurs.
Chapter 2
Who became involved?
Katrina severely impacted people and infrastructure, including key public safety agencies
at the state and local levels (Smith & Rojek, 2005). This hurricane had law enforcement
agencies put a hold to function until days after the storm. Buildings, vehicles and equipment had
been destroyed. Plan A was no longer an option, so what was plan B?
Right after Katrina hit, Wal-Mart’s President Lee Scott was extremely generous and
donated more than $15 million to “jump start the relief effort”, which include $2 million towards
the Salvation Army to provide meals and portable showers and to the Red Cross for shelter and
provide relief. Wal-Mart even offered to create ‘mini Wal-Mart stores’ in areas that were greatly
affected by the hurricane. Items such as clothes, diapers, baby wipes, food, infant formula,
toothbrushes, bedding, and water would be available at no cost for those in need (Konig, 2005).
Wal-Mart wasn’t only the national chain facility to donate. According to Konig (2005)
Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company, contacted local, state and federals officials to response to the
immediate humanitarian and health care needs and long-term rebuilding, they list:



$1 million for rebuilding hospitals and health care centers
$1 million for relief organizations, including the American Red Cross, Salvation
Army, and United Way of America
Donations of medicines and consumer and animal health products
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
An inventory of Pfizer services and employees' skills that can be deployed as part
of the relief and recovery effort
There were several other pharmaceutical companies (Astrazeneca, Merck, Wyeth, Eli
Lilly & Co. and Johnson & Johnson) who contributed more than $9 million in supplies to the
affected areas. Other corporations such as UnitedHealth Group, Papa John’s Pizza, and CocaCola Co. also assisted in relief support.
Days after Katrina hit, over $85 million had been donated, yet still millions coming in.
However, there was still a shortage in medical demand. “Cipro, amoxil, and other oral
antibiotics were in great demand due to a huge number of infections from people wading around
in the water. Any small cut quickly becomes infected,” stated Kirk Long, the CEO of The
NeuroMedical Center in Baton Rogue.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention had made several specific recommendations
regarding infectious disease control in the aftermath of Katrina including the immunization of
emergency responders, relief workers and evacuees. There was major concern about several
diseases such as tetanus, influenza, chickenpox and hepatitis A. There were reported cases of
the disease Vibrio, which in found in hurricane victims (Lister, 2005).
As we can see several organizations and businesses contributed greatly to this
devastating, uncontrollable disaster that happened back in 2005. Hurricane Katrina was the
most costly hurricane ever in United States history, estimating at $110 billion (Kurpis, 2013).
Though these organizations and businesses seemed to be very responsive to Katrina, how well
did our government respond?
Government Response
Before Hurricane Katrina hit land, Katherine Babineaux Blanco, Governor of Louisiana,
declared a state of emergency on August 26, 2005, and requested President Bush to do the same,
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which he complied on August 27, 2005. Since Bush confirmed, this then allowed the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to take action. The same day, mayor of New
Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, announced a voluntary evacuation of the city. The next day, a
mandatory evacuation was in order, which was the day before the hurricane had hit. Several
residents did not have access to transportation to evacuate; therefore the Superdome was opened
as shelter.
August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina had struck. FEMA requested that no firefighters or
ambulance crew respond to areas hit by the hurricane without being first mobilized by local and
state authorities. FEMA would not accept help from non-government organizations such as the
Red Cross. This is what went wrong when dealing with this natural disaster. The day after
Katrina struck, the Superdome was over capacity, resulting in evacuation.
In December 2004, The National Response Plan (NRP) was released and to replace the
previous federal response plan. The NRP is “the framework under which federal and voluntary
agencies are instructed to operate when a disaster occurs.” (Lister, 2005) The Secretary of
Health and Human Services (HHS) is tasked with Emergency Support Function (ESF), which
coordinates public health and medical services within the plan.
HHS is responsible for coordinating activities under the ESF an may request assistance
from 14 designated support agencies and the American Red Cross as needed: assessment of
public health and medical needs, health surveillance, health and medical equipment and
supplies, patient care, food safety and security, vector control, and behavioral health (Lister,
2005). Unfortunately, during and after Katrina, the NRP had not been implemented; instead the
federal government and the state of Louisiana focused on what kind of federal assistance would
be provided.
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What went wrong?
It had become clear that the government’s response to Katrina was insufficient and
ineffective. The federal government lacked the knowledge and information of just how
devastating this hurricane really was. Despite the amount of government workers, the effects of
the hurricane still remained. The residents who weren’t able to evacuate or able to seek shelter
in the Superdome were out stranded with no food, safety or shelter. Firefighters from around the
country were called to help with the federal governments response. There weren’t able to
actually do their jobs as a rescue team, but instead doing tasks for FEMA such as handing out
flyers to residents.
