Seminar on Crisis Management & Complex Emergencies - Prof.

Pfaltzgraff Alexis Herrera The response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005: the case of Louisiana and New Orleans On our last encounter I mentioned that, in a sense, the national security agenda of Mexico is oriented by the paradigm of homeland security, since most of the threats that we have faced in the past have a domestic nature: this is the case of natural disasters, and especially of hurricanes and tropical storms which from time to time threaten the Gulf of Mexico in the same way as those that have threatened the Gulf coastal states of the United States in the past. Thus, an examination of the circumstances that led to the crisis set in motion by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 seemed to me as pertinent exercise from which useful reflections can be made. **** From the indicators of impact at our disposal I want to point out the unfortunate number of deaths, calculates in around 1,577 and the estimated economic loss, estimated in range of 125 and 150 billion USD, a sum that was considerable higher than the losses derived from 9/11. Another dimension that needs to be noted is the spatial dimension of the crisis: the damaged area was of 90,000 sq. miles. Conceptual framework of this crisis - It is important to notice that a key characteristic of this crisis is the nature of the threat that decision makers were confronting: it is not the case of a rational actor, such as a polity or an armed group; but of a natural force with an enormous potential for inflicting significant human and material damages over a certain geographical area. The referents for action on

this case were not defined by the notions of coercive diplomacy or deterrence. Instead, the key conceptual tools were those of risk assessment and, especially, the concept of preparedness and response. 1. On the key decision makers and the decisional units involved:

Interaction between decisions makers and decisional units involved on this crisis proved to be a problematic issue since the beginning: the mechanisms devised to cope with an emergency such as a hurricane assigned a significant responsibility to the local authorities, which were considered as the first responders on the event of such an emergency as Hurricane Katrina. However, first responders became victims of the Hurricane since the beginning or loos the ability to communicate effective decisions on time.

Two different legal frameworks set in motion separate administrative and operational procedures: for the one hand, the Stafford Disaster Relief Act; and for the other, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, from which several presidential directives and a National Response Plan were derived.

And yet, most decisional unit were involved in permanent action since the Hurricane approximated to the shores of the Gulf States... 2. A timeline for the escalatory and the de - escalatory process: some pertinent comments... I made an attempt to summarize the key developments of what I consider to be the escalatory and de - escalatory phase of the crisis, but I want to debate with you if this was or not the adequate framework for the events...

In my view the pre - crisis setting was defined by the fact that most decision makers involved were already aware of previous experiences and knew that a destructive event such as Katrina was a matter of time. This was especially true in the case of FEMAs leadership and the local authorities of the coastal states; or at least, this was the assumption usually made by other actors within the local and the federal administration.

In only three days decision makers gathered enough intelligence information to understand the nature of the threat they were confronting: on Tuesday, August 23, 2005 Tropical Depression 12 was identified; by Friday, August 26, Max Mayfield, the Director of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) had reliable projections that allowed him to define the storm as 30, 90 storm: a concept that was used to define the eventuality of a scenario in which New Orleans would be in great danger. This scenario was defined by several experts since the 1960s.

Between Friday, August 26 and Sunday, August 28, several standardized measures were set in motion: the governor of Louisiana activated the National Guard of the state; the Louisiana Emergency Evacuation Plan was set in motion; and a declaration of a federal state of emergency for Louisiana was enacted by the President. Nevertheless, these provisions proved to be insufficient and, especially, they were reactive instead of proactive.

The crisis reached its peak on Monday, August 29, when Katrina made landfall. A catastrophic flooding begun in New Orleans early on that days morning due to the collapse of the levees. By the end of the day the entire city and the surrounding area was flooded. Was this the turning point that defined the shift from the crisis to a post crisis scenario? Or was it only the point in which the crises reached its most critical moment? Since a humanitarian emergency unfolded during the next five days, in my

view it is not possible to say that the crisis was over until Saturday, September 3, when the evacuation of the Superdome and the Convention Center was finally completed. The fact that Max Mayfield and the NHC defined Katrina as a 30, 90 storm and that the Hurricane was labelled as a Category 3 Hurricane, was not enough to warn the authorities about its destructive nature. More surprisingly, a simulation exercise Hurricane Pam1 held in 2004 accurately predicted the deficiencies of the interagency response and the structural vulnerabilities of the New Orleans levees. Although the information derived from this exercise was formally considered by the local and the federal authorities, hardly anything change on the planning process. No additional resources were gathered preventing the eventuality of a 30, 90 storm hitting the City of New Orleans. For instance:

On Sunday, August 28, the New Orleans Superdome was opened initially as a special - needs shelter even when it was clear the structure will be exposed in the next days to severe pressure and that sustaining essential services would be a difficult task to accomplish under the foreseeable crisis scenario. Two days later, on Tuesday, August 30, when overcrowding and essential services collapse was evident at the Superdome, Mayor Nagin opened the New Orleans Convention Center as a second shelter ignoring that the same conditions will be replicated in the new shelter...

3. The role of the Armed Forces:

1

FEMA, Hurricane Pam Exercise Concludes, available at: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=13051

The mobilization of troops and military materiel achieved an unprecedented level during this crisis: it was the largest National Guard deployment in the US history, with 50,000 troops and supporting equipment arriving from 49 states and four territories within two weeks - Nevertheless this mobilization of men and materiel was not expedient: command and control controversies arouse between the local and the federal government, and between the DOD and the Northern Command from the one hand, and the National Guard Command Centre and the state authorities for the other. Most assessments made a severe critique of the lack of leadership of most principals involved on the management of this crisis; nevertheless, some exceptions are to be noted. This is the case of Lieutenant General Russell Honor 2, commander of the US First Army based on Atlanta, Georgia, whom set in motion an exercise that allowed him to deploy his troops at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, an ideal location to organize a response to the crisis. On Tuesday, August 30, Lt. General R. Honor was designated Commander of Joint Task Force Katrina. It is interesting to note that the Task Force was created thanks to the provisions taken by Lt. General Honor but it was not actually an intended outcome of the response strategy, nor was it done within the framework of the response management structure. On the contrary: the framework was adapted to take advantage of the decisions taken by Lt. General. R. Honor.

4. Communications and the interagency coordination process:

David Wood, His mission: Get it done, and fast, The Seattle Times (Tuesday, September 6, 2005), available at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002474593_kathonore06.html

At the tactical level coordination was hindered by a general collapse of the communication systems of the first responders. At the strategic level it was hindered by the reactive orientation of most decision makers and the lack of an energetic leadership: Michael Brown, as the Director of FEMA, was supposed to assume that role. Moreover, a significant number of local and state level officers were not familiarized with the procedures of the National Response Plan and its mechanisms. 5. Intelligence, adequacy of its utilization: In the previous document I mentioned that all the agencies involved in the production of intelligence for the decision makers involved in this crisis provided accurate predictions of the evolution of the Hurricane. Thus, it was the inability to organize and adequate response and to understand the nature of the risk that the local and federal authorities were confronting what hindered their efforts. This failure was described by GAO as a situational awareness problem.