No problem a young lady I'll call Melinda then walked up to me and introduced herself. Truthout relies on reader donations to maintain this sanctuary for honest, justice-driven journalism. As the disaster unfolded, it was unclear who was in charge of which things at the federal level the FCO or the PFO. TTY 800-462-7585, hours. So, like most disaster survivors, they turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help. "It's a 180-degree turn," said Davis, who had testified before Congress after the 2005 storm. The fight began as soon as the storm was over, when Speight applied for help from FEMA and received $1,649: $1,200 to repair the hole in her roof and $449 for a generator. ", Lesley Watts grew up in Port Arthur and narrowly escaped the flooding from Hurricane Harvey with her grandmother and two daughters. It was given more autonomy within DHS to manage a response to a disaster. Home inspectors, like anyone, bring all their biases and assumptions to the table when they're on the job. We will not rest until these needs are met.". As of March, 68% of FEMA supervisors were white, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management. In the middle of the Katrina response, phone calls to the NRCC from these DHS managers would continually interrupt the work of the FEMA employees with a barrage of questions which clearly were not related to the emergency response, but to speechwriting for DHS executives, distracting the FEMA employees from their emergency work. The Speights' mobile home in DeQuincy, La., is at the end of an unpaved road in a stand of tall longleaf pines. The government's response to Katrina--like the failure to anticipate that terrorists would fly into buildings on 9/11--was a failure of imagination. A 12-car Amtrak train making two round trips daily between New Orleans and Lafayette, LA, will evacuate 650 passengers on each train to various destinations. Interestingly, it seems that the contract employees themselves did not actually receive the higher pay that went to the contracting company in the form of profit.. Even with this vast expenditure, experts continue to question whether New Orleans is truly safe from the next big storm. But was it really FEMA's failure? Hurricane Katrina remains one of the worst hurricanes in U.S. history. I've watched it happen after hurricanes. Yet DOI had hundreds of officers readily deployable, many of whom were in the immediate area.". So we continued to limp along at FEMA, short-staffed, burdened by poor leadership, confusing plans and, most of all, by the DHS. Moving away from a property-centered approach to broader disaster assistance would fix some disparities in who gets FEMA aid, Howell says. It's not fair, and I think that's why we have to rethink [FEMA] programs.". FEMA prepares the nation for all hazards and manages federal response and recovery efforts following any national incident. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Jerry Grayson/Helifilms Australia PTY Ltd/Getty Images, Cities of the Underworld: Hurricane Katrina, according to a report by the United States Government Accountability Office, claimed the massive storm had overwhelmed the levee system, Over the decade following Hurricane Katrina, https://www.history.com/news/hurricane-katrina-levee-failures, How Levee Failures Made Hurricane Katrina a Bigger Disaster. FEMA did not respond to follow-up questions about its plans to track the race of aid applicants or its response to the disasters in Lake Charles. FEMA also fails to serve people from marginalized racial groups, the report warns. Ryan Kellman/NPR For example, on one night during the Katrina response, there was a discrepancy in the number of people who had reportedly been rescued from the flood waters that day in a particular locale. One problem with FEMA's current approach is that it focuses more on property than on people, says Junia Howell, a sociologist at Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research who studies federal disaster aid. For example, as I came on duty one night I was approached by a young man I'll call Phil. Phil introduced himself, said he worked for the XXX company that was supporting FEMA in the disaster response and that he would be assigned to work for me. The US&R teams, along with other field responders from FEMA and other federal agencies, worked tirelessly to rescue and assist thousands stranded by flood waters after the disaster. The Department of Fish and Wildlife of Kentucky helped to rescue flooded residents in New Orleans even though FEMA never officially tasked them with the mission. The outer ends of the hurricane also produced tornados . The "FEMA trailers" used after Hurricane Katrina were RVs not name for long-term use, prompting complaints of toxic fumes and space limitations. It generally led off with any hazardous weather warnings, then possibly a headline story about any impending or ongoing disaster and finally a summary of ongoing federal disaster operations in the field, if any. The federal government had been making preparations for a large scale disaster in New Orleans since 2002. I hung up the phone, waited about ten minutes and then I phoned back to DHS. