“System Failure: The Response to Hurricane Katrina.” Hurricane Katrina took place 4 years following the terrorist attacks of September 11th (9/11). With the 2005 Katrina storm being the worst natural disaster and catastrophe, the repercussions of the violent Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was possibly the most awakening periods the whole of U.S. as a nation will ever experience when dealing with natural disasters. Addressed in this bibliographical analysis is the way in which the various agencies, including the U.S. government have been criticized in the manner in by which they dealt with the affected citizens, various foundations and in general, the communications during that time of dire need. This was because it occurred just three years following the successive development of the DHS – Department of Homeland Security and just a year after the subsequent creation of Natural Response plan by DHS (Senate Report, 2006). However, regardless of the heightened awareness towards Homeland Security, they failed terribly in their response to the disastrous hurricane. Various sources have been reviewed to come up with various solutions and explanations for the problems in order for the vastness of the problems still faced even today do not reoccur. The argument now conveyed below; it was in reality misapprehended breakdown of communication between the U.S. government and the people after Katrina’s arrival which created and/or exposed lack of experience in said authorities, therefore unnecessary death and suffering sparked some expression like sadness, depression, frustration and disgust. In times of crises like war, natural disasters among others, the societal structures are put under very extreme tests. To date, the largest natural disaster to ever hit the U.S. Mainland is Hurricane Katrina. It left a string of complications which ranged from extensive floods, destroyed man-made levees for a city built below the sea level to even changing the landscape of national and local politics (White House. 2006). The U.S. government with its vastly large bureaucracy believed they were organized and ready to deal with any disaster that would take place within its borders. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is primarily responsible to respond to whichever disaster which hits the U.S. But this was not the case on the wake of August 29th 2005. FEMA encountered a historically unparalleled disaster, making the ineffectiveness of the organization and the U.S. government very blatant. Like any other agency of the government, FEMA is just not sufficiently large to effectively take care of a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. In a special Journal report by Schneider S. K. (2005) titled “Administrative Breakdowns in the Governmental Response to Hurricane Katrina,” it’s highlighted that the federal government could maintain within its payroll sufficient number of people to instantaneously handle every single problem. Through the report, she stresses existen ...

1. “System Failure: The Response to Hurricane Katrina.”
Hurricane Katrina took place 4 years following the terrorist
attacks of September 11th (9/11). With the 2005 Katrina storm
being the worst natural disaster and catastrophe, the
repercussions of the violent Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
was possibly the most awakening periods the whole of U.S. as a
nation will ever experience when dealing with natural disasters.
Addressed in this bibliographical analysis is the way in which
the various agencies, including the U.S. government have been
criticized in the manner in by which they dealt with the affected
citizens, various foundations and in general, the
communications during that time of dire need. This was because
it occurred just three years following the successive
development of the DHS – Department of Homeland Security
and just a year after the subsequent creation of Natural
Response plan by DHS (Senate Report, 2006). However,
regardless of the heightened awareness towards Homeland
Security, they failed terribly in their response to the disastrous
hurricane. Various sources have been reviewed to come up with
various solutions and explanations for the problems in order for
the vastness of the problems still faced even today do not
reoccur. The argument now conveyed below; it was in reality
misapprehended breakdown of communication between the U.S.
government and the people after Katrina’s arrival which created
and/or exposed lack of experience in said authorities, therefore
unnecessary death and suffering sparked some expression like
sadness, depression, frustration and disgust.
In times of crises like war, natural disasters among others, the
societal structures are put under very extreme tests. To date, the
largest natural disaster to ever hit the U.S. Mainland is
Hurricane Katrina. It left a string of complications which
ranged from extensive floods, destroyed man-made levees for a
city built below the sea level to even changing the landscape of
national and local politics (White House. 2006). The U.S.

