Hurricane Katrina
The collaboration between different public health and law enforcement agencies
began once it was safe enough for first responders. These agencies conducted
strategic plans, resolved issues, coordinated incident management, and provides
planning and direction (FEMA, n.d.). U.S. Coast Guard, National Guard, and local
state and federal first responders began rescue in. Medical Assistant Teams, 11
Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams and began body recovery and
identification. Other teams and agencies also began search and rescue missions.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, n.d.) works along side the
local states and governments to provide recovery of major disasters (FEMA, n.d.).
The public health and medical responses were coordinated by the federal
government by focusing on ‘sanitation, hygiene, water safety, surveillance and
infection control, environmental health, and access to care’ (Teitelbaum &
Wilensky, 2013).
The American Red Cross helped by creating 30 shelter, designated 12 emergency
vehicles, worked with local areas to open kitchens to provide meals for everyone.
Once the agencies were told they activated their response teams to help with
resources and rescue programs.
They were late to aid help, they weren’t organized with roles and responsibilities,
and lack the training and planning (Ringel et al, 2007). For example, medications
and medical equipment for special conditions were not supplied (Ringel et al,
2007).
Rescued thousands of people, delivering necessities like food and water, provided
medical services (Moynihan, n.d).
The roles of the public health was to provide access to clean water and restoring
sanitary sewage handling (Lister, 2005). FEMA took days to organize and
implement a plan of action. This left the people affected by the disaster stranded
and desperate. Thousands of people had no where to go, once the Superdome in
New Orleans took enough refugees, everyone else was turned away and locked
out (‘Hurricane Katrina’, 2009). So there wasn’t enough shelter created in a
timely fashion either.
The roles of the local government is to maintain control of assets needed in the
response and recovery process. They are also the first provider. The state
government is responsible for assisting the local government in responding to a
disaster. They are also the gate keepers in notifying if the Federal disaster
assistance is needed. The federal government is responsible for providing extra
resources that that the local and state governments cannot provide. At this level
FEMA can be activated. In Hurricane Katrina the levels of government did fulfill
part of its job however most of the government wasn’t active due to the evacuation.
This evacuation wasn’t implemented very well, thousands of people didn’t
evacuate due to the lack of transportation to remove themselves (Morris, n.d.).
There was no local government in existence when the storm hit, all had evacuated
(Morris, n.d.). The state government and federal governments had a delay in the
response to the disaster that occurred (Morris, n.d).
The Post Katrina Emergency Reform Act (PKEMRA) of 2006 was enacted. This
act was created to prevent the gaps in the response that appeared during the
Hurricane Katrina. Some of the gaps that were addressed are: providing a
disability coordinator to develop a policy to aid refugees with disabilities, provides
the National Emergency Gamily and Locator System to connect separated families
with each there, coordination of precautionary evacuations and recoveries,
provides assistance with transportation for relocating individuals that have been
displaces from their homes during a disaster, and provides assistance with unmet
needs of those affected (FEMA, n.d.).
References
Federal Emergency Management Reform Act.Retrieved from
http://emilms.fema.gov/IS230c/FEM0101200.htm
Hurricane Katrina. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina
Lister, S. A. (2005, September 21). Hurricane Katrina: The Public Health and Medical
Response. Retrieved from http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/54255.pdf
Morris, J. (n.d.). From Disaster to Lessons Learned: What Went Wrong in the Response to
Hurricane Katrina? Retrieved from
http://ww2.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/DisasterLessons.html
Moynihan, D. P. (n.d.). The Response to Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from http://irgc.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/04/Hurricane_Katrina_full_case_study_web.pdf
Ringel, J. S., Chandra, A., Leuschner, K., Lim, Y., Lurie, N., Ricci, K. A., . . . Wasserman, J.
(2007, February). Lessons Learned from the State and Local Public Health Response to
Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved from
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/2007/RAND_WR473.sum.
pdf