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune), Mark Jumonville makes his way through the flood waters around his home in St. Amant on Saturday, August 20, 2016. More recently, Black New Orleanians were disproportionately displaced after Hurricane Katrina. The agency did not respond to follow-up questions about its analyses, including whether it has completed additional income-based analyses since 2019. FEMA did not respond to questions about the Speights' case, including about whether NPR's queries to the agency about the situation had anything to do with FEMA's decision to award Donnie Speight additional funds nearly a year after the hurricane. "While everybody from the Coast Guard to the state Fish & Wildlife, they get the press releases out about how many people they saved, you and I know that most people got saved because a neighbor knocked on a door or showed up in a boat," Fugate said. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. Hurricane Katrina not only devastated the city of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast of the U.S., it initiated a bitter debate about the leadership or lack . It was and still is, a public document and was posted on the FEMA web site, accessible to anyone to see. With a She has been a frequent contributor to History.com since 2005, and is the author of Breaking History: Vanished! After rescues were well underway, FEMA turned away offers of personnel and supplies from the Department of Interior and denied a request from the state Wildlife & Fisheries agency for 300 rubber boats. "I went through some hard times there with Steve," she says, sitting in her kitchen on a rainy May morning, the paper program from his funeral on the table in front of her and water pooling on the floor. He was a Vietnam veteran who had been exposed to Agent Orange during the war and had rapidly advancing diabetes and mobility problems. The city's overwhelmed police force-70 percent of which were themselves victims of the disasterdid not have the capacity to arrest every . Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security, by C. Cooper and R. Block, Times Books, 2006. 41 Almost immediately following Hurricane Katrina's landfall, law and order began to deteriorate in New Orleans. The storm flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and caused $100 billion in property damage. Fugate carried that fundamental understanding -- that states and local governments are best suited to be the first responders in a disaster -- with him when Obama hired him to run FEMA in May 2009. Here is a program (left) from Stephen's funeral. The house was dangerously hot. U.S. A failure of the initiative: Final report of the select . (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune), Homes are being cleaned out in Albany on Saturday, August 20, 2016. Yeah, there are some crazy people out there doing stupid stuff, but we shouldn't use that to then frame the whole thing as 'We shouldn't have engaged the public because there's risk.' Under the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA developed NIMS so that communities could create a "common, interoperable approach to sharing resources, coordinating and managing incidents, and communicating information." 10 This system was first implemented in 2004 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- FEMA -- was widely blamed for a lack of preparedness and an inadequate response. More than 35,000 people have been evacuated from Louisiana. There's always going to be risk. Without critical FEMA help right after a hurricane hits, the damage can reverberate through people's lives for years and decimate once-sturdy communities. Its 150-mph winds caused serious damage to the Speights' mobile home. The only thing was, she had never done this type of work before, so could I please show her the ropes and explain what was needed? The whole thing was located inside FEMA Headquarters in Washington in a typically bland-looking office building a couple of blocks from the National Air and Space Museum. [U.S. News & World Report, 11/3/05] 10th VICTIMS SUE FEMA FOR AID [New York Times, 11/10/05] Once the contract staff had been trained on one job, they could be transferred elsewhere and another novice brought in to help.. But the citys low elevation, and its position within the different levee systems, creates a so-called bowl effect, meaning that when water gets into the city, it is very difficult to get it out. August 28, 2005. It's unfair, admittedly, to compare this month's flood to the one that followed Katrina. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune), Florence Rendine , right, looks over her insurance papers with her husband, Frank, left, in their flood damaged home in Albany on Saturday, August 20, 2016. These were still my pre-cell phone days, so I borrowed my wife's phone to call in to the NRCC and see what was up. In 2007, when it became known that FEMA trailers housing Katrina disaster victims were giving off formaldehyde, an in-house FEMA newsletter cheerily featured an article entitled, 'Myth: FEMA Must Remove Formaldehyde from Travel Trailers. The article reassured us, Formaldehyde is a common substance that is found in homes and buildings everywhere.. That storm knocked out 38 911-call centers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. During Hurricane Georges, a Category 2 storm in 1998, waves on Lake Pontchartrain, north of the city, had reached within a foot of the top of the levees, reported John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2002. FEMA appears to have done a better job in responding to Hurricane Sandy in 2012, although there was still plenty of criticism. Unfortunately, their heroic efforts were overshadowed by the delays and errors back in