2. government with its vastly large bureaucracy believed they were
organized and ready to deal with any disaster that would take
place within its borders. The Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA) is primarily responsible to respond to
whichever disaster which hits the U.S. But this was not the case
on the wake of August 29th 2005. FEMA encountered a
historically unparalleled disaster, making the ineffectiveness of
the organization and the U.S. government very blatant. Like any
other agency of the government, FEMA is just not sufficiently
large to effectively take care of a disaster like Hurricane
Katrina. In a special Journal report by Schneider S. K. (2005)
titled “Administrative Breakdowns in the Governmental
Response to Hurricane Katrina,” it’s highlighted that the federal
government could maintain within its payroll sufficient number
of people to instantaneously handle every single problem.
Through the report, she stresses existence of a well established
and fairly long standing process to mobilize response of the
government to natural disasters. A process which operates
sequentially in a bottom-up direction, starting at the local level,
through the state, passing into the federal government. It was
evident that with Katrina’s case, there was a very slow response
coupled with a broad uncertainty feeling and inconsistencies.
The local government units of Louisiana were badly hit by the
disaster’s magnitude, ruining their plans to take the initial
necessary steps causing immediate chaos hen levees broke in
New Orleans. The state government through its governor
requested for additional resources from the federal government
but declined to declare state of emergency/ martial law and
White House’s proposal to place National Guard troops in
control (Schneider, S. K. 2005). To summarize the findings by
Schneider S. K, as a result, there was failure in stabilization of
local conditions in addition to failing to mobilize the resources
for the immediate assistance of the affected victims therefore
there was general collapse of any social order.
The administrative failure of the government together with the
international Non-governmental organization response has also

3. been further highlighted by Eikenberry, A. M. et al (2007) in
their scholarly journal “Administrative Failure and the
International NGO Response to Hurricane Katrina.” The paper
focuses on the question why there were many international
NGOs compelled/ forced to offer their humanitarian help and
support within the U.S. for the first time in addition to the
encountered administrative barriers in the process. What their
response exposes regarding the administrative failures when
Katrina hit. These questions highlighted have been responded to
by the author through data retrieved from organizational press
releases, news stories and articles, the questionnaires and
interviews with International NGO representatives, the internet,
documentation and official reports. I find the focus of their
paper significant because of the unparalleled response by these
international NGOs to the disaster in the U.S. Some of the
famous INGOs examples are Save the Children, Oxford, World
Relief, among others. As opposed to NGOs based in U.S.
conducting their work related to education, social welfare, arts,
International NGOs basically provide service to developing
countries, often operating I region related to humanitarian help
advocacy, development etc. for Katrina’s case, it was very
devastating that over a dozen INGOs offered critical
humanitarian help for the first time in the U.S. even the 9/11
attacks did not compel the type of response observed from the
international community as Katrina did. Multiple levels of
public and government administrators’ failures were revealed by
INGOs as explained by Birkland, T. and Waterman, S. (2008) in
their article “Is Federalism the Reason for Policy Failure in
Hurricane Katrina?” The confusions by the government to
respond to Katrina are in general quoted as policy failures. The
media on the other hand including popular analyses centre the
policy failures by federal government in hazard awareness,
reaction and recovery. Alternatively, disaster experts feel that
response to any disaster is a intergovernmental issue that should
be shared. (Birkland, T. et al 2008) examines the natural
disaster policy’s federal nature within the U.S. to judge is

4. federalism and/ or other factors had the most influence in
Katrina’s failures by government. Their analysis highlights that
policy failures are interlinked to the policy design
considerations found within federalism, but, point out that
homeland security’s national focus and the connected decrease
in concentration towards the disasters and natural hazards are
uniformly, if not complicit in the government’s disaster
managing capability erosion as it was exposed by Hurricane
Katrina.
References
Birkland, T. and Waterman, S. (2008) “Is Federalism the
Reason for Policy Failure in Hurricane Katrina?” Oxford
University Press, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 692-714.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20184998
Eikenberry, A. M., Arroyave, V. and Cooper, T. (2007)
Administrative Failure and the International NGO Response to
Hurricane Katrina. Public Administration Review, Wiley
Publishers, Vol. 67, pp. 160-170.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4624694
Schneider S. K. (2005) “Administrative Breakdowns in the
Governmental Response to Hurricane Katrina,” Public
Administration Review, Wiley Publishers , Vol. 65, No. 5 (Sep.
- Oct., 2005), pp. 515-516 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3542517
Senate Report, (2006) U.S. Senate Committee of Homeland
Security and Government Affairs (Senate Report). 2006.
Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared. Washington D.C.
Government Printing Office.
White House. (2006). The federal response to Hurricane
Katrina: Lessons learned. Washington D.C.: Government
Printing Office.