It had been noted that several of the law enforcement agencies in Mississippi and
Louisiana did not have written hurricane plans and that officers in these agencies had not been
trained if a disaster had struck the region (Smith & Rojek, 2005). Though law enforcement
officers from around the country worked and lived in the affected areas under the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) agreements indorsed by the FEMA. EMAC was
established in 1996 and is the cornerstone of the nation’s mutual aid system all 50 states, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S Virgin Islands (EMAC, 2013).
The system was poorly understood by several officials, which resulted in assistance in an
untimely manner (Smith & Rojek, 2005). With that being said, it is important for all state
agencies to review and understand the FEMA’s EMAC agreements, so the guidelines are more
understood and action will be better taken next time.
Another issue that became problematic is when agencies from other states sent personnel
to the affected areas without an approved EMCA agreement, which then placed their officers in
legal danger and later struggled to get reimbursed from FEMA (Smith & Rojek, 2005).
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Communication had been another issue during Katrina. Many agencies lost their ways to
communicate during the storm and had no backup equipment to utilize. However, they were
able to communicate with their own personnel, but not other involved agencies due to lack of
radio systems.
Since Katrina, there had been new communications units created such as the Raytheon’s
ACU-1000, which is a system that allows radio and telephone signals to interface through a
Gateway Switch, effectively allowing different agencies to connect with one another (Smith &
Rojek, 2005).
Chapter 3
Summary
In conclusion, Hurricane Katrina had been one of the most costly and destructive natural
disasters to occur in the United States. Several people and agencies disagreed with how the
FEMA approached and took every action during Katrina. Majority of people rated that the
FEMA did a poor job and that the armed forces would have played the part in a much quicker
and efficient force.
However, law enforcement officials across the Gulf Coast willingly admit that they were
unprepared for the disaster. Several lessons were learned as the government as well as
organizations and agencies have learned from how Katrina was operated. They formed and
implemented better guidelines to follow by, in addition to improving better communications
devices and receive disaster training to be better prepared when another severe natural disaster
occurs in the United States.
Being prepared is the best thing we, as a nation, can do; just as Smith & Rojek (2005)
state, “to truly be prepared, state and local law enforcement agencies, like many of the Florida
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agencies that assisted after Katrina, must develop their own capacities for disaster response.
They must plan for the worst-case scenario, train their personnel accordingly, and equip
themselves appropriately.
Recommendations
As a public health professional, the author’s recommendations regarding Hurricane
Katrina would have been to enforce more government, as well as non-government officials.
During a severe natural disaster of what occurred, the best thing to do is have all law
enforcements be involved, in addition to non-government organizations.
Likewise, to have all law enforcement officials trained on disaster planning and safety, so
in the event of another nature disaster occurs throughout the United States, there will be welltrained authorities to take action immediately. Armed forces should most indefinitely be
involved as they are trained extremely well on emergency situations. If military had been
involved during Katrina, one would believe the process would have went in a much more timely
manner than it actually had.
The author also believes there should be evacuation safety plans available to residents
such as reliable transportation, essential information, emergency phone numbers, etc. This
would assist in making the evacuation process more smoother, as well as resulting in less injuries
and deaths. It also seem that the EMAC is a very strict government system. So one should
believe that all state agencies should be thoroughly aware of their guidelines to avoid conflict
and potentially legal danger in the event of a disaster.
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References
Konig, S. (2005, October 1). Private companies rush in to help Hurricane Katrina victims.
Heartland Magazine. Retrieved from http://news.heartland.org/newspaperarticle/2005/10/01/private-companies-rush-help-hurricane-katrina-victims
Kurpis, B. (2013). HurricaneKatrinaRelief.com. Retrieved from
http://www.hurricanekatrinarelief.com/katrina_info.html
Lister, Sarah A. (2005, September 1). Hurricane Katrina: Public health and medical response.
Retrieved from http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/54255.pdf
Philanthropy News Digest. (2012, August 16). New Orleans poverty rate almost twice-national
average, reports finds. Retrieved from
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=389000012
Schneider, A & Rousseau, D. (2012). Addressing the Health Care Impact of Hurricane Katrina.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/7387-2.pdf
Smith, R. M., & Rojek, J. (2005, November 1). Law enforcement lessons learned from Hurricane
Katrina. Retrieved from http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/crju/pdfs/CrisisLawEnf.pdf
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