Washington. FEMA analyzed 4.8 million aid registrations submitted by disaster survivors between 2014 and 2018 and compared applicants' income. The NSR was prepared overnight and sent out by email at 5:30 each morning to top officials at FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Defense Department, and other agencies throughout the government as well as to key organizations like the American Red Cross. Get daily news, in-depth reporting and critical analysis from the journalists, activists and thinkers who are working to improve our world.. We're almost out of time to raise the $5,000 we need for groundbreaking reporting the kind that challenges the forces that prop up capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, nationalism, and all oppressive structures. More than 30,000 National Guard are on the ground to provide response, rescue, recovery and law enforcement, and are working around the clock to bring critical aid and support to hurricane victims. That will change "in the near future," says Turi, the assistant administrator for recovery, although he did not specify when. She's currently fighting debt collectors who threaten to take her land, and private volunteer groups have been helping her try to repair or replace her house. The NSR would vary in length day to day, anywhere from about four to eight pages. They have been removed from the web site. He says many Black homeowners have struggled to get the federal help they need to repair homes after hurricanes and floods. The director of FEMA at the time, Joe Allbaugh, ordered an examination of the possibility of a hurricane hitting the city that year (USC Annenberg 2005). The agency initially withheld its internal analyses from NPR and academic researchers. We worked through the night, and at 5:30 AM Saturday, August 27, we sent out our morning NSR to all the agency heads, including the heads of FEMA and DHS. The first screening was conducted between 6 and 9 months after Hurricane Katrina and the second round of data collection was conducted 13 to 18 months after the hurricane. I was working my shift at the NRCC that night and a staff person at DHS phoned me at about 2:00 in the morning and ordered me to phone down to Louisiana, wake up some people on the federal rescue team and have them send in a more exact number immediately. And its budget was increased. Every day without stable shelter makes it more likely that the blow dealt by the storm will unleash a cascade of problems. Marks says the population decline is most apparent in less affluent parts of town. We strive for accuracy and fairness. "If we'd waited for all the official stuff to kick in, we'd have lost more people. One way to achieve a new version of fairness one that's based more on equal outcomes would be for FEMA to ensure proactively that vulnerable people have stable housing after disasters, rather than relying on survivors to prove eligibility. In 2016, that budget was $13.9 billion. The hurricane and its aftermath claimed more than 1,800 lives, and it ranked as the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. FEMA AND US FEDERAL GUIDELINES. 10 The drill's purpose Many people are convinced that Hurricane Katrina should be considered as a prime example of government failure. FEMA is disproportionately white at its upper levels. The concept was this: In a major disaster, federal agencies across the Washington area would begin activating their disaster centers to manage their own particular roles in the response. These reports, although public documents, would later be removed from public view by FEMA, so it is worth an aside to explain a bit about the NSR. President Bush told the nation during a televised address from New Orleans Sept. 15 that Hurricane Katrina showed the need for "greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces." Lets do mycelial organizing inspired by the underground fungal networks that turn waste and toxicity into new life. But who would coordinate the activities among all of these various centers so that the disaster response did not turn into a massive federal government traffic jam? "Think about the [COVID-19] stimulus package," he says. FEMA requires that disaster survivors prove they personally own their home to get help repairing it. And, candidly, we have work to do there," says Keith Turi, FEMA's assistant administrator for recovery. hide caption. You have permission to edit this article. This page contains information that may not reflect current policy or programs. As one long-time FEMA executive remarked to me, If you have disaster experience at FEMA, it's the kiss of death for your career. In January, 2008, I finally called it quits and retired from FEMA after more than 28 years with the agency. It was very lengthy and bureaucratic, and people were being moved in and out of the organization regularly so you had no continuity of knowledge at the time but I think it awakened on the federal level the need to reevaluate their response to a state when a call is made. Hurricane Katrina, its 115-130 mph winds, and the accompanying storm surge it created as high as 27 feet along a stretch of the Northern Gulf Coast from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans, impacted . It was not such a great deal for FEMA. We had gone through some tough lessons at FEMA over the years Hurricane Hugo, Hurricane Andrew, the Northridge Earthquake, the Oklahoma City Bombing and they all pointed in the same direction: For a good emergency response, you must maintain the basics: Realistic plans; adequate resources; trained staff; good communications; and, most of all, decisive, knowledgeable leaders at the top. By the time Hurricane Katrina made landfall near Buras, Louisiana early on the morning of August 29, 2005, the flooding had already begun. hide caption. Melinda said she worked for the XXX company that was supporting FEMA in the disaster response and that she would be assigned to work for me. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images "We just want what's due to us." The failure of communications equipment during Ida highlights lessons learned during Hurricane Katrina. While some experienced disaster managers have indeed been brought into the agency, Fugate's management team still appears to be weighed down by less-than-stellar executives left over from the Bush administration, and Fugate himself has at times seemed reluctant to address FEMA's internal problems head-on. By and large, FEMA did its job. ", Page 15 of the Department of the Interior (DOI) letter notes that "the Fish and Wildlife Service was requested by FEMA to assist with search and rescue operations throughout the affected area, but was never formally tasked through a FEMA assignment. Thirteen people died. "We've been here for 11 years," she says. It's director, James Lee Witt, earned praise from Democrats and Republicans for his response to the Oklahoma City bombing and other disasters. Many residents struggled to rebuild. The incident made headlines nationwide, further damaging FEMA's reputation. After striding among piles of broken drywall, soggy carpets, and mud-stained sideboards on a sun-drenched street in Zachary early this week, PresidentBarack Obama did to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate whatGeorge W. Bush did 11 years ago to his own disaster chief, Michael Brown, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Brett Duke, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune), Flood waters surround a home in St. Amant on Saturday, August 20, 2016. "We think there's more work to be done here. But under DHS, the FRP had now been replaced by something called the National Response Plan, or NRP. The NRP had been written by DHS contractors, with very little involvement from FEMA disaster professionals. Weekdays, weekends, Christmas morning the report had to go out at 5:30 AM. 1. But responders failed to convert this information into a level of preparation appropriate with the scope of the impending disaster. On Saturday night, we did more information gathering for our report. NIMS focuses on 3 pillars for the foundation . It was complicated and hard to understand, something you definitely do not want in a disaster. One of FEMA's internal reports recommends that the agency investigate whether the agency's inspection process may be partly to blame. Meanwhile, he says residents of more affluent areas seem to be having more luck getting FEMA assistance. 93-288, as amended)? Fine, except the Coast Guard didn't send their best officers to FEMA: while a few of the officers they sent seemed well-qualified, in many cases, the Coast Guard simply cleaned house and sent us their failures, officers who had been passed over for promotion or who had other problems. The letter continued, "Although the (Interior) Department possesses significant resources that could have improved initial and ongoing responses, many of these resources were not effectively incorporated into the federal response.". FEMA's failures are particularly worrisome because the agency leads the federal government's response to climate change impacts, they say. To reflect on what we have and haven't learned since Katrina, Southerly spoke to retired Lieutenant General Russel Honor, the . A stronger storm on a slightly different coursecould have realized emergency officials' worst-case scenario: hundreds of billions of gallons of lake water pouring over the levees into an area averaging 5 feet below sea level with no natural means of drainage, they wrote, three years before Katrina hit. Its role as a secondary, support organization was more clearly defined. Four hurricanes have hit the city since 2005. A few . 1. But they couldn't afford to fix most of the damage to their home in DeQuincy, La. Yet later investigations revealed that some of the citys levees failed even at water levels far below what they had been built to withstand. Jeb Bush, instead pumped federal funding into Florida's emergency management programs. Its role as a secondary, support organization was more clearly defined. "Our programs have been built on providing equal treatment to survivors, but that's not necessarily equal outcome.". Knowledge at Wharton Staff. many of whom lost their homes during the hurricane, . "Internally this means building a diverse and inclusive workforce which reflects the communities we serve.". The letter . The area around their home is flat and marshy. "Because no matter what you say you're doing, the end result is that the poor are being displaced. Hurricane Katrina had intruded on the last safe space. "We got through Katrina. I was not especially worried. Leadership. In 2016, that budget was $13.9 billion. FEMA might as well have awarded nothing for the roof repair, Donnie Speight says, for all the good it did. Yet due to budget cuts and various delays, the project was only 60-90 percent complete by the time Katrina hit, according to a report by the United States Government Accountability Office. Yet debate continued over where blame lay for the disaster: The report also called out local officials for pushing the Corps to build the less-effective hurricane protection system, claims that the reports lead author later concluded were not justified, according to a 2015 report in the New York Times. 