FEMA: Adequate Response To Hurricane Katrina

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When a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005 the shock of the destruction quickly became evident with the storm’s aftermath. There was the need for an organized response, however the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not ready for the magnitude or the severity of damage to adequately and successfully react. FEMA was confronted with a series of events following the disaster in which the agency failed to take control and communicate in helping remedy the catastrophic situation. There was the lack of management in coordinating transportation evacuation measures, supplying needed materials and food as well as housing to the citizens, specifically in New Orleans. The failure of our nation’s Federal Emergency Management Agency to efficiently respond to Hurricane Katrina led to a serious of negative events caused by insufficient planning. …show more content…

However, with Hurricane Katrina FEMA was not prepared to know how to respond to a Category 5 hurricane as big as Katrina. Part of this failure for FEMA to know how to respond was due to poor planning in how to take control of the situation. In Cooper and Block’s book, Disaster, the authors state how “the city was pitch black, communications were poor, and it was impossible even to prioritize problems when everything seemed to be cause for panic” (Cooper and Block, 2006, 152). With citizens stranded on rooftops in New Orleans and the city completely flooded, it can be hard to know where one should start with a mess as a large as this disaster. Consequently, FEMA had a hard time responding to a large city that was in dire

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