1 of 17. He says he received nothing from FEMA because he does not own the home and didn't have a formal rental agreement. Timothy Dominique, 62, lives in a donated RV parked next door to the family home where he was staying when Hurricane Laura hit Lake Charles last year. "The people who needed it got it. Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, and Irma4 of the costliest hurricanes in the U.S. since 2005caused damage totaling trillions of dollars. In this way, there was instant communication across the government and we could ensure that the disaster survivors would quickly receive whatever aid they needed. Hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent flooding that devastated New Orleans in August 2005, has posed the greatest challenge and . Katrina's waters were from a man-made disaster, wrought by faulty levees that left houses underwater for weeks. Learn more. After Hurricane Katrina, we were told that FEMA's problems would be remedied, but they only got worse. According to PBS, two weeks after the storm, 25% of the children remained unaccounted for. And centuries of housing discrimination mean white people are more likely to own homes in general. for only $11.00 $9.35/page. These rescue team members were firefighters and medics who had been doing hard, dangerous rescue work for about 15 hours or more and were now getting a little sleep before going out to do more rescues and I was ordered to wake them up to fix some numbers in a report. Many survivors of climate-driven disasters, including hurricanes, floods and wildfires, struggle for months or even years to repair their homes or find new stable housing. Two hurricanes hit Lake Charles, La., last year, and the city saw the largest outward migration of any city in the United States. hide caption. One senior FEMA staff member summed up the situation bluntly to me: The Bush people did the crimes; the Obama people covered them up., Meanwhile, outside visitors trying to penetrate FEMA's shell often come away complaining about rude treatment and the lack of knowledgeable FEMA staff. Poor people are less likely to get some type of basic housing assistance from the federal government. "So we're fortunate that President Obama has made it very clear that he'd rather err on getting there and not being needed than not being there at all. In 2006, when DHS decreed that hurricanes can be accurately predicted a full week in advance (they can't), Paulison went along with DHS plans to spend our time training on all the things we should do during the week before the hurricane hits a little like planning all the things you should do the week before you are hit by a car while crossing the street. And those embarrassing NSRs that had given advance warning of Katrina's approach? That was pretty obvious," said Kevin Davis, former St. Tammany Parish President and director of the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness under Gov. They didn't have the money to fix the damage. That was before Hurricane Laura hit in August. In preparation for Hurricane Katrina and in line with recommendations from leading weather experts, Louisiana called a state of emergency on August 26th, followed by a voluntary evacuation order by the mayor of New Orleans.7 The voluntary order became mandatory on August 28th, but with a large percentage of the population without a mode of transportation out of the city, the Superdome was . With a death toll of more than 1,800, Katrina was the third-deadliest hurricane in US history after Galveston in 1900 (which killed 8,000 to . Goliath was especially comforting to Stephen Speight in the final year of his life. Georgia 900 It was written as much as possible in plain, non-jargon English, appearing a bit like an in-house newsletter. The $1,200 for the roof was about half what a contractor would charge to do the repair, and the couple didn't have the money to make up the difference. Brown and others were hauled before Congress in the days and weeks after Katrina. AndLouisiana, once the stone on which FEMA stumbled, is now the beneficiary of that transformation as it recovers from a deluge. Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans hadnt experienced a major hurricane for 40 years. All you needed then would be top federal officials who knew how to make informed and unified decisions in a disaster. It seemed that an Atlantic storm had crossed south Florida and entered the Gulf of Mexico, where it could endanger Louisiana, Mississippi, and other states along the Gulf. Friday afternoon, August 26, 2005, was a pleasantly warm summer day in Washington. ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. Aid was late or non-existent, locals complained of confusion and obstruction. It was slow to provide food, shelter, and supplies to first responders and stranded residents alike. The federal government has been blamed for the failure to respond rapidly when the storm hit the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Former Port Arthur City Council member John Beard says FEMA is partly responsible for pushing Black residents out of the city.
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